''Delicious'' (1931) is an American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

Gershwin musical

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

film starring Janet Gaynor and

Charles Farrell Charles David Farrell (August 9, 1900 – May 6, 1990) was an American film actor of the 1920s silent era and into the 1930s, and later a television actor. Farrell is probably best recalled for his onscreen romances with actress Janet Gaynor ...

, directed by David Butler, with color sequences in

Multicolor Multicolor is a subtractive two-color motion picture process. Multicolor, introduced to the motion picture industry in 1929, was based on the earlier Prizma Color process, and was the forerunner of Cinecolor. For a Multicolor film, a sc ...

(now lost).

Production background

The film features music by

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

, including the introduction of ''Rhapsody in Rivets'', which was expanded by the composer even before the film soundtrack was recorded into the concert work for piano and orchestra '' Second Rhapsody'', regarded today as one of Gershwin's neglected masterpieces. Gershwin also contributed other sequences for the score, but only a five-minute

dream sequence A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other ...

called ''The Melting Pot'' and the six-minute ''Rhapsody in Rivets'' made the final cut.

Fox Film Corporation The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film C ...

rejected the rest of the score. Gaynor plays a Scottish girl emigrating by ship to America who runs afoul of the authorities and has to go on the run, falling in with a ragtag group of immigrant musicians in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Gaynor and Farrell made almost a dozen films together, including Frank Borzage's classics '' Seventh Heaven'' (1927), '' Street Angel'' (1928), and '' Lucky Star'' (1929). Gaynor won the first

Academy Award for Best Actress The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year ...

for the first two and F. W. Murnau's '' Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans''.

Cast

* Janet Gaynor as Heather Gordon *

as Larry Beaumont *

El Brendel Elmer Goodfellow "El" Brendel (March 25, 1890 – April 9, 1964) was an American vaudeville comedian turned movie star, best remembered for his dialect routine as a Swedish immigrant. His biggest role was as "Single-0" in the sci-fi musical ' ...

as Chris Jansen *

Raul Roulien Raul Roulien (born Raul Salvador Intini Pepe; October 8, 1905 – October 8, 2000) was a Brazilian actor, singer, screenwriter and film director.Solomon p.331 He is widely considered the first male Brazilian star in Hollywood. He worked briefly ...

as Sascha *Lawrence O'Sullivan as Detective O'Flynn *Manya Roberti as Olga *

Olive Tell Olive Tell (September 27, 1894 – June 8, 1951) was a stage and screen actress from New York City. Biography Tell was educated in several cities in Europe. She and her younger actress sister Alma graduated from the American Academy of Drama ...

as Mrs. Van Bergh *

Virginia Cherrill Virginia Cherrill (April 12, 1908 – November 14, 1996) was an American actress best known for her role as the blind flower girl in Charlie Chaplin's ''City Lights'' (1931). Early life Virginia Cherrill was born on a farm in rural Carthag ...

as Diana Van Bergh * Mischa Auer as Mischa *Marvine Maazel as Toscha

Preservation status

On December 14, 2011,

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of At ...

aired a print of the film restored by

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

. On September 22, 2013, it was announced that a musicological critical edition of the full orchestral score will be eventually released. The Gershwin family, working in conjunction with the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

and the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, are working to make scores available to the public that represent Gershwin's true intent. The entire Gershwin project may take 30 to 40 years to complete, and it is unclear when the score to ''Delicious'' will be released. It will be the first time this score has ever been published.

References

External links

* *
''Delicious'' at TCM Movie Database
* {{David Butler 1931 films 1931 musical comedy films 1931 romantic comedy films 1930s color films American musical comedy films American romantic comedy films American romantic musical films American black-and-white films 1930s English-language films Films about immigration to the United States Films directed by David Butler Films set in New York City Fox Film films George Gershwin in film Films with screenplays by Sonya Levien 1930s American films Silent romantic comedy films

Production background

Cast

Preservation status

See also

References

External links