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Born to Sing (1942)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Franz Schulz (story)
Franz Schulz (screenplay) ...
more
Release Date:
18 February 1942 (USA) more
Tagline:
"All we need is a theatre...a singer...and an audience" (original lobby card) more
Plot:
Show promoter Cartwright has stolen the songs that Frank wrote while he was in the big house. The boys... more | add synopsis
User Comments:
Busby Berkeley, Ballad for Americans, and Leo the Lion's B company more (6 total)
Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only) | Virginia Weidler | ... | Patsy Eastman |
| Ray McDonald | ... | Steve |
| Leo Gorcey | ... | 'Snap' Collins |
| Douglas McPhail | ... | Murray Saunders |
| Rags Ragland | ... | 'Grunt' |
| Sheldon Leonard | ... | Pete Detroit |
| Henry O'Neill | ... | Frank Eastman |
| Larry Nunn | ... | Mike Conroy |
| Margaret Dumont | ... | Mrs. E. V. Lawson |
| Beverly Hudson | ... | Maggie Cooper |
| Richard Hall | ... | Mozart Cooper |
| Darla Hood | ... | 'Quiz Kid' |
| Joe Yule | ... | Ed Collera |
| Lester Matthews | ... | Arthur Cartwright |
| Ben Carter | ... | 'Eight-ball' |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
82 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Certification:
USA:Approved | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)
Company:
Fun Stuff
Soundtrack:
You Are My Lucky Star more
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This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (6 total)
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When Ballad for Americans became a big hit in 1939 out of the WPA Theater Project Musical Sing for Your Supper, MGM quickly bought the screen rights to the song. Both Paul Robeson and Bing Crosby made hit recordings of it that same year, though the song is pretty much identified with Robeson now.
MGM waited three years before putting it into a film and it went into one of the products of their B picture unit, Born to Sing. This film is no doubt something that Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland rejected for one of their 'let's put on a show' films.
It's just that kind of film. Crooked producer Lester Matthews and even crookeder press agent Charles Lane, plagiarize the work of Virginia Weidler's father, Henry O'Neill for their show. Topping that all off they frame Ray McDonald, Larry Nunn, and Leo Gorcey on an extortion rap.
As they're being taken to jail, they're riding in the same paddy wagon as gangster Sheldon Leonard. They go along in an escape his gang has planned and he in turn gets ensnared in their machinations. Which as it turns out is to put on a show before Matthews does and showcase O'Neill's music.
So help me that's the plot of this one. It's all quite innocently and charmingly done, but the presentation leaves one breathless.
Tacked on to the end of the show is Ballad for Americans where the lead singer is Douglas MacPhail whose career came to tragically to an end the following year. Staging the number is Busby Berkeley and the staging of it is similar to some of what he did in Ziegfeld Girl the year before.
Why MGM didn't put Ballad for Americans into one of their A films is something we'll never know.