According to MGM records, during the film's initial theatrical release, it made $3,263,000 in the US and Canada, and $2,367,000 internationally, earning the studio a profit of $666,000.[38] It was the tenth-highest-grossing movie of the year in the US and Canada.[39][40]
Critical response
The movie premiered at the Radio City Music Hall, and Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "Compounded generously of music, dance, color spectacle and a riotous abundance of Gene Kelly, Jean Hagen and Donald O'Connor on the screen, all elements in this rainbow program are carefully contrived and guaranteed to lift the dolors of winter and put you in a buttercup mood."[41] Variety was also positive, writing: "Arthur Freed has produced another surefire grosser for Metro in Singin' in the Rain. Musical has pace, humor, and good spirits a-plenty, in a breezy, good-natured spoof at the film industry itself ... Standout performances by Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor, especially the latter, enhance the film's pull."[42] Harrison's Reports called it "top-notch entertainment in every department – music, dancing, singing, staging and story".[43] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called it "yet another fresh and breezy, colorful and funny musical" from Gene Kelly, adding, "Of the players there's not a dud in the lot, from Kelly's facile performing to the brief but electric dance appearance by Cyd Charisse, a swell partner for him."[44]
Pauline Kael, the long-time film critic for The New Yorker, said of the film "This exuberant and malicious satire of Hollywood in the late twenties is perhaps the most enjoyable of movie musicals – just about the best Hollywood musical of all time."[45] Roger Ebert placed Singin' in the Rain on his Great Movies list, calling the film "a transcendent experience, and no one who loves movies can afford to miss it."[46]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a perfect 100% approval rating based on 64 reviews, with an average rating of 9.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Clever, incisive, and funny, Singin' In The Rain is a masterpiece of the classical Hollywood musical."[47] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 99 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[48] The film made each site's list of best-rated films, ranked 46th on Rotten Tomatoes (as of 2021)[49] and 9th on Metacritic.[50]
Admiration in the film industry
Betty Comden and Adolph Green report that when they met François Truffaut at a party in Paris, Truffaut was very excited to meet the authors of Chantons Sous la Pluie (as Singin' in the Rain was titled in French). He told them that he had seen the film so many times that he knew it frame by frame, and that he and fellow director and screenwriter Alain Resnais, among others, went to see it regularly at a small Parisian movie theatre where it sometimes ran for months at a time.[45]
