Three Little Words | |
---|---|
Directed by | Richard Thorpe |
Written by | George Wells |
Produced by | Jack Cummings |
Starring | Fred Astaire Red Skelton Vera-Ellen Arlene Dahl |
Cinematography | Harry Jackson |
Edited by | Ben Lewis |
Music by | André Previn Harry Ruby |
Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Loew's, Inc. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 102 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,470,000[1] |
Box office | $4,526,000[1] |
Three Little Words is a 1950 American musical film biography of the Tin Pan Alley songwriting partnership of Kalmar and Ruby. It stars Fred Astaire as lyricist Bert Kalmar and Red Skelton as composer Harry Ruby, along with Vera-Ellen and Arlene Dahl as their wives, with Debbie Reynolds in a small but notable role as singer Helen Kane and Gloria DeHaven as her own mother, Mrs. Carter DeHaven.
The film, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was written by Academy-Award-winning screenwriter George Wells, directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Jack Cummings. Harry Ruby served as a consultant on the project and appears in a cameo role as a baseball catcher. The third in a series of MGM biopics about Broadway composers, it was preceded by Till the Clouds Roll By (Jerome Kern, 1946) and Words and Music (Rodgers and Hart, 1948) and followed by Deep in My Heart (Sigmund Romberg, 1954).