Denver Broncos

Prior to Elway, Denver had had over two dozen different starting quarterbacks in its twenty-three seasons to that point. Elway would remain the quarterback through five Super Bowls, three under head coach Dan Reeves and two under Mike Shanahan, and would end his career as the MVP of Super Bowl XXXIII, his last NFL game. In spite of this, the movie has been digitally restored to an impressive standard of picture and sound quality. Originally drafted by the Baltimore Colts as the number one pick of the draft, Elway proclaimed that he would shun football in favor of baseball unless he was traded to a selected list of other teams, which included Denver. The audio commentary on the movie's "Special Edition" DVD includes a claim that the original negative was destroyed in a fire. Quarterback John Elway arrived in 1983. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Prior to 1977 season, Denver had received very little national attention and was rarely featured on nationally-televised games. Jean Hagen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Rookie coach Red Miller along with the Orange Crush Defense and aging quarterback Craig Morton, promptly took Denver to its first playoff appearance -- and ultimately first Super Bowl -- in 1977. Kelly was also responsible for the Choreography. In 1973, John Ralston coached the now-mature Broncos to a 7-5-2 record, including a dramatic tie with Oakland in Denver's first-ever Monday Night Football appearance that is still remembered as a pivotal game in Bronco history. Ralston coached the team until 1976, when well-publicized clashes between Ralston and his players led to Ralston's removal. The film was directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. In 1967, under head coach Lou Saban, Denver took the field with almost two dozen rookies on its roster; though Saban's tenure was unsuccessful, it set the stage for later successes. Shooting began on June 18, 1951 and was completed on November 21, 1951. Denver, in fact, came close to losing its franchise in 1965, but a local ownership group took control that year and began to build the team. This was done using three break dancers, a recreation of the original set and superimposing Kelly's face onto the dancer.

It is odd to remember a time, then, when Denver was the lowliest of teams, managing its first winning season in 1973 after thirteen years of futility. It has also been the subject of a 2005 advert for the new VW Golf GTI, where Kelly appears to be break dancing instead of doing his usual routine until he reaches a policeman standing by the car. Denver has reached the Super Bowl six times, winning it in the 1997 and 1998 seasons. It has of course been parodied several times, notably by Morecambe and Wise and Paddington Bear. Despite their relative lack of early success, the Broncos produced some memorable games, like the 38-38 tie against the Buffalo Bills in 1960. The dance routine in which Gene Kelly sings the title song while twirling an umbrella, splashing through puddles and generally getting soaked to the skin, is probably the most famous of all movie musical sequences. They were the first pro football team to wear vertically-striped socks (and the first to burn their socks in a public ceremony!). The song "Make 'Em Laugh" uncomfortably resembles the Cole Porter song "Be a Clown." Comden and Green wrote the music and lyrics to the number "Moses Supposes.".

They were the first AFL team ever to defeat an NFL team, on August 5, 1967 when they beat the Lions 13-7. The film features a rendition of the 1929 song "Singin' in the Rain" by Arthur Freed (who also produced) & Nacio Herb Brown, along with other Freed and Brown tunes from the late 1920s and the 1930s. They had the first black place-kicker in professional football, Gene Mingo. Meanwhile Lockwood falls in love with the overdub artist Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) and Lamont does everything possible to sabotage the romance. The Broncos won the first-ever American Football League game, over the Boston Patriots (13-10) on September 9, 1960. After a terrible screen test, Lockwood and his partner Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor) decide to return to their roots and convince the studio to overdub Lamont's voice and turn The Dueling Cavalier into The Dancing Cavalier, a musical comedy. Although the Denver Broncos' 39-97-4 record was the worst of any of the original eight American Football League teams', the franchise had many proud moments and several AFL superstars, including Lionel Taylor and Floyd Little. The production is beset with difficulties, not least Lina's inadvertently comical speaking voice.

Since 2001, they have played at INVESCO Field at Mile High, built next to the former site of Mile High Stadium. After the smash-hit of the historical talking picture innovator, The Jazz Singer, Lockwood's studio decides to convert the current Lockwood/Lamont vehicle, The Dueling Cavalier, into a talkie. Mile High Stadium was one of the NFL's loudest stadiums, with steel flooring instead of concrete, which may have given the Broncos an advantage over opponents. Lockwood barely tolerates his vapid leading lady, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), who is convinced their screen romance is real. For most of their history they played in Mile High Stadium, which became one of the shrines of professional football for its unbroken string of sell-outs and its famous home-field advantage percentage for the Broncos, especially during the post-season. Kelly plays Don Lockwood, a silent film star with humble roots. In their first four appearances, they suffered successively lopsided defeats, achieving near-legendary status as frustrated losers before winning back-to-back Super Bowl championships in 1998 and 1999 under quarterback John Elway and coach Mike Shanahan. Themes of certains arts being inferior to others, or the immortal if you seen one of them, you've seen them all (which is what Rossini also said about his operas) are today as vivid as ever.

A charter member of the American Football League, they were a backwater small-market team that met with little success in their early years but have since become one of the elite franchises of the league after having advanced to the Super Bowl six times. The movie has an extraordinarily intelligent plot, which greatly contributes to the work being systematically classified as the best musical comedy ever. The Denver Broncos are a National Football League team based in Denver, Colorado. Singin' in the Rain, a 1952 Gene Kelly musical film, chronicled Hollywood's transition from silent films to "talkies". Gary Zimmerman. In the lead in to Make 'em Laugh, O'Conner/Cosmo sarcastically references the tragic line "ridi pagliaccio" ("Laugh, clown") from I Pagliacci. Rick Upchurch. Dora Bailey, the gushy gossip columnist is an uncredited role played by Madge Blake who was later famous for her role as Aunt Harriet on Batman.

Jim Turner. Simpson also uses one of Freed's frequent expressions when he says that he "cannot quite visualize it and has to see it on film first", referring to the Broadway ballet sequence. Lionel Taylor (born 1935, first receiver with 100 catches in a season (1961)). F. Dennis Smith. R. Shannon Sharpe. Simpson are a reference to Arthur Freed.

Clinton Portis. F. Craig Morton. The initials of the fictional Monumental Pictures' owner, R. John Mobley. Surviving prints of the sequence feature Reynolds singing in her own voice. Gene Mingo (first black field goal kicker in professional football, 1960). One possible reason why the scene was cut is that it somewhat contradicts the initial scene where Debbie does not immediately identify Gene when he jumps into her car.