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.
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 (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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
