One of my not-so-secret guilty pleasures is pigging out on chips and soda in front of the TV watching old movie musicals like my all-time fave, "Singin' In The Rain". A joy to watch from beginning to end, this 50s classic stars Gene Kelly (as silent movie star Don Lockwood), Donald O'Conner (as Cosmo Brown, Don's buddy and dynamite dancing sidekick! Look out for the fabulous "Moses Supposes" number), Debbie Reynolds (as Don's love interest Cathy Selden) and, my personal favorite-- Jean Hagen (as Lina Lamont, the other half of the Lockwood-and-Lamont superstar screen loveteam).
Set in the 20s, towards the end of the silent movie era, Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont were the loveteam to beat. Until the pioneering film "The Jazz Singer" blew the silent era to smithereens, that is. With the advent of "talkies", the world of movie-making was changed forever. Now the stars had to talk! Worse, they had to sing, too. While this didn't pose a problem for Don Lockwood, who had a tolerable voice, Lina Lamont was a different story altogether. So they bring in singer Cathy Selden to dub Lina's absolutely horrendous voice, with hilarious results. A very funny movie, with fabulous song and dance sequences (take special note of the Broadway Melody ballet with the timeless Cyd Charisse and her endless legs), I can literally watch this movie over and over again, and I have.
Cut to two nights ago, when I chanced upon a Chinese release of the DVD at a tiangge. An original copy and a real find--except for this side-splitting synopsis at the back, which went:
Lamen and Loke are silent movie actress. Audiences think they are a very good silver screen lovers. Along with the talking film rise, He sink intoed the enormous predicament. Although she owns a beautiful face and round body, she says like miaowing. While taking talkie, she is very embarassed. Loke introduces Cathy to join the film producer troops. She becomes Lamen's dub the actor. In the process of get along withing, Loke has loved Cathy. Because his right and wrong is often proud, people didn't like him. Cathy become a star who is liked by people. She get married Loke.
Ah...enormous predicament, indeed! Couldn't have said it better myself! Of course, in all my years of watching this film, I don't recall any Norse gods or people making feline sounds, but hey--now I love this movie even more. Haha. Bring out the chips!
Can I hire this writer for very specific My Left Hand projects? He's quite good, ha. I think he's a genius for making up some profound words like miaowing. It goes quite well with my "uMbiquitous" concepts. hehe.