Alexander's Ragtime Band (film)

For the song of this name, see Alexander's Ragtime Band.
Alexander's Ragtime Band
Theatrical release poster
Directed byHenry King
Written byIrving Berlin
Richard Sherman
Screenplay byKathryn Scola
Lamar Trotti
Produced byDarryl F. Zanuck
StarringTyrone Power
Alice Faye
Don Ameche
Ethel Merman
Jack Haley
CinematographyJ. Peverell Marley
Edited byBarbara McLean
Music byIrving Berlin
Alfred Newman
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • August 5, 1938 (1938-08-05) (New York, premiere)
Running time
106 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1,200,000[1]–$2,275,000[2][3]
Box office$3.6 million (worldwide rentals)[4]

Alexander's Ragtime Band is a 1938 American musical film released by 20th Century Fox that takes its name from the 1911 Irving Berlin song "Alexander's Ragtime Band" to tell a story of a society boy who scandalizes his family by pursuing a career in ragtime instead of "serious" music. The film generally traces the history of jazz music from the popularization of Ragtime in the early years of the 20th century to the acceptance of swing as an art form in the late 1930s using music composed by Berlin. The story spans more than two decades from the 1911 release of its name-sake song to some point in time after the 1933 release of "Heat Wave", presumably 1938.

It stars Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, Jack Haley and Jean Hersholt. Several actual events in the history of jazz are fictionalized and adapted to the story including the tour of Europe by Original Dixieland Jass Band, the global spread of jazz by U.S. soldiers during World War I, and the 1938 Carnegie Hall performance by The Benny Goodman Orchestra.

The story was written by Berlin himself, with Kathryn Scola, Richard Sherman (1905–1962) and Lamar Trotti. In 1944, a federal judge ruled that most of the story by Berlin and collaborating writers had been plagiarized from a 1937 manuscript by author Marie Dieckhaus,[5] but that decision was reversed on appeal.[6]

Alexander's Ragtime Band was 20th Century Fox's highest-grossing film of the 1930s and was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning the award for Best Music, Scoring.

  1. ^ "Alex sets another kind of record". Variety. 7 September 1938. p. 6.
  2. ^ "Top Films and Stars". Variety. 4 January 1939. p. 10. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
  3. ^ "Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938) – Notes". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on 2012-02-17. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  4. ^ Block, Alex Ben; Wilson, Lucy Autry (March 30, 2010). George Lucas's blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success. It Books. pp. 212–213. ISBN 978-0-0619-6345-2.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference New York Times 1944 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Dieckhaus 1946 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).