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.
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.
James Davis (1853-1907) was a solicitor who allegedly chose the pen name Owen Hall because it sounded like ‘owing all’, reflecting his frequently bankrupt state.
Hall achieved greater success as a librettist, helping to write some of the most successful British musical comedies of his day. Amongst these was Florodora (1899), for which he provided lyrics to Leslie Stuart’s music.
The show’s breakout song, ‘Tell Me Pretty Maiden’ is performed by Marion Davies and chorus, with interruptions by Lawrence Gray, at the end of The Florodora Girl.
Thomas Augustine Barrett (1863-1928) has been called one of the most gifted composers of musical comedy on the British stage. His early hits, written for the music hall, included ‘Lily of Laguna’ and ‘Soldiers of the King’.
Stuart’s first West End musical comedy, which became an international success, was Florodora (1899), and it had two quite different impacts on MGM musicals. Firstly, the show formed the background for The Florodora Girl, a fictional story about one of the original Broadway chorus girls. A song from the show, ‘Tell Me Pretty Maiden,’ features at the climax of the film.
Decades later, Florodora, misnamed Florodora Girl, is one of the many no-longer-relevant New York sights featured in Chip’s out-of-date guidebook in On the Town and mentioned in ‘Come Up to My Place’.
Johann Paul Dreiser Jr (1857-1906) is considered one of the most important American songwriters of the late nineteenth century. Like many of his contemporaries, he started out performing in minstrel shows, and ended up as a music publisher.
In between, Dresser wrote an estimated 150 songs. Like Stephen Foster from an earlier generation, he leaned heavily on sentimental themes such as motherhood, the home, and patriotism.
Dresser’s best-known song is ‘On the Banks of the Wabash,’ which featured in many Hollywood films, including The Florodora Girl. A bridge over the Wabash River now bears his name.
Dresser was the older brother of novelist Theodore Dreiser, whose career he supported financially.
I can tell you nothing about Alfred E Rick (18??-19??) except that he and Maurice Scott wrote the comic song ‘Swing Me Higher, Obadiah,’ as performed by music hall artiste Chummie La Mara and, later, by Marion Davies in The Florodora Girl.
Only one fact is known about composer Maurice Scott (1878-1933). In 1917 he composed a song that forty-something years later would lend its title to an internationally-acclaimed stage musical and an award-winning film: ‘Oh, It’s a Lovely War’ was written by Scott and John P Long for the music hall entertainer Ella Shields.
It was another music hall artiste, Chummie La Mara, who sang Scott’s ‘Swing Me Higher, Obadiah,’ later performed by Marion Davies in The Florodora Girl.
The comedian Michael Nolan was born in Ireland but raised in Bradford in Yorkshire, where he got his start as a music hall performer. Known as ‘the Prince of Irish Comedians,’ he combined comedy patter with songs, many of which he composed himself.
One of these songs was ‘Little Annie Rooney,’ as featured in The Florodora Girl.
Joe A Hayden (1845-1916) was a lyricist who would be totally forgotten today but for one thing. He wrote the words for Theodore A Metz’s immortal ‘There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight’ in 1897.
The number has been performed in a vast array of context, one of which was to be sung by Marion Davies in The Florodora Girl.
