“Have You Ever Been in Heaven” (1937)

Just to keep things confusing, there was another 1937 quasi-all-star movie with “Merry-Go-Round” in the title, this one is “Manhattan Merry-Go-Round,” but this one was from Republic Pictures. 

The eclectic cast includes Gene Autry, who was under contract to Republic at the time, but also slugger Joe DiMaggio! An interesting footnote is that Joe met his first wife, Dorothy Arnold, on the set! 

The song “Have You Ever Been in Heaven” gets a very snappy treatment from trumpet star Bunny Berigan and his band with vocalist Gail Reese on Victor:

 

Two things I hear about Bunny’s band a lot are that although he’s brilliant, his band wasn’t so great and that it’s too bad he had to record so many pop songs that Victor foisted upon him. I say he had a great band and that I love hearing songs like this!