Lawrence Fredrick Schaetzlein (1897-1988) was a prolific songwriter with one immortal classic to his name. In 1928 he co-authored that paean to optimism, ‘When You’re Smiling (the Whole World Smiles With You)’.
Shortly before MGM appointed him Music Director, Shay co-wrote ‘Gee, But I’d Like to Make You Happy’ for the 1930 Good News.
George Waggner (1894-1984), or george waGGner as he sometimes, and inexplicably, chose to credit himself, is best known as a writer, director and producer.
Wagner produced and directed Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941), establishing himself in the horror pantheon. He also produced Cobra Woman (1944), the once-in-a-lifetime joining of Robert Siodmak with Maria Montez.
Much earlier in life, Waggoner worked as an actor (up against Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1921) and songwriter.
In the latter capacity, Waggoner teamed with J Russel Robinson to write ‘I Feel Pessimistic’ for the 1930 version of Good News.
Joseph Russel Robinson (1892-1963) was a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and a notable jazz composer. He co-wrote the standard ‘Singin the Blues’, which was recorded by Bix Beiderbecke.
In the 1930s Robinson turned to songwriting, including for the screen. The title song for Portrait of Jennie’ (1948), with lyrics by Gordon Burge, became a hit record for Nat ‘King’ Cole.
Robinson co-wrote ‘I Feel Pessimistic’ for the 1930 version of Good News.
Raymond Brost (1896-1970) was a Tin Pan Alley composer whose many hits included ‘Has Anybody Seen My Girl’ and Shirley Temple’s ‘Animal Crackers in My Soup’.
Perhaps the highpoint of Brown’s career was the six years he spent from 1925 in partnership with Buddy G DeSylva and Lew Brown. Their Broadway show Good News (1927) was filmed twice by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The pictures retained some, though not all, of the original show’s numbers, including ‘The Varsity Drag’.
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 |
Abraham Simon (1897-1957) was a drummer who ended up leading his own orchestra. One of his regular singers in the 1920s was Charles Kaley, who starred in Lord Byron of Broadway.
Lyman was also a songwriter, his biggest hit being the standard ‘I Cried for You’, co-written with Gus Arnheim and with lyrics by Arthur Freed. It was sung by Judy Garland in Babes in Arms.
Abe Lyman and his Orchestra made their screen debut in Syncopated Symphony (1928), a Vitaphone short. Out of a dozen or so subsequent film appearances, two were in Good News and Madam Satan.
Lyman gave up music in the late forties to become a restaurateur.
