Editing Penny Serenade (section)

===Development=== 
For $25,000, Columbia Pictures purchased the rights to a story by [[Martha Cheavens]] published in ''[[McCall's]]'' and engaged Cheavens as script consultant.<ref name=afi>{{cite web |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/27033|title=Penny Serenade (1941)|work=[[American Film Institute]] Catalog|year=2020|access-date=February 23, 2020}}</ref> [[Morrie Ryskind]] was credited for the screenplay.

The film depicts the passage of time through the playing of songs. According to [[George Stevens]]' papers stored at the [[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]] library, Stevens kept close track of the chronology of the songs to accurately match them to the different time periods in the script. These songs include "[[The Japanese Sandman]]", "[[These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)|These Foolish Things]]", "[[1927 in music|Just a Memory]]", "[[Three O'Clock in the Morning]]", "[[Ain't We Got Fun]]", and "[[The Prisoner's Song]]".<ref name=afi/>