TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Musical, Musical Comedy, Musical Romance, Comedy, Showbiz Comedy
Key Collaborators: Betty Comden (Screenwriter), Adolph Green (Screenwriter), Arthur Freed (Producer), Cedric Gibbons (Production Designer), Harold Rosson (Cinematographer), Adrienne Fazan (Editor), Cyd Charisse (Leading Character Actress)

"Together, Donen and Kelly directed some of the wittiest, most stylish and energetic musicals to emerge from MGM. Donen's elegant visual flair was the perfect accompaniment to Kelly's dynamically balletic choreography... Outside of their collaborations the pair's directing achievements were variable... The joint offerings, however, exude brio, style, and intelligent, appealing optimism." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)

DONEN: "Donen was king of Hollywood musicals. The brightest and best of them are Singin' in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, It's Always Fair Weather, Funny Face and The Pajama Game. These films contain some of the most brilliantly staged musical numbers of all time." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999)

KELLY: "Following the success of On the Town (1949), the first of three sparkling musicals that Kelly also co-directed with Stanley Donen, he succeeded Fred Astaire as Hollywood's number one dancing master... His subsequent product as director has been proficiently handled but far less inspired than his dancing and choreography." - The MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994

DONEN: "Directs energetic, adventurous, muscular musicals (Singin' in the Rain, 52; Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 54). His more recent comedy and suspense films are laced with exotica and wit (Surprise Package, 60; Charade, 63)." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)

DONEN: "Trained as a dancer, he made his mark as a performer on the Broadway stage before being hired by MCGM as a dance director. He co-directed On the Town (1949) with Gene Kelly before directing a succession of memorable musicals and polished light entertainments." - Chambers Film Factfinder, 2006

KELLY: "The charm and brilliance of Gene Kelly's dancing has not carried over to his direction since the dissolution of his partnership with Donen. If Donen has since diminished, Kelly has completely disintegrated. Kelly's potentialities as a straight actor were never fully developed, and the Metro musical died before his musical ideas had fully been expressed... Yet Singin' in the Rain can never be tarnished by the subsequent derelictions of its participants." - Andrew Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968)