Today's Peter Schickele broadcast dealt w/ instances of what could be
called under appropriate circumstances musical plagiarism, borrowing,
adaptation, or mere coincidences, w/ examples from popular as well as
classical music.  The melodic similarity between the third movement of
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and the last movement of Mozart's 40th was one
such.  A similarity between a Beatles song and one composed by PS himself
was another.)

This suddenly reminded me of a 1944 movie called *Kansas City Kitty*
of which I remember very little.  I do remember that the Joan Davis
character (a song publisher) was involved in what I guess was a copyright
infringement suit for promoting a song allegedly written by a roving
cowboy from "way down South in West Dakota" called "Kansas City Kitty",
the plaintiff claiming it was stolen from a song he had written called
"Minnesota Minnie".  The case goes to trial in the course of which an
expert witness plays what I think was some well known piece (classical
maybe?) in the course of which the Kansas City/ Minnesota theme injects
itself.

Does anybody else reading this remember the movie and, possibly the music
to which the songs subject to litigation bore similarity?

"The movie ends, incidentally, after the trial, when the judge takes Joan
Davis aside to play for her a song he had been working on called
"California Callie".

Walter Meyer