Cultural English 462 - Singin’ in the Rain; Clare Booth Luce; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 462.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 462. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

On this Café, we’re going to talk about a well-known, popular Hollywood musical – a movie with songs and dancing in it – called Singin’ in the Rain. We’ll also take a look at the life of one of the most fascinating women in the U.S. during the twentieth century, an American author and politician by the name of Clare Booth Luce. And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

We begin this Café by talking about one of the most famous movies from the middle part of the twentieth century in the U.S., Singin’ in the Rain. Notice, the first word – if you are looking at our transcript – is spelled a little differently. It’s “singin’” instead of “singing.” We sometimes informally drop the “g” when we spell a word that ends in “-ing” – “singin’” instead of “singing.” You notice there’s a slight difference in pronunciation as well. “Singin’” is a more informal version of “singing,” and it’s spelled without the “g,” and instead of the “g,” there is an apostrophe. So, you have “(Singin’) in the Rain.”

Singin’ in the Rain is a movie that, in order to understand, you really have to know a little bit about the history of filmmaking, or moviemaking, here in the U.S., especially here in Hollywood. In the late 1920s, the film industry, or business, here in Southern California – usually referred to or simply called “Hollywood” – was going through a major or very important change. Movies were beginning to be made with sound – specifically, the sound of the human voice.

Up until this point, as you probably know, movies had always been silent, which meant that the actor’s voices could not be heard. I’m thinking of doing a silent podcast. It would go something like this:

[silence]

Pretty good, huh? Anyway, enough fooling around. Back to our story. Movies had been silent up until the 1920s, and instead of hearing the actors speaking, you instead had to read basically what were subtitles. “Subtitles” (subtitles) are words that you can see and read in a movie or, nowadays, on a television show. The words are the same as what people are saying. In the old silent movies, these would appear basically like slides during the movie. So, if you’ve ever watched a PowerPoint presentation, you know what I’m talking about.

In the middle of the movie, there would be these usually black-and-white slides – well, they were black-and-white because this was before color movies were made – that would have the words that the characters were saying in the movie. Of course, a lot of the action in the movie, a lot of the meaning of the story, would have to be conveyed –that is, it would have to be communicated to the audience – through the actions and expressions of the actors. Subtitles, then, were usually used to give you the words of the actual story.

I should point out – I should mention – that some people today in American English use the word “subtitle” to refer to a translation of the dialogue of a movie into another language. So, if you’re watching a French movie and you don’t speak French, you can still understand the movie by reading the subtitles in English. If the language of the subtitles is the same as the words being spoken by the people in the movie or TV show – for example, if the actors are speaking English and the words are in English – we sometimes call those kind of subtitles “captions” (captions).

Watching English movies or TV shows with English captions is actually a good way to improve your English, by the way. I sometimes do that when I’m watching British or Scottish television shows where the accent is so different that I have a difficult time understanding the English.

Well, back to the 1920s. The big change from silent movies to movies with sound took place in the year 1927, when a movie called The Jazz Singer was released, or first shown, in movie theaters. In The Jazz Singer, there were no subtitles. All the actors spoke and sang their lines, and you could hear them while watching the movie. Amazing.

The Jazz Singer was the first, what they then called, “talkie.” A “talkie” (talkie) was a movie where the actors spoke and the audience heard their voices. It was an instant success, and ever since that time, almost all movies have been talkies, although we don’t use that very much anymore. In fact, we don’t use it at all unless we’re talking about the early movies that had sound. Hollywood – that is, the movie business – realized that it would have to change the way it made movies with the coming of the talkies. Now all movies would have to be made with sound, as talkies.

But like all new technology, there were difficulties in making this transition, this change. There were many problems as the film studios, or the companies that made the movies, got used to having sound in their movies. Many actors and actresses were not able to be successful once they had to talk in the movies. They didn’t have the kind of voices people wanted to listen to, or in some cases, they weren’t able to deliver or speak their lines very well.

