Trivia / On the Town

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Frank Sinatra did not want to do the movie, but was talked into it by producer Arthur Freed with the promise that he would be able to sing Leonard Bernstein's ballad "Lonely Town" from the stage version. He was bitter when, after he pre-recorded the song, Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen decided not to film it.
• Breakthrough Hit: The show established the Broadway careers of Comden and Green and Jerome Robbins, and could have done the same for Leonard Bernstein if his mentor Serge Koussevitzky had not convinced him to not dedicate his career to musicals—though this didn't stop him from composing several more.
• Cast the Expert: Any production that can will usually cast a professional (or at least highly trained and experienced) ballet dancer as Ivy because her choreography is so intricate and technical.
• Completely Different Title: In Sweden, the film is called "New York dansar", meaning "New York Dances [/Is Dancing]".
• Cut Song: The only musical numbers retained from the original musical were "New York, New York", "Come Up To My Place", "Miss Turnstiles" and "A Day In New York". Roger Edens composed six new songs for the film to replace the following songs: "I Can Cook, Too", "Some Other Time", "Lucky To Be Me", "Lonely Town", "Carried Away", "I Understand", "Carnegie Hall (Do-Do-Re-Do)", "So Long Baby", "I'm Blue" and "Ya Got Me".
• Descended Creator: In the original Broadway production, Betty Comden and Adolph Green played the roles of Claire and Ozzie.
• Looping Lines: Judy Holliday dubbed in the following line of dialogue for an uncredited bit player billed as Daisy: "The grass is always greener, if ya know what I mean." The line was designed to get a big laugh, but audiences didn't react to it in previews until it was dubbed by Holliday.
• Orphaned Reference: The verse to "Lonely Town" begins with Gabey singing, "Gabey's comin', Gabey's comin' to town." Both the words and the tune of this were an ironic Call-Back to a song cut from the original Broadway production, though later productions have frequently reinstated it.
• The Other Marty: Kirk Douglas told The Huffington Post that he was almost cast as Gabey in the original play:
  George Abbott invited me to audition before Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green for On the Town. I sang a corny old music hall song, "I'm Red Hot Henry Brown (the hottest man in town)" and got the part. I was petrified and came down with a psychosomatic illness — my voice got smaller and smaller as I rehearsed the songs, until it totally disappeared. And so did my big opportunity. John Battles replaced me, and my voice came back.
• Prop Recycling: The chorus girls in the "Club Dixieland" sequence are wearing costumes used previously by MGM chorus dancers in The Harvey Girls.
• Recycled Set: Diamond Eddie's Nightclub, the Congacabana and the Slam-Bang Club are obviously the same set with minimal changes to the scenery. All three are playing some variation on "I Wish I Was Dead."
• Stillborn Franchise: Comden and Green planned a sequel, first as a Broadway Revue then a film. The new head at MGM didn't want Frank Sinatra or Jule Munshin, so it became It's Always Fair Weather.
• What Could Have Been: There was originally supposed to have a How We Got Here prologue, with the three sailors each recalling the events that landed them in night court.

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