Russell Franks (1901-73) worked in the MGM sound department under Douglas Shearer. After acting as assistant on The Hollywood Revue of 1929, he was recording engineer onChasing Rainbows and Good News.
Category: Films
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Russell Franks
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Reggie Montgomery
Reggie Montgomery (1906-??) co-write musical numbers for three MGM musicals–Chasing Rainbows, Children of Pleasure and Good News–and for the abandoned The March of Time.
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Ed Ward
Edward Ward (1896-1971) was a composer and musical director, seven-times Oscar nominated, though with no wins.
In 1930 he co-wrote a number for Chasing Rainbows, later composed music for Reckless, Maytime and The Firefly.
Ward also composed music used in the trailer for Broadway Melody of 1936.
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Jack Yellen
Jacek Selig Jeleń (1892-1981) was born in what is now Poland but grew up in Buffalo, New York. First working as a reporter while writing songs on the side, he eventually partnered with Milton Ager, though working from time to time with other composers, including Sammy Fain and Lew Pollock. With the latter he wrote the immortal ‘My Yiddishe Momme’ in 1925 for Sophie Tucker.
Yellen and Ager moved to Hollywood in 1929 and wrote songs for Chasing Rainbows and They Learned About Women.
‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ was first heard in Chasing Rainbows’ before becoming the anthem of Roosevelt’s Democratic Party. It was used as incidental music in many other MGM pictures, including the musicals Going Hollywood,Here Comes The Band, Broadway Melody of 1938 and The Ice Follies of 1939.
Yellen also worked as a screenwriter.
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Milton Ager
Like many other Tin Pan Alley alumni, Milton Ager (1893-1979) started out as a song plugger before turning to composition himself. He eventually partnered with lyricist Jack Yellen, with whom he wrote a Broadway show in 1920. One of their biggest hits was ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ in 1927.
After moving to Hollywood, Ager and Yellen contributed songs to Chasing Rainbows, They Learned About Women. Later on, Ager wrote a number with Joseph McCarthy for Listen, Darling.
‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ was first heard in Chasing Rainbows’ before becoming the anthem of Roosevelt’s Democratic Party. It was used as incidental music in many other MGM pictures, including the musicals Going Hollywood,Here Comes The Band, Broadway Melody of 1938 and Ice Follies of 1939.
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Ira H Morgan
It says something about Hollywood that Ira Harry Morgan (1889-1959), the cinematographer who collaborated with Roland Totheroh on Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) was ended up as the man who shot Adventures of Captain Africa: Mighty Jungle Avenger! (1955).
Fourteen years into a forty-year career, Morgan was cinematographer on Metro’s Chasing Rainbows.
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Kenyon Nicholson
John Kenyon Nicholson (1894-1986) was a playwright, and a number of his films were adapted for the cinema. He also contributed to the screenplays of a number of films, including the James Cagney vehicle, Taxi (1931).
In 1929 Nicholson provided dialogue for Chasing Rainbows.
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Chasing Rainbows
Crew
Charles Reisner Director Robert E Hopkins Story Bess Meredyth Story and scenario Al Boasberg Scenario Wells Root Adaptation Kenyon Nicholson Dialogue Charles F Reisner Dialogue William Axt Composer (uncredited) Milton Ager Composer Jack Yellen Lyricist Gus Edwards Songwriter Fred Fisher Composer Ed Ward Composer Reggie Montgomery Lyricist Ira Morgan Cinematographer George Hively Editor Cedric Gibbons Art Director Douglas Shearer Sound Recording Engineer Russell Franks Sound Recording Engineer Sammy Lee Choreographer -
Wells Root
Wells Crosby Root (1900-1993) was a writer, teacher and author of Writing the Script: A Practical Guide for Films and Television (1980). In the 1950s and early 60s he wrote episodes for virtually every TV western series (and there were a lot of them).
For MGM Wells adapted the story that formed the basis of Chasing Rainbows and came up with the idea for The Rogue Song. He is cited as the co-author, with Bess Meredyth of a work called The Southerner, which was adapted into The Prodigal. Certainly, he and Meredyth are credited with dialogue continuity.
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Bess Meredyth
Screenwriter Helen Elizabeth MacGlashan (1890-1969) began writing scenarios in the early 1910s, but maintained a parallel career as an actor until 1926. A trusted colleague of Irving Thalberg, she was dispatched to Italy to rescue the out-of-control production Ben-Hur (1925).
Meredyth met her third husband, director Michael Curtiz, at the Warner Bros studio while she was working for First National, and advised him about his pictures even after she returned to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She reviewed all his scripts and frequently amended the dialogue.Meredyth’s final screen credit was for the screenplay for Curtiz’s The Unsuspected (1947).
Meredyth contributed to four of MGM’s early musicals. She co-wrote the story from which Chasing Rainbows was adapted and worked on the scenario, and went on to write the adaptation for In Gay Madrid. Some sources show Bess Meredyth and Wells Root as authors of a fictional work called The Southerner, on which the 1930 musical was based. All that seems certain, however, is that they are credited for the film’s dialogue continuity. Finally, Meredyth wrote the screenplay for The Cuban Love Song.
