SILVER

When the first sound picture of silent stars Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly, who also choreographed and co-directed the film alongside Stanley Donen) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) looks to be a bomb, movie magic saves the day as Don and company rush to recut the movie as a musical, with the lilt of Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) dubbed over Lina's screech. The bravura performance of "Make 'Em Laugh" by Don's boyhood friend Cosmo Brown (vaudevillian Donald O'Connor) is eclipsed only by Don's splashy song and dance performance of the title track — "the most celebrated single sequence in the history of the genre," according to film historian John Wakeman. DIR Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly; SCR Betty Comden, Adolph Green; PROD Arthur Freed. U.S., 1952, color, 103 min. RATED G

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