Herb Magidson while under contract to Warner Bros. to write music for films. In 1934, he won the first Academy Award for Best Original Song along with Con Conrad for his lyrics to "The Continental", used in "The Gay Divorcee" (1934) starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Magidson also co-wrote the lyrics to the 1937 Allie Wrubel song "Gone with the Wind" (no connection to the novel of the same name nor used in the 1939 film). Magidson received Oscar nominations for the songs, "Say a Prayer for the Boys Over There" from the film "Hers to Hold" (1943), and "I'll Buy
Fred Astaire is credited with two important innovations in early film musicals. First, he insisted that a closely tracking dolly camera film a dance routine in as few shots as possible, typically with just four to eight cuts, while holding the dancers in full view at all times. This gave the illusion of an almost stationary camera filming an entire dance in a single shot. Astaire famously quipped: "Either the camera will dance, or I will." Astaire maintained this policy from "The Gay Divorcee" in 1934 onwards until his last film musical, "Finian's Rainbow", made in 1968, when he was overruled by