The mature roles undertaken by Robert Montgomery (real name Henry) (1904-1981) include the killer Danny in Night Must Fall (1937), a naval commander in They Were Expendable (1945) and Philip Marlowe in The Lady in the Lake (1947). It is easy to forget that he started out playing a jock named Biff in So This is College and predominantly worked in light comedies.
By no means a gifted singer, Montgomery still performed in three early MGM musicals. As well as So This Is College, he made Free and Easy and Love in the Rough in quick succession, then called it a day with musicals, apart from archive footage of him at a premiere in Going Hollywood.
Later in life Montgomery asserted that So This Is College had shown him that making a picture is a “great co-operative project”. This is arguably more true of musicals than any other type of film.
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