This meant that many actors and actresses had to stop working, to stop acting, and that many others who had been trying to be successful actors got the chance to be in the movies. This is what the movie Singin’ in the Rain is all about – this transition, this change, from silent movies to talkies.

Singin’ in the Rain was directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly and released in 1952. In addition to helping direct the movie, Gene Kelly played one of the main characters, an actor by the name of Don Lockwood. In the movie, Lockwood is a major film star in the 1920s and, like all other actors, is trying to make the change from silent to talking movies. His co-star in the movie is named Lena Lamont, who is played by the actress Jean Hagen.

Now, Don and Lena are supposed to have a romance, both on-screen and off-screen. When we say “on-screen,” we mean they’re supposed to be in love in the actual movies. When we say “off-screen,” we mean real life. In other words, they are actually in love with each other in their normal, daily life. However, in reality – in fact – Don doesn’t really like Lena. He makes people think that the two of them are a romantic couple off-screen as well as on-screen, but in fact, they are not. In fact, Don thinks that Lena is very mean and not very smart, not very intelligent.

Lena, on the other hand, thinks that she and Don are really in love. She believes the rumors that people have been talking about and that have appeared in the papers, in the newspapers. “Rumors” (rumors) are things that people say about other people without proof that they are true. A lot of what you read in the newspaper, I’m convinced, is mostly rumors, especially when it’s about entertainment topics, especially here in Hollywood.

Anyway, one day in the movie, when trying to escape a group of fans, Don jumps into a passing car – a car that was driving down the street. The driver of this car is a young, beautiful actress named Kathy Selden, who is played by the real life beautiful actress Debbie Reynolds. Don tries to charm Kathy by telling her what a famous actor he is. This, of course, is what all men do when they’re trying to get a woman interested in them.

This actress, Kathy, tells Don that she is an actress as well. But she’s not impressed by what a big celebrity Don is, what a famous person he is. In fact, she lets him out of the car and drives off – she leaves him. The two meet again later at a party, and Don learns that Kathy is not, in fact, herself a famous actress like she made herself out to be – like she made herself sound like she was. Kathy is actually just what was called a “chorus girl.”

A “chorus (chorus) girl” is an actress who sings and dances in the background of movies and shows. Chorus girls are not the main actresses. They are the people that you see dancing behind the main actresses and actors. Well, Don and Kathy have a fight, but later they become friends again, and as they get to know each other better, of course, they fall in love. Aww.

At the same time, the movie The Jazz Singer has just been released. So, you have this movie you’re watching, Singin’ in the Rain, and in the movie they’re talking about this other famous real movie called The Jazz Singer. The film studio where Don and Lena work is trying to make a talking movie starring Don and Lena. Unfortunately, it is a disaster. They have a lot of technical problems – specifically, problems with the machines that control the sound. Lena is another major, or large, problem. Unfortunately, Lena can’t sing, and her speaking voice is terrible to listen to.

So, Don and his best friend, Cosmo Brown, come up with an idea to make the movie a success. They ask young Kathy to speak and sing Lena’s lines. Although it seems like Lena is the one speaking to audiences, it is really Kathy’s voice. Nowadays we call this “lip syncing,” where your lips are moving even though you’re not talking or singing. You see a lot of famous singers on television shows who aren’t actually singing. They’re just lip-synching. They’re playing the music and moving their mouth as though they were singing.

And that’s what happens in this movie. Well, this makes Lena very angry when she finds out what is happening. She ends her relationship and tries to hurt or ruin Kathy’s career. Don finds out about this and refuses this let this happen. At the end of the movie, just as happened in real life in Hollywood, some of the actors remain and become famous, and some of them do not.

Singin’ in the Rain is a musical, which means it had a lot of songs as well as spoken lines. Many of the songs became very well-known to audiences, especially since the movie was a huge success. Probably the most well-known song and well-known scene, or part of the movie, involves the title song, Singin’ in the Rain.

In the movie, Don, Kathy, and another character stay up all night talking and planning about how to make this new talkie a success. Don walks Kathy home in the pouring rain – that is, it’s raining very hard. When he drops her off at her house – when he leaves her at her house – he realizes he has fallen completely in love with Kathy, and so he begins to sing about how much in love he is.

