> During Hollywood's Golden Age the different film studios operated very much like any other factory running then or now. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the place to go for glossy, big, beautiful musicals and it was the Freed Unit that made it happen. MGM had the cream of the crop in film production at their disposal and producer Arthur Freed oversaw production on many titles, mostly musicals, from the mid-1940s and well into the 1950s. Freed himself has 46 credits for producing and The Freed Unit, as it was called, operated like a well oiled machine.

>The Freed Unit brought together the best and brightest in film production and musicals. When it came to stars there was Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Gene Kelly in On the Town (1949) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), and Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957). One of the greatest directors working in The Freed Unit was Vincente Minnelli, who directed Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Gigi (1958), and An American in Paris (1951). Busby Berkeley directed as well as choreographed titles for MGM, including For Me and My Gal (1942) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949).

> After the success of An American in Paris (1951), built around the songs of George Gershwin, and Singin' in the Rain (1952), which used several of his own songs, MGM producer Arthur Freed set out to produce another song catalogue musical. This time he drew on the work of composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz, the latter head of publicity for MGM's parent company, Loew's Inc. Among their hits included in The Band Wagon were "Dancing in the Dark," "By Myself" and "I Guess I'll Have to Change my Plan." Initially, Dietz had turned down the chance to work with Schwartz. The lyricist had made his Broadway debut in 1924 working with the great Jerome Kern on Dear Sir. Schwartz was unknown at the time -- a lawyer planning to quit his firm to focus on music. When he wrote Dietz saying he'd like to try working with him, Dietz told him he didn't want to work with an unknown. The lyricist's next two shows were flops, however, so he was lucky to get a job writing songs with Schwartz for 1929's The Little Show. Their collaboration was so successful they would go on to write over 400 songs together. The project's original title, taken from a Dietz-Schwartz hit that would end up in the movie, was I Love Louisa. Freed decided that I Love Louisa no longer fit the script they were developing. Instead, he proposed The Band Wagon, the title of Astaire's previous Dietz and Schwartz show. Since 20th Century-Fox had bought the film rights (using the score only in their 1949 Dancing in the Dark), he had to buy the title from them for $10,000.