Trivia

Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (1933), retitled The Heart of New York, was the first Hollywood feature film to be shown on regularly scheduled USA television. It was broadcast by W2XBS, New York City, on 5 July 1939, two months after their inauguration of regular service which had begun on 30 April 1939 with the opening of the New York World's Fair. It is one of over 200 titles in the list of independent feature films made available for television presentation by Advance Television Pictures announced in Motion Picture Herald 4 April 1942. At this time, television broadcasting was in its infancy, almost totally curtailed by the advent of World War II, and would not continue to develop until 1945-1946.

Because "bum" in British slang is a vulgar term for the human rear end, the British Board of Film Censors refused to pass the film unless the title was changed. So the British release was called "Hallelujah, I'm a Tramp," a change which required re-recording and reshooting the opening number.

Both Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart have cameos in the film. In the scene where Frank Morgan is photographed with a baby, there is a shot of the photo team. Rodgers is on the left. When the story shifts to Bumper being employed at the bank, Hart is the teller who refuses to cash a $5 check - he has one line but Rodgers has none.

Roland Young was originally cast as Mayor Hastings and filmed almost all the character's scenes, but he fell ill and had to be replaced by Frank Morgan.

The original trailer for "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" said it was the first musical to use rhyming dialogue. It wasn't: two others for which Rodgers and Hart wrote songs, "The Hot Heiress" (1931) and "Love Me Tonight" (1932), preceded it.