No other songwriter made a contribution to the Hollywood musical on the same scale as Irving Berlin (1888-1989), who published his first song in 1907 and retired 55 years later. He worked for all the major studios on films including Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936) and Carefree (1938) for RKO, On the Avenue (1937), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938) and There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) for 20th Century-Fox, Holiday Inn (1942), Blue Skies (1946) and White Christmas (1954) for Paramount, and This is the Army (1943) for Warner Bros.
Two songs contributed to Hallelujah were Berlin’s first work for MGM. Seven years later, ‘A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody’ was the centrepiece number in The Great Ziegfeld. In 1948 Berlin’s ‘God Bless America’ turned up in Big City.
The same year saw Metro’s first full Irving Berlin feature, when he contributed 17 numbers (reduced to 16 in the final edit) to Easter Parade (or, to give the full title from the film’s opening, Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade).
In 1950 Metro filmed Berlin’s recent Broadway success, Annie Get Your Gun, retaining 11 of the stage version’s 14 songs.
Finally, Easter Parade’s ‘Shakin’ the Blues Away’ was the basis for the only production number in Love Me or Leave Me.
