Trivia

Judy Garland, who played real-life singer-dancer Marilyn Miller, was pregnant with her first daughter, Liza Minnelli. She was placed behind stacks of dishes while singing "Look For the Silver Lining", but it was not to "hide her belly" as some have thought, because moments before her number, she is shown walking over to the set and even during her song as she is standing behind the dishes, her abdomen is not disguised.

Judy Garland sings two numbers in this movie: "Look for the Silver Lining" and "Who?" She also sang "Do You Love Me?", but it was cut before release. Her sequences were filmed by her husband, Vincente Minnelli.

Because of disagreements Robert Walker was having with his MGM bosses, they billed the rest of the cast first, and then "and Robert Walker as Jerome Kern". Since the preceding ten members of the credited cast were billed in alphabetical order, starting with June Allyson and ending with Frank Sinatra, adding Walker's name at the end also conveniently fitted that format, and so made sense both ways.

The opening verse to "Ol' Man River" ("Dere's an ol' man called the Mississippi,/Dat's the ol' man that I'd like to be...," et cetera) is never sung in this movie, not even in the "opening night" sequence of "Show Boat".

Lucille Bremer played Sally Hessler, who is supposed to be many years younger than Robert Walker's character Jerome Kern. The actress was more than a year older than him.

Kathryn Grayson again portrayed Magnolia Hawks in O Barco das Ilusões (1951).

During the circus horseback sequence in the show "Sunny", Judy Garland was doubled by a professional rider from the Ringling Brothers Circus. The switch was made when the extras crowd around her just before she enters the ring and goes to the horse. The camera is far enough away for the rest of the sequence that the face of the double is not clear.

Lena Horne was originally filmed singing "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" and "Bill" in the "Show Boat" scene, but the studio eventually deleted "Bill".

It had long been rumored that Kathryn Grayson vaulted to stardom based on the interest taken in her by a powerful, unnamed MGM executive. This was borne out when Grayson announced her engagement to handsome baritone Johnny Johnston during filming of this movie, in which both singers appeared. Pressured to break the engagement by said executive, Grayson refused, realizing that she was now too bankable a star to be penalized. This was true, so the executive exacted his revenge instead on Johnston, deleting both of his musical numbers ("Dearly Beloved" and "The Song is You") from the release print. Though he had just recently been signed by the studio, Johnston appeared in only one MGM movie, opposite Esther Williams in This Time for Keeps (1947), before he was unceremoniously dropped from MGM's roster. Grayson and Johnston did in fact marry, in 1947, but the union didn't last, and Johnston made only one more appearance of note, in 1951, as the leading man in Broadway's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn".

This movie featured Dame Angela Lansbury performing as a London music hall soubrette, swinging in a London vaudeville music hall production number. All of her previous MGM musicals had her singing performances dubbed. She convinced Producer Arthur Freed that she should do her own singing, as a London music hall soubrette, a light lyric soprano with a very youthful voice. Coloratura and soubrette are very closely related. A coloratura will have the flexibility and a few more usable notes on top, while a soubrette is required to have low "A"s. Her London music hall "swing" number was choreographed by Hermes Pan with a ton of dancing chorus boys, elaborate sets, and costumes. She was twenty in 1945 when the sequence was filmed. Judy Garland, at age twenty-two, performed her "Till the Clouds Roll By" production numbers, directed and staged by her new husband Vincente Minnelli. There is only one MGM stage on the lot where the theatre scenes were always filmed. The stage, located in the middle of the lot, is on the main street dividing the lot in half. The elephant doors on this filming stage, centered in the soundstage exterior/interior wall, is raised off the main street approximately five feet off the street ground level (when it rained heavily,, this main street was a conduit for flash flooding because of the street's downhill grade, from the main gate to the back gate). This stage was the interior back wall of the raised theatre stage, where all musical stage production numbers were filmed. All scenery had to be loaded into the stage off trucks (scenery was usually built in the studio carpenter shop and mill). The stage had a complete counterweight pin rail system, with arbor pipes for stage lighting fixtures, hanging drops, scenery, drapery legs and borders, stage lighting, et cetera. The stage was thirty feet deep, with the front of the stage apron dropping into an orchestra pit. This interior four-foot-high raised stage floor with a centered stage pit, a floor pit cover, removable to configure for filming requirements of production numbers. In front of the footlights stage apron was another pit, with a floor pit cover, allowing for the orchestra-size area configuration as required, including allowances for a prompter's box position center stage, and for a conductor center podium position. The theatre's raised four feet high stage" had a stage pit for water sequences if needed. Normally, studio lighting was carbon arc fixtures. Electric "stage lights" were used as set dressing on the stage arbor pipes, with carbon arc lamps hung on scaffolding over the set, actually lighting the production number. The other part-half of the stage was raised one foot off of ground level, where a theatre audience area could be installed. The stage configuration had a frame for the stage proscenium, which could be re-configured scenically, to represent different styles of theatre prosceniums. The sides of the stage were wide enough for European-style theatre box seating, with a rear balcony over the raked main audience area, usually built for the theatre (stage) audience floor. Otherwise, the actual stage floor was level. The audience armchair seats were all arranged on rails for easy access to strike for camera positions. This also allowed aisles to be configured, either a center aisle down the middle, or two aisles dividing the center seats and side seat flanks. The "studio theatre" never had an overhead ceiling. Should a ceiling be seen in the finished movie, this was accomplished with a matte shot. Chandeliers could be hung for set dressing the theatre audience area. Every musical production number, supposedly in a theatre, showing an audience, with an orchestra, was filmed on this stage. When no movie musical production numbers were being required for the stage's filming schedule, other productions used the stage for normal stage sets required for dramatic and comedy subject movies. Stage scaffolding installed over the stage set was hung from the stage ceiling rafters.

Uncredited theatrical movie debut of Irene Vernon (Showgirl).

Johnny Johnston's musical numbers were dropped from this film because an MGM exec was jealous of his relationship to Kathryn Grayson. However he can still be seen if only in a long shot in the final scene. After Frank Sinatra finishes Ole Man River, the camera pulls back to reveal all the singers placed on various pedestals. Kathryn Grayson is on the far left. Johnny Johnston is on the pedestal next to hers.

Lucille Bremer's vocals are dubbed by Trudy Erwin,

In the release print, two of the Jerome Kern songs were edited to remove their verses: Judy Garland's production number "Who?" (lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto A. Harbach), and Virginia O'Brien's "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" (lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II). Recordings with the verses (but just a partial verse for Garland, and also a less elaborate last chorus without the movie's choir) were made available on the MGM Records soundtrack album. In the CD era, both pre-recordings with their verses are presented on a soundtrack disc from the British label Prism.