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Twenty Million Sweethearts

1934 film by Ray Enright

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ12129881 ↗
Source-derived summary

Twenty Million Sweethearts is a 1934 American Pre-Code musical comedy film directed by Ray Enright and starring Pat O'Brien, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, and the Mills Brothers. The film was remade in 1949 as My Dream Is Yours.

Plot

Agent Russell Edward "Rush" Blake is able to promote the singing tenor waiter Buddy Clayton as a major radio star, while Buddy's wife Peggy Cornell loses out. In the end, Peggy does not lose Buddy to his "twenty million sweethearts" – his female fans.

Cast

Pat O'Brien as Russell Edward "Rush" Blake

Dick Powell as Buddy Clayton

Ginger Rogers as Peggy Cornell

Ted Fio Rito as himself

Allen Jenkins as Uncle Pete

Grant Mitchell as Chester A. Sharpe

Joseph Cawthorn as Mr. Herbert "Herbie" Brokman

Joan Wheeler as Marge, the Receptionist

Henry O'Neill as Lemuel Tappan

Johnny Arthur as Norma Hanson's Secretary

The Mills Brothers as themselves

The Radio Rogues as themselves

George Chandler as Johnny Klinger, radio columnist (uncredited)

Music

The film features the well-known song "I'll String Along with You" by Harry Warren and Al Dubin.

Reception

The film was considered a box-office disappointment for Warner Bros. According to studio records, it earned $821,000 domestically and $392,000 overseas.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Twenty Million Sweethearts” as 1934 film by Ray Enright. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1934, 1949—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1934-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Twenty, Million and Sweethearts can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1934 film by Ray Enright. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12129881. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1934 and 1949.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Twenty Million Sweethearts”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Twenty Million Sweethearts primary sources, Twenty Million Sweethearts archive and Twenty research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Twenty Million Sweethearts”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Twenty Million Sweethearts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.