Irving Kahal (1903-1942) was a lyricist whose successful collaboration with Sammy Fain was cut short by his tragically-early death. Their ‘You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me’ became Maurice Chevalier’s signature tune.
‘Let a Smile be Your Umbrella’ was featured in It’s a Great Life, and Kahal-Fain numbers were also used posthumously in No Leave, No Love and The Unfinished Dance.
Samuel E Feinberg (1902-89) was a successful composer of popular songs who worked extensively in Hollywood. He was nominated ten times for the Oscar for Best Song, winning twice for ‘Secret Love’ from Calamity Jane (1953) and for the title song from Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Fain also worked regularly for the Disney Studio.
Fain contributed songs to fourteen MGM musicals, frequently for Joseph Pasternak productions. ‘Let a Smile be Your Umbrella’ was featured in It’s a Great Life. He later wrote numbers for I Dood It, Swing Fever, Two Girls and a Sailor, Meet the People and Thrill of a Romance.
For Anchors Aweigh Fain composed ‘The Worry Song’ to accompany Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry Mouse. His work also features in Two Sisters from Boston, Holiday in Mexico, No Leave, No Love, The Unfinished Dance, This Time for Keeps, Three Daring Daughters and Made in Paris. From Rosetta Duncan to Ann-Magret in 37 years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
