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The Best Things in Life Are Free
The Best Things in Life Are Free
	film poster
Directed by	Michael Curtiz
Screenplay by	William Bowers; Phoebe Ephron; Frank Tashlin (uncredited)
Story by	John O'Hara
Produced by	Henry Ephron
Starring	Gordon MacRae; Dan Dailey; Ernest Borgnine; Sheree North; Tommy Noonan; Murvyn Vye; Phyllis Avery; Larry Keating; Tony Galento; Norman Brooks
Cinematography	Leon Shamroy
Edited by	Dorothy Spencer
Music by	Lionel Newman
Production; company	20th Century Fox
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	September 28, 1956;
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.16 million
Box office	$2.7 million

The Best Things in Life Are Free is a 1956 American musical film directed by Michael Curtiz. The film stars Gordon MacRae, Dan Dailey, and Ernest Borgnine as the real-life songwriting team of Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and Sheree North as Kitty Kane, a singer (possibly based on Helen Kane).

In 1957, the year after the film was released, it received an Oscar nomination for Lionel Newman in the category of Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

Plot

Cast

Gordon MacRae as Buddy DeSylva
Dan Dailey as Ray Henderson
Ernest Borgnine as Lew Brown
Sheree North as Kitty Kane
Tommy Noonan as Carl Frisbee
Murvyn Vye as Manny Costain
Phyllis Avery as Maggie Henderson
Larry Keating as Winfield Sheehan
Tony Galento as Fingers
Norman Brooks as Al Jolson
Jacques d'Amboise as Specialty dancer
Roxanne Arlen as Perky Nichols
Byron Palmer as Hollywood star
Gordon Richards as Butler

Reception

Critical response

Premiering in September 1956, The Best Things in Life Are Free was met with mixed reviews. Some reviews^{[citation needed]} called it "the biggest new musical this year"^{[citation needed]} and others "a musical-comedy that could've been produced on a higher budget with bigger and better production numbers".^{[citation needed]}

Box-office performance

Being a musical, though a modestly produced one, the movie was fairly expensive to produce. The film ended with a budget of $2.86 million and made just over $4 million at the box office, earning $2,250,000 in North American rentals in 1956.^[2]