By Carter B. Horsley

Joyous and bursting with energy, this movie is not the perfect musical but has two incomparable scenes and a wondrous opening that alone justify its greatness.

Perhaps no other movie leaves the viewer with such an exuberant sense of fun and youthfulness.

The opening credits appear while Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor stride forward in yellow raincoats and hats in a downpour singing the title song, which just happens to be marvelously infectious, happy and memorable.

The story is a parody of Hollywood's transition from silent to sound films. Gene Kelly plays Don Lockwood, a major movie star, who is frequently starred with Lina Lamont, played by Jean Hagen. At the premiere of their latest film, they are interviewed by a gossip columnist and he recounts in flashback his early career with his friend Cosmo Brown, played by Donald O'Connor. After the interview, Kelly flees his fans and jumps into a car driven by Kathy Seldon, played by Debbie Reynolds. Kathy is a would-be actress, or ingenue, whom Lockwood soon meets again as she pops out of a cake at a Hollywood party.

Lockwood's and Lamont's next movie, "The Dueling Cavalier," is just about finished when "The Jazz Singer" opens and everyone in Hollywood is excited about movies with sound. Lamont's voice, however, is less than lovely as is revealed in a hilarious scene in which an exasperated director, Roscoe Dexter, played with brilliance by Douglas Fowley, desperately tries to get Lamont to understand and cope with the new sound technology with disastrous results. The studio head, played with gleeful authority by Millard Mitchell, is in a panic and in desperation accepts the suggestion of Lockwood that he and Cosmo turn the movie into a musical and dub Lamont's voice with Seldon's.

Donald O'Connor's "Make' Em Laugh" song and dance routine is one of the great comic sequences in film history, an incredible tour de force in which he indomitably survives through incredible vicissitudes and ineptitudes to deliver his simple message.

The film, of course, is best remembered for Gene Kelly's lyrical song-and-dance performance of the title tune, widely considered to be one of cinema's most magical sequences. This routine elevated Kelly to the legendary status of great dancer and led to the generations-long debate over who was a better dancer, Kelly or Astaire. Astaire, of course, was the better dancer, but the "Singin' In The Rain" sequence is perhaps the most beloved. It is interesting to note that both Kelly and Astaire had raspy voices but were marvelous singers.

The movie also has another major dance sequence, "Gotta Dance," that features Kelly and the beauteous Cyd Charisse. It is very good and quite dazzling, but minor. While parts of the movie are a little slow and corny, the highlights are so strong that the slow parts actually help viewers savor them better.

The great strength of the film, however, is not the fine comedy, or great dance routines, but Debbie Reynolds, whose youth and beauty are radiant and whose abilities as a singer and dancer were sensational. In her first major film, she gave promise of becoming a beautiful Judy Garland in such songs as "Good Morning" and "All I Do Is Dream of You." The movie was produced by Arthur Freed who also wrote the lyrics for most of the songs to music by Nacio Herb Brown for various movies and shows sometime before.

The movie was a remake of an earlier film but with new songs and a screenplay by Adolph Green and Betty Comden. The title song, "Singin' in the Rain," came from "Hollywood Review of 1929," and "You Were Meant For Me" came from "Broadway Melody of 1929," while "Beautiful Girl" was in "Going Hollywood," a 1933 movie with Bing Crosby.

Jean Hagen deservedly would win an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for her fabulous performance, and the film was also nominated for best score, but incredibly it received no Oscars.

The movie's charm and freshness match the great talents involved, all at their glorious peaks.