Louis Brownstein (1893-1958) became a Tin Pan Alley songwriter in 1912, but his career reached a new level when he partnered with Buddy G DeSylva and Ray Henderson in 1925. They wrote many standards, including ‘Sonny Boy’ (for Al Jolson) and ‘Sunny Side Up’, as well as the Broadway hit Good News (1927).
Several of the original numbers from Good News were retained in Metro’s two film versions, including ‘The Best Things in Life are Free’.
George Gard DeSylva (1895-1950) had two distinct careers, which overlapped. He was originally a Tinpan Alley songwriter, teaming up in 1925 with Lew Brown and Ray Henderson to become one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the time. They wrote many hit songs, including the standards ‘April Showers’, ‘Button Up Your Overcoat’ and ‘Look for the Silver Lining’. They also scored a major success with the musical Good News (1927) and other Broadway shows.
At the same time, DeSylva was a Hollywood producer, initially with Fox and later, and most significantly, at Paramount, where he oversaw, amongst others, some of Preston Sturges’s best films.
When MGM made its two versions of Good News, they retained some, but by no means all, of the songs from the original show.
Edgar J MacGregor (1878-1957) was an actor who became a highly-successful theatre director, usually on Broadway, from 1910 through to the late 1940s. His successes included Good News (1927), Funny Face (1927), DuBarry Was a Lady (1939), Panama Hattie (1939) and several editions of Earl Carroll’s Vanities.
MacGregor’s screen career was less auspicious. He travelled to Hollywood in 1930 to work on the screen version of Good News, co-directing with Nick Grinde. He never directed another film.
Harry A Grinde (1893-1979) was a vaudeville performer who found work as a director at MGM in the late twenties. From then until 1945 he directed around sixty generally low budget features for a variety of studios.
Early on, Metro occasionally used Grinde to work in partnership with tyro directors who had joined the studio directly from theatre work. For example, he co-directed The Bishop Murder Case (1930) with Broadway director David Burton.
Another such was Good News, which Grinde co-directed with Edgar J MacGregor, director of the original broadway production.
Grinde did not direct any additional musicals at Metro, being far more at home with westerns and thrillers, though he did, out of left field, write the screenplay for Babes in Toyland.
The Crew
| Nick Grinde | Director |
| Edgar J MacGregor | Director (as Stage Director) |
| Frances Marion | Scenario |
| Joseph Farnham | Dialogue |
| Buddy G DeSylva | Lyricist |
| Ray Henderson | Composer |
| Lew Brown | Lyricist |
| Nacio Herb Brown | Songwriter |
| Arthur Freed | Songwriter |
| J Russel Robinson | Songwriter |
| George Waggner | Songwriter |
| Larry Shay | Songwriter |
| George Ward | Songwriter |
| Reggie Montgomery | Songwriter |
| Percy Hilburn | Cinematographer |
| William LeVanway | Editor |
| Cedric Gibbons | Art Director |
| Douglas Shearer | Sound Recording Director |
| Russell Franks | Sound Recording Engineer (uncredited) |
| David Cox | Costume Design |
| Sammy Lee | Choreography |
Harriette Arlene Lake (1909-2001) was described as “the greatest comedienne” by Lucille Ball, who was probably a good judge.
In a career of almost sixty years, Ann Sothern was successful on stage, film, television and radio. In Hollywood, she moved from studio to studio before settling at MGM, where she was cast as Maisie Ravier in Maisie (1939). The film’s success gave a boost to her moderately successful career, as well as resulting in nine sequels and a radio series.
When she stopped getting lead roles, Southern moved predominantly to television. But her last great big screen performance, in The Whales of August (1987) earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Ann Sothern was in seven Metro musicals. Early on, she made blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances in Good News and Madam Satan. Ten years later, she was back with the lead in Lady Be Good (Eleanor Powell’s top billing being contractual rather than deserved). She next took the title role in Panama Hattie, then played herself in Thousands Cheer. She was Broadway star Joyce Harmon in Words and Music, and finished off playing Jane Powell’s mother in Nancy Goes to Rio.
In the manner of one of Hollywood’s own stories, Frederick William Bowditch (1906-73) was working as a film booker when he was persuaded to audition for the moving pictures.
After a number of uncredited appearances, including as a student in Good News, Richmond won the lead in The Leather Pushers (1922), a boxing series at Universal. According to Richmond, he ended up fighting two or three hundred rounds for the camera, breaking his nose (twice) a hand and an ankle.
Richmond notched up over 100 credits before retiring from the screen, including working alongside the Gipper in Knute Rockne, All American (1940).
For someone who died aged 57, David Poole Fronabarger (1912-69) produced an astonishing body of work; he must have been one of the hardest-working people in Hollywood. He appeared in around 240 feature films and shorts. He contributed to at least 50 screenplays and won an Emmy in 1961 for writing for The Red Skelton Show. And he directed about 65 shorts. He even did some stunt work at the beginning of his career.
O’Brien is probably best known as the lead performer in many Pete Smith Specialties, the series of comedy shorts produced by Pete Smith for MGM from 1935 to 1955. He also directed some of them as David Barclay. The acting in the Pete Smith films was always silent, with Smith himself providing narration. O’Brien was one of the last great adepts at silent cinema, with a particular skill at falls.
Dave O’Brien was in five Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals. In the 1930s he was uncredited in Good News, Madam Satan, Flying High and Student Tour. Two decades later he was Ralph the stage manager in Kiss Me Kate.
Samuel Newman (1906-99) was, as the nickname ‘Rubber Legs’ might suggest, a dancer of the eccentric variety, in the manner of Ray Bolger.
Al Norman found his greatest success in vaudeville and nightclubs, and occasionally in Broadway revues, but he also made a number of film appearances, usually as a speciality performer. The sheer weirdness of his act can be seen at its best in Universal’s King of Jazz (1930), but soon after that he turned up at MGM in Good News.
Clarence Linden Crabbe II (1908-83) was an Olympic swimmer who used his good looks and athletic prowess to maintain a long career as a minor film star.
Most of Crabbe’s films were ‘B’ westerns, but he was also the only actor to play Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Tarzan. The first of these kept his name alive for many years thanks to repeated Saturday morning television re-runs.
Buster Crabbe’s first screen appearance was as a student in Good News.
