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.
Category: Films
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Francis Wheeler
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It’s a Great Life
Principal Crew
Sam Wood Director Byron Morgan Story Leonard Praskins Story Alfred Block Story Willard Mack Dialogue Al Boasberg Dialogue Sam Wood Producer J Peverell Marley Cinematographer William Axt Composer Dave Dreyer Composer Ballard MacDonald Lyricist Sammy Fain Composer Francis Wheeler Lyricist Irving Kahal Lyricist Frank Sullivan Editor Cedric Gibbons Art Director Douglas Shearer Sound Recording David Cox Costume Designer Sammy Lee Choreographer -
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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Leonard Praskins
British-born Leonard Praskins (1896-1968) had a long but minor career as a Hollywood screenwriter. For MGM, he contributed to the story for It’s a Great Life and later wrote both the story and screenplay for Ice Follies of 1939.
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Byron Morgan
Byron Morgan (1889-1963) began screenwriting in the silent period but did some of his best work in talkies. He worked with Laurel and Hardy on Way Out West (1930) and Sons of the Desert (1933) and wrote the excellent Five Star Final (1931) for Warner Bros.
Morgan’s sole contribution to MGM musicals was collaborating on the story of It’s a Great Life.
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Jeane Wood
Despite being minor Hollywood royalty, and unlike her younger sister K T Stevens, Jeane Wood (1909-1987) never progressed as an actor beyond small, usually uncredited roles. As a young woman she appeared in three films directed by her father, Sam Wood. These included the musical It’s a Great Life.
After a long break, Wood resumed film acting in the 1950s, making an appearance as a maid in The Glass Slipper.
