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The lack of realism in the Hollywood machine is also evident in "Singing in the Rain," as in "Sunset Boulevard." The movie idol played by Gene Kelly begins the musical opining to the Hollywood press, with a flattering full-on camera angle that makes him look smooth and polished. He is talking of his childhood as it meshes with his cultivated screen persona -- however the viewer is shown flashbacks of what the star's real life growing up was like. Really, this gentleman was born poor and spent most of his days hoofing away, learning his trade dancing for pennies in saloons. The myth vs. The reality generated by the studio system is highlighted through this juxtaposition of flashback and present, also called the Kuleshov effect whereby a viewer associates apparently disconnected shot -- the dancing young boy becomes Kelly early on in the viewer's mind, although this side of the matinee idol is not immediately seen in the film. The fact that this popular actor's even lovelier female co-star has a coarse voice incommensurate with her blonde confection-like appearance adds to the humor generated by the falseness of the film industry.

But when sound comes to film, the only way to save the trashy costume drama the studio is attempting to enforce upon the public is to make it a movie musical, thus taking the matinee idol back to the truth of the early dancing and singing roots of his career. The cinematographer's choice to contrast the black and white jumpiness of the 'fake film' made over the course of "Singing in the Rain" with the reality of Technicolor underlines this theme of how talking films, even musicals, are more realistic than were the silent visions of far-off exotic glamour and locations. Moreover, because his female co-star's speaking and singing voice is so dreadful, the woman's must be dubbed. The actress assuming the woman's true voice assumes the career of the star of the silent screen, the far more talented and 'real' perky up-and-comer played by Debbie Reynolds, who admits that yes, she reads "some" of the fan magazines, but is still authentic in her willingness to sacrifice for her costars to make the film work.

There is no such hope for truth in film in "Sunset Boulevard." A corpse after all, narrates this film noir. It is set in an age where screenwriters were blacklisted for a whisper of communist connections, not a time of innovation, as was the 1920's setting of "Singing in the Rain." Only the dead tell the truth in Hollywood, and the talking pictures merely create an illusion of reality that Norma is shut off from, now that she is no longer lovely enough or melodious enough in her speech to generate images.