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.
Category: It’s a Great Life
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Leonard Praskins
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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.
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Crane Wilbur
Crane Wilbur (1886-1973) acted in his first film in 1910 and found fame opposite Pearl White in The Perils of Pauline (1913). He also became a scenarist, and directed his first picture in 1916. His final film as writer-director was House of Women in 1962.
In 1929 Wilbur wrote a play, Children of Pleasure, which he helped adapt into a musical the following year. He also wrote Lord Byron of Broadway and made an uncredited appearance in It’s a Great Life.
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Rolfe Sedan
Edward Sedan (1896-1982) had a fifty-eight-year career as a Hollywood bit player, notching up over 300 appearances, including many Ernst Lubitsch pictures. He also worked regularly in the theatre and on radio.
Sedan’s MGM musicals were It’s a Great Life, They Learned About Women, Call of the Flesh, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Merry Widow, A Night at the Opera, Rose Marie, The Firefly, The Wizard of Oz and Silk Stockings.
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Aileen Ransom
Aileen Ranson (1911-1956) appeared briefly in a number of films during the 1930s, including two Metro musicals, It’s a Great Life and Madam Satan (in which she portrayed Victory).
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George Davis
George Davis (1889-1965) was a prolific small-part actor for almost forty years. He appeared without credit in It’s a Great Life, played a groom in Devil-May-Care, was uncredited again in They Learned About Women, The Cuban Love Song and The Cat and the Fiddle. He appeared in The Merry Widow and played the same part, without credit, in the French version.
David showed up uncredited in Maytime, I Married an Angel, For Me and My Gal, Two Sisters from Boston, Words and Music, The Toast of New Orleans, Rich, Young and Pretty, An American in Paris, Lovely To Look At, the second version of The Merry Widow, Lili, Easy to Love, Interrupted Melody and Les Girls.
That’s twenty Metro musicals plus a French copy, with a single credited appearance.
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Oscar Apfel
Oscar C Apfel (1878-1938) was a successful Broadway director before moving into film direction. He made well over 100 films, and supervised Cecil B DeMille during his early days in Hollywood. He also pursued a secondary career as an actor, and that was what he continued after the introduction of sound.
He became a busy supporting player, and his MGM musical parts included Major Russart in Marianne and Mr Mandelbaum in It’s a Great Life. Both were uncredited.
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The Duncan Sisters
Rosetta Duncan (1894-1959) and Vivian Duncan (1897-1986) did not come from a show business background, but became one of America’s top vaudeville acts. They got their start in 1911 as part of Gus Edwards’s Kiddies’ Revue and matured into a music-with-comedy act, writing much of their own material.
The sisters’ most popular routine was the unashamedly racist ‘Eva and Topsy,’ in which they transformed Harriet Beechers Stowe’s tragic characters into blackface comedy. Rosetta was always the comedian, while Vivian’s persona was the naive innocent.
It is said that the Mahoney sisters in The Broadway Melody were based on the Duncans, and the ebullient Hank and demure Queenie have both physical and temperamental similarities with Rosetta and Vivian. But the Mahoneys are self-evidently a second-rate act that belongs in the boondocks, while the Duncans were at the top of their profession, headlining on Broadway and in the West End.
Following the triumph of The Broadway Melody, Irving Thalberg decided to attempt to repeat the success by hiring the Duncans themselves, starring them in It’s a Great Life. Where Hank had lost Eddie to her sister, in the new version it is Casey who competes with Jimmy for the love of her sister, in a manner that is not entirely non-creepy.
The film succeeded with Duncan fans, but was no great money earner. After working on the abandoned The March of Time, the Duncan Sisters’ film career was over.
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It’s a Great Life
Songs
Smile, Smile, Smile Dave Dreyer
Ballard MacDonaldRosetta Duncan, Vivian Duncan and chorus What the Debutante Must Do Dave Dreyer?
Ballard MacDonald?Uncredited singer I’m a Son of a —- Dave Dreyer
Ballard MacDonaldGeorge Davis? Won’t You Be My Lady Love Dave Dreyer?
Ballard MacDonaldLawrence Gray and Vivian Duncan I’m Following You Dave Dreyer
Ballard MacDonaldRosetta Duncan and Vivian Duncan; Lawrence Gray and Vivian Duncan It’s an Old Spanish Custom John Elliott Rosetta Duncan and Vivian Duncan Tell Me, Dirty Maiden Leslie Stuart
(Unknown lyricist)Rosetta Duncan and Vivian Duncan Let a Smile be Your Umbrella Irving Kahal
Francis WheelerRosetta Duncan Ach, du lieber Augustin Marx Augustin Rosetta Duncan Hoosier Hop Dave Dreyer
Ballard MacDonaldRosetta Duncan and Vivian Duncan I’m Sailing on a Sunbeam Dave Dreyer
Ballard MacDonaldRosetta Duncan and Vivian Duncan
