George and Ira Gershwin: selected film songs, six standards composed 1936 to 1937

Excerpt from the article Gershwin Is Still Cause for Rhapsody; Highbrows and Hits: A Fertile Compound
by Paul Simon, published in the New York Times 30 August 1998

[snip]

“INCIDENTALLY, rumors about highbrow music ridiculous. STOP. Am out to write hits.” So George Gershwin wired his agent early in 1936.

Hoping to land a contract with RKO Pictures for the new Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie Shall We Dance, Gershwin was annoyed at a Hollywood studio executive’s suggestion that he might have lost some of his legendary gift for writing hits...

Hollywood, of course, needn’t have worried. In the less than two years that remained in his life (he died of a brain tumor at the age of 38), George and his brother Ira collaborated on three film scores, Shall We Dance, Damsel in Distress, and Goldwyn Follies.

The songs from those films, as melodically inventive and lyrically sophisticated as anything the Gershwins had done, include “They All Laughed,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” and “A Foggy Day.”