Bob Crosby: Let's Make Music. Original printing.

Hollywood: RKO Radio Pictures, 1940.. Original poster for the movie. 41 x 27 inches. Folded.Marginal tears without loss.Director: Leslie GoodwinsWriters: Nathanael West (screenplay), Helen Phillips (special dialogue: Bob Crosby) Stars: Bob Crosby, Jean Rogers, Elisabeth Risdon. In April 1940 Nathanael West, then a contract writer at RKO Pictures, was asked to work on a script, tentatively named Malvina Swings It, which writer Charles Roberts failed to complete satisfactorily. After working on the screenplay for almost ten nonconsecutive weeks, West had turned it into Let's Make Music, which hoped to benefit from Bob Crosby's popularity. The rewriting was so significant West received solo screenwriting credit.With the size of her classes dwindling each year, Newton High music teacher Malvina Adams is asked to retire. Trying to prove she's still got it, she composes a school fight song which finds its way into the hands of bandleader Bob Crosby who turns it into an overnight hit. Over the protestations of her stuffy niece Abby, Malvina travels to New York and performs her song with Bob's band and becomes even more popular. The newness of the song fades quickly though, and, faced with becoming a flash-in-the-pan, Malvina tries to write one last hit song before giving up and returning to Newton.—Doug Sederberg