Musical Numbers
The film includes five songs and three dances. Cagney's dancing and singing open and close the film, and the opening number also incorporates singing from Rooney and Wyatt's bandmates as well as from Daw.
In one scene on the tramp steamer, Cagney dances with his long-time friends from vaudeville Johnny Boyle and Harland Dixon – two of the major sources of inspiration for his dancing style – which Cagney called one of the great moments of his life and a "privilege". Boyle was the person who taught Cagney George M. Cohan's dancing style, which he later used to good effect in Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Dixon, who staged the dances for Something to Sing About, was Cagney's dance instructor in New York before Cagney's Broadway breakthrough in Penny Arcade in 1930.
The dancing is in Cagney's inimitable style, which mixes vaudeville, tap, jigs, and semi-ballet. According to an article in the New York Times, Cagney would occasionally go over his steps with Fred Astaire before the dances were filmed.
The songs – "Something to Sing About", "Right or Wrong", "Any Old Love", "Out of the Blue" and "Loving You" – were all written, music and lyrics, by the film's director and scenarist, Victor Schertzinger.
Read more about this topic: Something To Sing About (1937 Film)
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