The House I Live In: History and Collection Facts

Collection details

• Original format: Film, video
• Medium: Film, Video
• Genre: Fiction films
• Language: English
• Collection: Copyright Collection
• Repository: Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division
• Call number: Mavis identifier: 9167
• Catalogue date: 1945
• Catalogue subjects: Fiction films
• Named contributors: Stordahl, Alex; RKO Radio Pictures; Maltz, Albert; Sinatra, Frank

Catalogue notes

• Summary: Frank Sinatra, apparently playing himself, takes a "smoke" break from a recording session. He sees more than 10 boys chasing a Jewish boy and intervenes, first with dialogue; then with a little speech. His main points are that we are "all" Americans and that just one American's blood is as good as another, all our religions are equally to be respected. (The film was made to oppose anti-Semitism and racial prejudice at the end of World War II.) Sinatra sings two songs : "If you are but a dream" (words and music by Moe Jaffe, Jack Fulton, Nat Bonx; melody based on Anton Rubinstein's "Romance in E flat, Op. 44, No. 1," popularly known as "Rubenstein's Romance") and "The house I live in" (music by Earl Robinson, lyrics by Lewis Allan). "Frank Sinatra in brotherhood musical short from 1945 written by Albert Maltz, later blacklisted as leftist RKO Academy Award winner"--Summary from J. Fred MacDonald and Associates film inventory.

Sources and reuse

This guide reorganizes bibliographic facts and catalogue descriptions from the Library of Congress Free to Use and Reuse data package, a published snapshot documented in 2024. The original item record identifies the source material. Audio, films, scores and full-text works are linked through the original record rather than reproduced here.