Beautiful Girl (Bing Crosby song)

"Beautiful Girl" is a song with music by Nacio Herb Brown and lyrics by Arthur Freed, first published in 1933. It was originally written for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Stage Mother (1933) and appeared the same year in another MGM production – Going Hollywood (1933), where it was sung by Bing Crosby, whose rendition charted in the US at number 11 for 3 weeks.

Background
"Beautiful Girl" was introduced by a vaudeville singer and actor Sam Ash in a pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture Stage Mother (1933). It appeared in a show sequence, where it was danced to by Maureen O'Sullivan. The original arrangement and orchestration of the song was made by Jack Virgil and was conducted by Lou Silvers. The master recording of Ash's version was on August 7, 1933.

The first commercial recording of "Beautiful Girl" however, was made by Freddy Martin and his Orchestra on September 20, 1933. A version recorded a week later by Bing Crosby with Lennie Hayton's Orchestra became a hit, charting at number 11 on Billboard for 3 weeks. Released in December the same year Going Hollywood (1933) contained another interpretation of the song by Crosby, in a different key.

According to the labels on shellac records, the target dance for "Beautiful Girl" is the foxtrot.

Re-arranged by Roger Edens and Conrad Salinger, the song appeared in a musical film Singin' in the Rain (1952). Under the direction of returning Lennie Hayton, it was sung by Jimmie Thompson during the "Beautiful Girl Montage" segment.