 Buster Keaton (qv) was working as a gag writer at MGM when this  movie was made. The filmmakers approached him to devise a way for a  violin to get broken that would be both comic and plausible. Keaton  came up with an appropriate fall, and the filmmakers then realized  he was the only one who would be able to execute it properly, so  they cast him in the film. Keaton also devised the sequence in which  Van Johnson (I) (qv) inadvertently wrecks  Judy Garland (I) (qv)s hat, and coached Johnson intensively in  how to perform the scene. This was the first MGM film Keaton  appeared in since being fired from the studio in 1933.