When the high was simply from singing...

To look back over the 20 years that went by from the time Singing in the Rain was produced to when A Clockwork Orange came out, quite a bit had changed. I remember watching Singing in the rain when I was little thinking, look at how pretty the dancing is and how beautiful the costumes were. The film seemed pretty wholesome... jump to today, when watching A Clockwork Orange, extreme violence was a main theme in the movie. I had to remind myself that the reason the teenagers in the film were beating a helpless couple was because they were hopped up on drugs. It's incredible to think, that in just 20 years, a large amount of drugs and violence had come to be acceptable on film. There were several things that had developed in society and technology since Singing in the Rain that contributed to the growth of film. Color was becoming more developed leading to clearer and more dramatic images. Film makers started taking chances on the topics of films. With movies such as War of the Worlds and futuristic sci/fi films, people were becoming more open minded about possibilities. Alfred Hitchcock also opened the door for combining horror/mystery films with the excitement of including the advancements in cinematography.
Two of the most important changes were the fact that drugs and sexual freedom were more evident in society and being incorporated into films. LSD and hellucogenics played a big part in the way images were viewed on screen and some people would purposely take drugs to enhance watching a movie. The development of the birth control pill played a major role in the fact women were becoming more comfortable having sex and being sexual considering they did not have to worry about pregnancy. Just to think... those poor women back in the 1800's getting married to have sex... I bet Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds would never have imagined the change in film nearly twenty years after the classic Singing in the Rain was made.