I’m singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feeling
I’m happy again.

Maybe you recognize that song. If not, go to YouTube and just search for Singin’ in the Rain, and you’ll probably see this very famous scene. Don is singing literally – actually – in the rain and describing how happy he is. He says he has a “glorious feeling.” “Glorious” here means wonderful, happy, amazing. And it’s true, isn’t it? That when you first fall in love with someone, you may feel glorious and happy, or at least you should.

In the movie, Gene Kelly dances while singing, and it’s one of the most interesting dancing that you probably can find in a movie. You probably have seen it already. Singin’ in the Rain was nominated for two Oscar awards, given to the best movies and actors of the year. Jean Hagen was nominated for best supporting actress, and the movie was also nominated for best music. However, it didn’t win either award. Nevertheless, Singin’ in the Rain became a classic movie and is now seen and loved by audiences around the world.

The movie also made the 19-year-old actress who played Kathy, Debbie Reynolds, famous. Reynolds would later go on to be a star in dozens of movies, and for a short time in the late 1960s had her own television show, which I kind of remember. She also had a famous daughter by the name of Carrie Fisher. You may remember Carrie Fisher as the star of the Star Wars movies, the original movies. And as some of you know, I was also in the original Star Wars movie. I played the great Chewbacca.

Let’s change topics now and talk briefly about a famous American author and politician by the name of Clare Booth Luce. Clare Booth Luce was born in New York City in 1903. Her family was extremely poor. In fact, her father abandoned, or suddenly left, the family when Clare was just eight years old.

However, Clare’s mother was able to work and send Clare to a nice school. She went, in fact, to a private school. A “private school” is a school that doesn’t get support from the government – you have to pay to go there. Government schools, at least in the United States, are free. You don’t have to pay to go to a government or, what we call more commonly, “public school.”

When Clare was 20 years old, she married a man named George Brokaw, who was the son of a rich clothing maker. George was 43; Clare was 20. Their wedding, however, was considered one of the great social events of that year in New York. However, George had problems with alcohol, with drinking, and eventually abused, or was physically or emotionally mean to, Clare.

Clare and George got a divorce, and Clare decided to find a job. She didn’t simply want to live off of the money she won in her divorce, so she got a job writing for a famous magazine called Vogue. By 1930, Booth was so successful at her job as a writer that she became the editor of two magazines, Vogue and Vanity Fair. Both of these magazines are still around today. Booth left the magazines in 1934 and began to focus on playwriting – writing plays for the theater.

In 1935, she met and married a man named Henry Luce. Henry Luce was the publisher of one of the best known magazines in the United States – and still one of the best-known magazines – Time. In later years, Henry Luce would also publish another famous magazine, called Life. So, in 1936, after she married, Clare wrote three of her most famous plays. All three of these plays eventually were made into movies.

Then in 1940, as World War II was beginning, she went to Europe to work as Life magazine’s war correspondent. A “correspondent” (correspondent) is a journalist or a reporter who goes to a specific place to talk about one particular area or one particular event, in this case. Clare was writing about the war in Europe at this time. After Clare returned from Europe, she began to get involved in politics. She ran for and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a representative from the state of Connecticut. Connecticut is on the East Coast of the United States.

As she had been in other areas of her work and life, Clare was very outspoken about her opinions. Unlike some of the members of her party, the Republican Party, she supported the rights of blacks – of African Americans – of immigrants, and of course, of women at the time when it was not very popular to be in favor of any of these things. For example, she supported getting rid of, or repealing, laws that did not allow Chinese immigrants into the United States. She became an important person in the Republican Party and served in the House of Representatives from 1943 until 1947.

In 1944, Clare’s daughter, Ann, was killed in a car accident. Her daughter was only 19 years old. As you can imagine, Clare Booth Luce was devastated by this loss. When we say someone was “devastated,” we mean they were hurt emotionally or psychologically in a very serious way. Clare Booth Luce found comfort, however, talking to a Catholic priest named Father Fulton Sheen.

