The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: It’s a Great Life

  • Frank Sullivan

    Francis Starbuck Sullivan (1896-1972) worked in silent cinema as both cinematographer and editor, but restricted himself to the latter after 1928. Before retiring in 1962, he worked at various times with Fritz Lang, Josef Von Sternberg, Frank Borzage, George Cukor (Oscar nominated for The Philadelphia Story in 1940), George Stevens and Joseph H Lewis.

    Sullivan’s MGM musical assignments were So This is College, It’s a Great Life, Going Hollywood and Babes in Arms.

    Some sources also assert he contributed as a writer to Ziegfeld Follies, but this may have been the New Yorker  humourist of the same name.

  • Irving Kahal

    Irving Kahal (1903-1942) was a lyricist whose successful collaboration with Sammy Fain was cut short by his tragically-early death. Their ‘You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me’ became Maurice Chevalier’s signature tune.

    ‘Let a Smile be Your Umbrella’ was featured in It’s a Great Life, and Kahal-Fain numbers were also used posthumously in No Leave, No Love and The Unfinished Dance.

  • Sammy Fain

    Samuel E Feinberg (1902-89) was a successful composer of popular songs who worked extensively in Hollywood. He was nominated ten times for the Oscar for Best Song, winning twice for ‘Secret Love’ from Calamity Jane (1953) and for the title song from Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Fain also worked regularly for the Disney Studio.

    Fain contributed songs to fourteen MGM musicals, frequently for Joseph Pasternak productions. ‘Let a Smile be Your Umbrella’ was featured in It’s a Great Life. He later wrote numbers for I Dood It, Swing Fever, Two Girls and a Sailor, Meet the People and Thrill of a Romance.

    For Anchors Aweigh Fain composed ‘The Worry Song’ to accompany Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry Mouse. His work also features in Two Sisters from Boston, Holiday in Mexico, No Leave, No Love, The Unfinished Dance, This Time for Keeps, Three Daring Daughters and Made in Paris. From Rosetta Duncan to Ann-Magret in 37 years.

  • Francis Wheeler

    Francis Wheeler (18??-19??) was a small-time lyricist who contributed to two songs that cropped up repeatedly in films of the classic period: ‘The Sheik of Araby’ (inspired by Rudolph Valentino) and ‘Let a Smile be Your Umbrella,’ which was sung by Rosetta Duncan in It’s a Great Life.

  • Ballard MacDonald

    Ballard MacDonald (1882-1935) was a Tin Pan Alley lyricist who collaborated with, amongst others, George Gershwin (notably on ‘Somebody Loves Me’). His best-known song, ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,’ belatedly became a hit in the UK when the Laurel and Hardy version from Way Out West was released as a single. 

    Ballard provided numbers for four MGM musicals. In 1929 he worked with Dave Dreyer on most of the songs for It’s a Great Life. Fifteen years later ‘Somebody Loves Me’ was sung by Lena Horne in Broadway Rhythm. 

    ‘Play That Barbershop Chord,’ a song he co-wrote in 1910, was used in In the Good Old Summertime. Finally, ‘I Love to Go Swimmin With Wimmin,’ written with Sigmund Romberg for the 1921 musical Love Birds, was performed by Gene Kelly and his brother Fred in the Romberg biopic Deep in My Heart.

  • Dave Dreyer

    Dave Dreyer (1894-1967) started out as a pianist for vaudeville stars including Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker before becoming a Tin Pan Alley composer. He is perhaps best-remembered for ‘Me and My Shadow’.

    In Hollywood Dreyer worked as head of the music department at RKO-Radio, but had earlier collaborated with Ballard MacDonald to provide the songs for It’s a Great Life.

  • J Peverell Marley

    John Peverell Marley began his career photographing The Ten Commandments (1923), and ended it forty years later shooting half-hour episodes for television series.

    Marley accumulated over 130 credits, including one MGM musical, It’s a Great Life.

  • Willard Mack

    Charles Willard McLaughlin (1873-1934) worked as an actor, director and playwright before he took up screenwriting in 1916, carrying this out alongside work on Broadway.

    Mack contributed to the scenarios of It’s a Great Life and Lord Byron of Broadway. He also co-wrote and directed Broadway to Hollywood, the film in which producer Harry Rapf recycled content from the abandoned The March of Time. 

  • It’s a Great Life

    Principal Crew

    Sam WoodDirector
    Byron MorganStory
    Leonard PraskinsStory
    Alfred BlockStory
    Willard MackDialogue
    Al BoasbergDialogue
    Sam WoodProducer
    J Peverell MarleyCinematographer
    William AxtComposer
    Dave DreyerComposer
    Ballard MacDonaldLyricist
    Sammy FainComposer
    Francis WheelerLyricist
    Irving KahalLyricist
    Frank SullivanEditor
    Cedric GibbonsArt Director
    Douglas ShearerSound Recording
    David CoxCostume Designer
    Sammy LeeChoreographer

  • Alfred Block

    Alfred Block (1897-1949) had a short career as a Hollywood screenwriter, with the highpoint being contributing the story for Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West (1930). A year earlier he worked on the story for It’s a Great Life and wrote the titles for They Learned About Women..

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