Broadway Rhythm is an MGM Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 musical film. It was produced by Jack Cummings and directed by Roy Del Ruth. The film was originally announced as Broadway Melody of 1944 to follow MGM's Broadway Melody films of 1929, 1936, 1938, and 1940. The movie was originally slated to star Eleanor Powell

Eleanor Powell

Eleanor Torrey Powell was an American film actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solo tap dancing.-Early life:...

 and Gene Kelly

Gene Kelly

Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...

 but Louis B. Mayer

Louis B. Mayer

Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...

 and MGM loaned Kelly out to Columbia to play opposite Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...

 in Cover Girl (1944). The film starred George Murphy

George Murphy

George Lloyd Murphy was an American dancer, actor, and politician.-Life and career:He was born in New Haven, Connecticut of Irish Catholic extraction, the son of Michael Charles "Mike" Murphy, athletic trainer and coach, and Nora Long. He was educated at Peddie School, Trinity-Pawling School, and...

- who had appeared in Broadway Melody of 1938

Broadway Melody of 1938

Broadway Melody of 1938 is a 1937 musical film, produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Roy Del Ruth. The film is essentially a backstage musical revue, featuring high-budget sets and cinematography in the MGM musical tradition...

and Broadway Melody of 1940

Broadway Melody of 1940

Broadway Melody of 1940 is a 1940 MGM movie musical starring Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell and George Murphy. It was directed by Norman Taurog and features music by Cole Porter, including "Begin the Beguine"....

. Mayer then replaced Powell with Ginny Simms

Ginny Simms

Ginny Simms was an American Popular Singer and film actress. She labeled with Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Stafford and others. Born in San Antonio, Texas, she sang with big bands and worked as MGM contract player film actress.She appeared in 11 movies from 1939 to 1951, when she...

. Other cast members included Charles Winninger

Charles Winninger

Charles Winninger was an American stage and film actor, most often cast in comedies or musicals, but equally at home in drama.-Biography:He began as a vaudeville actor...

, Gloria DeHaven

Gloria DeHaven

Gloria Mildred DeHaven is an American actress and a former contract star for MGM.-Early life and career:DeHaven was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actor-director Carter DeHaven and actress Flora Parker DeHaven, both former vaudeville performers.She began her career as a child...

, Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, Nancy Walker

Nancy Walker

Nancy Walker was an American actress and comedienne of stage, screen, and television. She was also a film and television director...

, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, the Ross Sisters

The Ross Sisters

The Ross Sisters were a trio of female sibling singing dancers consisting of Aggie Ross, Elmira Ross, and Maggie Ross . The Ross Sisters performed as a 3-part harmony trio wherein they also danced and did acrobatics and contortionism...

, and Ben Blue

Ben Blue

Ben Blue , born Benjamin Bernstein, was a Canadian-American actor and comedian.Born to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, at the age of nine, Blue emigrated to Baltimore in the United States where he won a contest for the best impersonation of Charlie Chaplin...

, as well as Tommy Dorsey

Tommy Dorsey

Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...

 and his orchestra.

Murphy plays a successful Broadway musical comedy producer named Johnnie Demming. He needs a star for his new show. He’s smitten with the glamorous film star, Helen Hoyt (Simms), and offers the part to her, but she turns him down because she wants to be sure she’s in a hit. Johnnie’s father (Winninger), retired from vaudeville, wants to do his own show. He gets his daughter, Patsy (DeHaven) and also Helen. Johnnie feels betrayed by his father.

The film is very loosely based on the Broadway musical Very Warm for May

Very Warm for May

Very Warm for May is a musical composed by Jerome Kern, with a libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was the team's final score for Broadway, following their hits Show Boat, Sweet Adeline, and Music in the Air...

(1939). However, all the songs from the musical except for "All the Things You Are

All the Things You Are

"All the Things You Are" is a song composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II.It was written for the musical Very Warm for May , where it was introduced by Hiram Sherman, Frances Mercer, Hollace Shaw, and Ralph Stuart...

" were left out of the film. Some of the songs from the movie are by Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

 and Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...

:

• All the Things You Are
  All the Things You Are
  "All the Things You Are" is a song composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II.It was written for the musical Very Warm for May , where it was introduced by Hiram Sherman, Frances Mercer, Hollace Shaw, and Ralph Stuart...
  
  
• That Lucky Fellow
• In Other Words
• Seventeen
• All in Fun