''Born to Sing'' is a 1942 American

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

directed by

Edward Ludwig Edward Irving Ludwig (October 7, 1899 – August 20, 1982) was a Russian-born American film director and writer. He directed nearly 100 films between 1921 and 1963 (some under the names Edward I. Luddy and Charles Fuhr). Ludwig was also one ...

starring

Virginia Weidler Virginia Anna Adeleid Weidler (March 21, 1927 – July 1, 1968) was an American child actress, popular in Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s. Early life and career Weidler was born on March 21, 1927, in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles County, C ...

and

Ray McDonald Raymondo Antoine McDonald (born September 2, 1984) is a former American football defensive end. He was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the third round of the 2007 NFL Draft. He played college football at Florida, where he was a member o ...

Plot

Frank Eastman is a down-on-his-luck

show tune A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context. T ...

composer. He wrote some music while in prison which was subsequently stolen by well-to-do show promoter Arthur Cartwright. When Eastman's teenage daughter Patsy befriends some boys her age who plead with Cartwright to get Eastman the credit he is due. Cartwright calls the police, claiming

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

. When the boys are arrested, they are placed in the same

paddy wagon A police van (also known as a paddy wagon, meat wagon, divisional van, patrol van, patrol wagon, police wagon, Black Mariah/Maria, police carrier, or in old-fashioned usage, pie wagon) is a type of vehicle operated by police forces. Police vans ...

as gangster Pete Detroit. Pete's gang frees them all. Patsy and the boys decide they can prove Eastman is the true composer if they perform a show before Cartwright's show debuts. They recruit neighborhood children and teens to perform.

Cast

Reception

The film made $298,000 in the US and Canada and $245,000 elsewhere, making MGM a loss of $138,000.

References

External links

*
''Born to Sing''
at

TCMDB 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 A ...

* * 1942 films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films 1940s English-language films 1942 musical films Films with screenplays by Franz Schulz Films directed by Edward Ludwig Films scored by Lennie Hayton American musical films American black-and-white films 1940s American films {{musical-film-stub