Tin Pan Alley (film)

Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Walter Lang
Screenplay by	Robert Ellis; Helen Logan
Story by	Pamela Harris
Produced by	Kenneth Macgowan
Starring	Alice Faye; Betty Grable; Jack Oakie; John Payne
Cinematography	Leon Shamroy
Edited by	Walter A. Thompson
Music by	Alfred Newman
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	November 29, 1940;
Running time	94 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$1.645 million (U.S. and Canada rentals)

Tin Pan Alley is a 1940 musical film directed by Walter Lang and starring Alice Faye and Betty Grable (their only film together^[2]) as vaudeville singers/sisters and John Payne and Jack Oakie as songwriters in the years before World War I.

Alfred Newman received the 1940 Academy Award for Best Musical Score for his work on the film, the second of his nine Oscars. The film was also nominated for American Film Institute's 2006 list of the AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals.^[3]

Plot

Katie and Lily Blaine are a singing-sister act playing the vaudeville circuit. Songwriters Skeets Harrigan and Harry Calhoun see star potential in the sister act.

Cast

Alice Faye as Katie Blane
Betty Grable as Lily Blane
Jack Oakie as Harry Calhoun
John Payne as Francis 'Skeets' Harrigan
Allen Jenkins as Casey
Esther Ralston as Nora Bayes
Fayard Nicholas as Dance Specialty
Harold Nicholas as Dance Specialty
Ben Carter as Boy
John Loder as Captain Reginald 'Reggie' Carstair
Elisha Cook Jr. as Joe Codd
Fred Keating as Harvey Raymond

Casting

Before filming began, there was said to be a feud between Faye and Grable, although the two actresses had never met. On the first day of production, the actresses quickly got along and became lifelong friends.

Tyrone Power and Don Ameche were considered for the leading roles, but scheduling conflicts took them out of the running.

References

^ "All-time Film Rental Champs". Variety. October 15, 1990.
^ Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN 0-634-00765-3 page 100
^ "AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-13.