She converted to Catholicism in 1946, and Father Sheen went on to become Bishop Sheen, one of the best-known Catholic bishops in the middle of the twentieth century here in the U.S. “To convert” (convert) means to, in this case, officially change your religion. Then Father Sheen himself, as I said, would go on to become famous as a writer and as one of the first real television stars in the U.S., believe it or not.

From 1953 until 1956, Clare served as an ambassador to Italy. An “ambassador” is a person who works for a government, who goes to another country to represent their home government. Clare was one of the first women to be appointed an ambassador in what was considered a politically important position. Luce was a good ambassador and was later appointed ambassador to Brazil, but she was unpopular with some members of the government and decided not to accept the second position as an ambassador.
She did serve, however, under three presidents: Nixon, Ford, and Reagan.

In 1983, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest honor or award that can be given by the government to an American civilian. A “civilian” is a person who is not in the military. Luce was one of the most successful women in the world of politics and journalism during the twentieth century. She died in 1987. She left a large amount of money to an organization that helps women studying math, science, and engineering.

Now let’s answer some of the questions you have sent to us.

Our first question comes from Rita (Rita) in Brazil. Rita wants to know the meaning of “exchange,” “change,” and “switch.” Let’s start with “exchange” (exchange).

“To exchange” something is to give someone one thing for another. Usually the two things are more or less equal in value. So, you may have a shirt that I want, and I have a pair of pants that you want, so we exchange them – I give you my pair of pants for your shirt. Or perhaps you buy something at the store and it’s the wrong color or the wrong type. You go back to the store and you exchange it for something that you wanted. You don’t have to pay any extra money – you just give them what you had, and assuming you’re getting something of equal value, you get the new item.

“To change” (change) means simply to make something different. You could change the color of your room from white to blue. You could change your clothes, meaning put on a new set of clothes. “Change” is used in lots of different circumstances and is a much more common word than “exchange,” which has a more specific meaning.

“Switch” (switch) is a word we use to mean to change position or direction. “I’m going to switch these two chairs” – I’m going to take chair A and put it where chair B is, and chair B where chair A is. “To switch” things means to move them around. Of course, if you’re switching the chairs, you could also say, “I’m going to change the arrangement of the chairs.” You would not say you are “exchanging” the chairs unless you are giving the chair away to someone and getting a new chair in return.

So, “to switch” refers usually to the position of something or to the direction. You could say, “I’m going to switch into the left lane.” In fact, we have the expression when driving, “to switch lanes.” It means to move from one lane to another. A “lane” (lane) on a freeway or a highway is the area that one row of cars drives in. Usually the lanes are separated by white lines. So, that’s “exchange,” “change,” and “switch.”

Mehdi (Mehdi) in Iran wants to know the meaning of the phrasal verb “to walk off.” “To walk off” usually means to try to get rid of something by walking or by moving around. This is especially common if you hurt yourself – if you hit your leg or you hurt your arm. In athletics, in a sport, the other players may say, “Walk it off.” “Walk it off” means walk around until the pain goes down.

We might also use this expression, this phrasal verb, when you eat too much for dinner and you don’t want to gain weight. You might say, “I’m going to try to walk off these extra calories,” so that you don’t gain additional weight. That might be another use of this particular phrasal verb.

If you add the preposition “with” to this phrasal verb, giving you “to walk off with” something, that means that someone has stolen or taken something from you without permission. “To walk off with my pen” would mean to leave with my pen without me knowing about it or without me giving you permission.

Finally, Lita (Lita) in China wants to know the meaning of the word “margin.” “Margin” (margin) is the amount by which something is either won or by which something loses. Let me give you an example. If you’re playing basketball, and by the end of the game your team scores 100 points and the other team scores 75 points, we would say that you won “by a margin of 25 points.” That was the difference between the two scores.

