"Gotta dance!"
Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- Let's give a moment to honor the film's incredible music. Most of those songs were selected from various other films, and the writers managed to not only find great music, they also managed to get those songs to fit the proper moods of the story and basically tell their own stories. So when you stop to think about it, the film's practically a love letter to classic Hollywood.
- Not only that, those songs of the film didn't pop up out of nowhere like in most musicals. The film broke tradition by having the music blend into the main plot and having a story that's just as well told as songs. That was groundbreaking back then.
- The Dancing! There's a reason why the musical numbers in this film are so iconic.
- Don was a stuntman when he first met Lina. Said stunts included flying an airplane into a house, riding a motorcycle over a cliff, and running into a burning, exploding shack and yet his condition's still as good as ever. Then when he's trying to escape paparazzi, he's shown to still have some stuntman instincts left in him, jumping onto a trolley and into a red convertible-jalopy Kathy was driving.
- Cosmo running up and back-flipping off the walls at the end of "Make 'Em Laugh".
- It's even more impressive when you remember the music number was all shot in one day. (but then had to be reshot a few days later, since the film was overexposed) That takes serious athletic and acrobatic skills.
- The way that Cosmo's able to take the disastrous preview of The Dueling Cavalier and turn things around. Aside from turning the film into a musical, he also suggested trimming the bad scenes, adding some new ones and hiring Kathy to say Lina's lines while Lina lip-synched them. He's not just the comic relief, he's also a very helpful teammate to the studio. Too bad he rarely gets credit for any of those changes.
- Lina may be a major Butt-Monkey, but even she manages to get a couple of her own moments.
- During the hilarious Failure Montage of Lina speaking into a microphone, she rightfully calls the producer out for being unfair to her.
- She manages to be an effective antagonist, making R.F. sign a contract forcing Kathy to only be Lina's voice for five years and never get any credit for it, hiring a lawyer to read the fine print, and telling the studio that if anyone tries to rebel against her or contradict the media, she will sue the studio and ruin their reputation.
- At the end, Lina's voice is revealed as a fraud. Bonus points for the sheer glee on Don, Cosmo and RF's faces as they mime along with Lina's idiotic dance moves, right before they raise the curtain to reveal Kathy singing behind Lina.
- Before this occurred, Lina felt like she had to speak up for a change and let the audience know her personally, rather than let others talk over her, but she forgot that no one outside a select few had heard her true voice during the Silent Age and they thought she had a beautiful voice to match her appearance. So when speaking to the audience solo, she basically set up her own downfall, and showed everyone she wasn't as glamorous as she seemed.
- Near the end of the "Broadway Melody" sequence, we see Don's character sulking after being rejected by his crush, again. Suddenly we hear a voice sing the exact same thing he did at the beginning. Then the two look at each other for a moment, the hoofer just shrugs and walks off. But Don's character has an epiphany and sings.
- Don and Cosmo's dancing in 'Fit as a Fiddle'. Such grace and technique.
- Even though it's meant to be a Take That! to classic movie musical production numbers, the "Beautiful Girls" Fashion Show is absolutely gorgeous.
