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The Best Things in Life Are Free (1956)
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Overview
Release Date:
28 September 1956 (USA) morePlot:
Ray Henderson joins Buddy De Sylva and Lew Brown to form a successful 1920s musical show writing team... more | add synopsisAwards:
Nominated for Oscar. moreUser Comments:
middling biopic of ok songwriters moreCast
(Cast overview, first billed only) | Gordon MacRae | ... | B.G. 'Buddy' De Sylva |
 | Dan Dailey | ... | Ray Henderson |
 | Ernest Borgnine | ... | Lew Brown |
| Sheree North | ... | Kitty Kane |
| Tommy Noonan | ... | Carl Frisbee |
| Murvyn Vye | ... | Manny Costain |
| Phyllis Avery | ... | Maggie Henderson |
| Larry Keating | ... | Winfield Sheehan |
| Tony Galento | ... | Fingers |
| Norman Brooks | ... | Al Jolson |
| Jacques d'Amboise | ... | Specialty dancer |
| Roxanne Arlen | ... | Perky Nichols |
| Byron Palmer | ... | Hollywood star |
| Linda Brace | ... | Jeannie Henderson |
| Patty Lou Hudson | ... | Susie Henderson |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
104 minCountry:
USALanguage:
EnglishColor:
Color (DeLuxe)Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 moreSound Mix:
4-Track StereoMOVIEmeter: 
6% since last week
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Good News moreFAQ
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Henderson, De Sylva, and Brown. Not exactly in the same league as Berlin, Porter, or Rodgers and Hart/Hammerstein. Still, you may know a few of their songs as they've lingered through the years - 'The Birth of the Blues', for example, or 'Button Up Your Overcoat'; they also wrote the campus musical 'Good News'.
The three mismatched songwriters are played here by Gordon MacRae, Dan Dailey, and Ernest Borgnine. Yep, and he even has a song or two. The stand-out though has to be MacRae's superb rendition of 'The Birth of the Blues', in which he proved yet again why he was in the top handful of singers in the movies. Girly support is from Sheree North, but she isn't very memorable. Nor, in fact, is the story of this trio - perhaps musical biopics were tired by 1956, or we were just wise to the cliches.
'The Best Things In Life Are Free' is worth a look when there are no superior musicals on, and is a fairly good example of colour and Cinemascope of the period. But a great musical, it isn't.