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Something to Sing About Overview:

Something to Sing About (1937) was a Comedy - Musical Film directed by Victor Schertzinger and produced by Victor Schertzinger.

Academy Awards 1937 --- Ceremony Number 10 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Music - ScoringGrand National Studio Music Department, C. Bakaleinikoff, musical director (Score by Victor SchertzNominated
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Something to Sing About BlogHub Articles:

Musical Monday: “Something to Sing About” (1937)

on Jan 23, 2017 From Comet Over Hollywood

It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals. In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 500. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals. This week’s musical: “Something to Sing... Read full article

Something to Sing About (1937)

By Lindsey on Feb 14, 2015 From The Motion Pictures

Terry Rooney (James Cagney) is working as a band leader in New York. He puts on unique performances in which he not only leads the band, but shows off his stellar dancing skills as they play. Terry will be leaving the Big Apple behind to seek stardom in Hollywood. He has been invited to star in his ... Read full article

Something to Sing About (1937)

By Beatrice on Oct 28, 2013 From Flickers in Time

Something to Sing About Directed by Victor Schertzinger Written by Victor Schertzinger and Austin Parker 1937/USA Zion Meyers Productions First viewing It’s always fun to watch James Cagney dance, and that’s the highpoint of this otherwise unremarkable musical flop. Terry Rooney (Cagne... Read full article

Something to Sing About

By RBuccicone on Feb 3, 2012 From MacGuffin Movies

Something to Sing About (1937) Something to Sing About had a number of things going against it when I sat down with it last weekend. The DVD was one of those cheap three-movies-in-one discs and the picture quality was choppy from the start. I certainly thought to myself at the beginning “this... Read full article

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Something to Sing About Quotes:

Terrence 'Terry'; Rooney: I'll stand up here and let you stick pins in me, but one more tickle, and I'm going to tear off one of your legs and wrap it around your neck for a scarf.
Rita Wyatt: [laying down winning cards] You now owe me 129 million dollars.
Terrence 'Terry'; Rooney: A mere bagatelle.
Rita Wyatt: I'll settle for a box of candy.
Terrence 'Terry'; Rooney: You'll take chewing gum and like it.
Terrence 'Terry'; Rooney: I'm just looking for a set of pear shaped vowels.
Hank Meyers: [reacting to Terry's real name] Thaddeus McGillicuddy?
Rita Wyatt: We like it.
Hank Meyers: Are you kidding, Terry?
Terrence 'Terry'; Rooney: Oh no, absolutely on the level. I'm sorry, Hank - they did it to me when I was asleep.
Hank Meyers: Here they come now, Grief, Trouble and Worry.
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Something to Sing About Facts
Grand National Pictures head Edward L. Alperson had previously paid $25,000 for the rights to the perfect James Cagney vehicle, "Angels with Dirty Faces", and was literally begged by staff producer Edward Finney to film that property first. Inexplicably, Alperson went ahead with this film, a pet project of director Victor Schertzinger, which went way over schedule and budget, and flopped big time. Its failure broke the fledgling Grand National studio, which despite its profitable Tex Ritter series of low-budget westerns, went into bankruptcy in early 1940.
Film debut of James Newill.
James Cagney reportedly rehearsed his dance numbers occasionally with Fred Astaire.
Known as "the picture that broke Grand National". Grand National Pictures, which produced and distributed this film, was a "B" studio known mostly for low-budget westerns and action pictures. It signed James Cagney during one of his frequent disputes with Warner Bros. and saw this picture as its chance to compete with the major studios by doing a lavish musical with a major star. It poured more than $900,000 into this film, not much by MGM or 20th Century Fox standards but a tremendous sum for a small studio like Grand National. Unfortunately the film was a major flop and the studio lost just about all the money put into it. Grand National folded just a few years later, having never recovered from the financial beating it took on this picture.
Parts of the film are based on James Cagney's own experience. In the film, Cagney's character, Terry Rooney, is a New York band-leader and hoofer who goes to Hollywood to make a "tough guy" movie. When he gets back from his honeymoon cruise, Rooney discovers the movie has made him a star, and he is mobbed by autograph seekers outside a movie theater where his film is showing. Likewise, Cagney himself was a Broadway hoofer who went to Hollywood in 1930 to make movies. After several supporting roles, Cagney filmed his breakout movie, The Public Enemy, in early 1931. When filming was completed, Cagney returned to New York, thinking the movie would be nothing special. A few months later, he was surprised to see a long line of movie-goers outside a New York theater where The Public Enemy was being shown. Cagney had become a star.
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