You could also talk about someone winning an election “by a margin of 10 percentage points.” If one person gets 60 percent of the vote, and another person gets 40 percent of the vote, that person has won by a margin of 20 percentage points, and so forth. So, “margin” is used in talking about, typically, the difference between two amounts, often related to some sort of competition or some sort of attempt to reach a goal or to succeed at something.

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come back and listen to us again right here on the English Café.

Glossary

subtitles – words across the bottom of the screen that translate or show exactly the dialogue on screen

* The movie was in French, but the subtitles were in English so that American audiences could understand it.

talkie – a film where actors speak their lines and the audience hears the actors voices, a term used to distinguish this type of film from silent films

* Audiences were sometimes surprised to hear the voice of a well-known actor when talkies were first produced.

film studio – a movie-making company; a company that owns the place where a movie is filmed or created

* Pinewood Studios in England is the film studio responsible for most of the James Bond movies.

rumor – something that people say about other people without proof that it is true

* There was a rumor going around that the President was going to be in town, but it turned out to be false.

chorus girl – an actress who sings and dances in the background of movies and shows

* The chorus girls all wore the same outfit as they danced together behind the star of the show.

technical problem – a problem that is caused by a machine or computer not working or not working properly

* Miho had some technical problems at the beginning of the presentation when the slides would not advance to the next image.

to abandon – to leave suddenly, often without giving a reason or explanation

* The passengers decided to abandon the damaged ship before it sank.

private school – a school that costs money to attend and is not supported or paid for by the government

* Because it was a private school, Earling Academy had smaller classes and fewer students.

to abuse – to purposefully hurt someone or something physically or emotionally, often as a way of being in control of that person or thing

* The puppies had been badly abused and left outside during the winter months, so they were very skinny.

correspondent – a journalist or reporter who reports about a specific place or kind of event, usually reporting from the location where the event is occurring

* The sports correspondent reports on all the big sporting events, such as the Olympics and the World Cup.

to convert – to officially change one’s religion; to become a follower of a different religion

* When Mia and Yitzhak got married, Mia converted to Judaism so that she and Yitzhak could practice the same religion.

ambassador – a person officially representing a government to another country, often responsible for making agreements between the two countries

* The U.S. ambassador to Austria had a long career in foreign service and spoke perfect German.

to exchange – to give one thing and receiving another, often of the same type or value in return

* The microwave Jonas bought yesterday doesn’t work, so he returned to the store today to exchange it for another one.

to change – to take or use another instead; to make or become different

* Are you going to change your hairstyle just because your friend suggested it?

to switch – to change the position, direction, or focus of something

* I don’t want to watch a movie right now. Can we switch to the basketball game?

to walk off – to get rid of by walking; to reduce the effect of something by walking

* Don’t yell at your children because you’re mad at your boss. Try walking off your anger before returning to the house.

margin – an amount by which something is won or fails to reach a goal or the end

* You received 10 votes and I received five, so you beat me by a margin of two to one.

What Insiders Know

Native American Rain Dances

Rain is important in most parts of the world for communities to live and to “thrive” (develop well). Many cultures have traditions that encourage rain each year.

The rain dance was traditionally performed in late August by many Native American tribes such as the Pueblo Indians, who lived in the dry, Southwestern regions of the United States. Today, it is still performed on several “reservations” (public land set apart for use by Native American tribes, with its own laws and government) in the United States.

Men and women gather together to perform this “ritual” (set of actions used for a religious or ceremonial purpose), wearing jewels in their clothes such as “turquoise” (a semiprecious stone that is a greenish-blue or sky-blue color), as well as “headdresses” (a covering or band for the head worn during ceremonies). These special clothes are “stored” (kept in a safe place, but not worn) throughout the entire year and are only worn during the rain dance. And although many rain dance costumes can now be seen in museums, there are still Native American tribes who keep these special types of clothing to be worn only during ceremonies.

How the rain dance is performed is passed on through an “oral tradition” (for cultural material and traditions to be told to the younger members of a cultural group). The rain dance involves “intricate” (complicated and detailed) moves and steps. And while other rituals only involve the men to be present, rain dances typically require women to participate, showing how the entire community values the importance of rain.