In 1952, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a film called Singin' in the Rain, starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds, with a score drawn almost entirely from earlier MGM musicals written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown. Composer Brown had been a wealthy Hollywood real-estate investor before he turned to songwriting, while Freed eventually progressed from songwriter to producer at MGM (he was the producer of Singin' in the Rain). The two had written the title song, which provided a wonderful dance sequence for Gene Kelly, for the The Hollywood Revue of 1929, a truly "all-star" show with, among others, Marion Davies, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Jack Benny, Lionel Barrymore, Laurel and Hardy, and Buster Keaton.
