In April of 1929 Paramount Pictures filmed a 20 minute short in their studio in Queens, NY. The film featured a 26-year-old Richard Rodgers, a 33-year-old Lorenz Hart, and their hit song "Manhattan!"

The song was originally written in 1922 for a never produced show called Winkle Town. Surprisingly, Rodgers and Hart spent their early years together struggling to get their shows produced and their music published. But that all changed in 1925. "Manhattan" was introduced to the public in a revue called the The Garrick Gaieties, the first successful musical by the duo. Their names began to spread around town and eventually the entire nation with the help of sheet music.

The cover page from sheet music of Rodgers and Hart's 'The Garrick Gaieties'

(Edward B. Marks Music Co./Wikipedia Commons)

Through the remainder of the decade, the duo continued their successes on Broadway with hit shows like The Girl Friend, A Connecticut Yankee, and Present Arms. Creating more timeless hits like "My Heart Stood Still," and "You Took Advantage of Me."

During that same period, the film industry was changing rapidly. With the recent invention of sound pictures in 1927, the industry was forced to poach talent from the existing leader in the world of sound entertainment, Broadway.

The Kaufman Astoria Studios former home of Paramount Pictures

(Jim Henderson/Wikimedia Commons)

So in April 1929, when a theater journalist named S. Jay Kaufman was asked to conceive a short motion picture for Paramount, he decided to jump-off the success of Broadway's new rising duo. 

Makers of Melody is a simple film, highlighting the relationship between composer and lyricists through their struggles and successes. The film progresses through a series of fabricated creation stories for Rodgers and Hart songs like "The Girl Friend," "The Blue Room," and "Manhattan," followed by short performances of the songs by Broadway talents like Inez Courtney and Ruth Tester.  

Though the film is fictional, it is our only on screen glimpse into the relationship between Rodgers and Hart. The two are causally introduced to the audience with their nicknames, Dick and Larry, as well as their senses of humor. Each songwriter possess a first line that depicts a bit about their character and their wit. When told that they are about to be interviewed, Hart sarcastically replies, "Wait till I fix my tie," and Rodgers wittingly adds, "I don't mind as long as you don't ask us what we write first, the words or the music." 

Watch for yourself as one of the most legendary songwriting duos of the 20th century share a bit of themselves on the silver screen: 

Rodgers and Hart wrote for another 14 years together, leaving us with a treasure trove of standards. As a result of the Great Depression they spent many of their final years together writing in Hollywood, but they never starred on the silver screen again.