The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Devil-May-Care

  • Bob Kortman

    Robert F Kortman (1887-1967) made around 300 screen appearances in a career lasting the best part of fifty years. The majority of his films were westerns, and was a favoured opponent of William S Hart. 

    The majority of Kortman’s roles were uncredited, but he was in a number of outstanding films, including: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927); The Criminal Code (1931), playing the convict barber who shaves the governor; Beau Geste (1939); The Big Clock (1948); Ace in the Hole (1951); Rancho Notorious (1952); and his last picture, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1961).

    Kortman was also the forest ranger pursuing Laurel and Hardy in one of their early appearances together, Duck Soup (1927).

    Along the way, Kortman made an appearance as one of Ramon Novarro’s fellow Bonapartists in Devil-May-Care.

  • Clifford Bruce

    The AFI Catalog lists Devil-May-Care, made in 1929, as the final credit of the Canadian stage and film actor Clifford Bruce, who died in 1919. On balance, it seems unlikely that it is the same man.

    The Clifford Bruce who played Gaston the butler in the MGM film seems to have no other credited or uncredited roles, at least under that name. So far, he remains a mystery.

  • William Humphrey

    William Jonathan Humphrey (1863-1942) was an actor and director, from 1908 and 1910 respectively. He made around 140 appearances and directed about 80 pictures, with much of his early work being for the Vitagraph Company. He had a lengthy contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from the mid-twenties.

    Humphrey made his screen debut playing Napoleon Bonaparte, a role he returned to at least eight times, including in MGM’s Devil-May-Care.

  • Marion Harris

    Marion Ellen Harris (1896-1944) was a popular jazz and blues singer from 1916 onwards, one of the first white women to record in those genres. She was the first artist to record ‘After You’ve Gone’, ‘I Ain’t Got Nobody’ and ‘It Had to Be You’. Harris also performed in vaudeville and on Broadway. 

    Harris starred in Devil-May-Care, but made only a couple of other minor film appearances.

  • J Clifford Brooke

    Clifford Brooke (1873-1951) may (or may not) be the J Clifford Brooke who is credited with staging a sequence in Devil-May-Care. The AFI Catalogue says no, while IMDb says yes.

    Brooke was a British stage actor, well-known on Broadway as both performer and director, who belatedly worked in Hollywood. His first credited role was in The Sea Hawk (1940) 

  • Ralph Shugart

    Ralph Shugart (1901-50) worked under Douglas Shearer in the MGM sound department from its inception. 

    Shugart was the (mostly uncredited) recording engineer on Marianne, Devil-May-Care, In Gay Madrid, Love in the Rough, Flying High, The Wizard of Oz (where he worked on sound effects) and Bathing Beauty.

  • Conrad A Nervig

    Conrad Albinus Nervig (1889-1980) started out as a lab assistant at Goldwyn Pictures in 1922 and merged with it into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer a couple of years later. He remained under contract for thirty years. 

    Nervig goes down in history as the recipient of the first Academy Award for editing, which he won for Eskimo (1933). He won again in 1950 for his work on King Solomon’s Mines. 

    Musicals edited by Nervig were Devil-May-Care, Call of the Flesh, The Night is Young, Maytime, Honolulu, Hullabaloo, The Big Store, I Married an Angel, No Leave, No Love, The Merry Widow (1952 version) and The Affairs of Dobie Gillis.

    Nervig did military service before joining the film industry, and served briefly on USS Cyclops immediately before its mysterious disappearance with all hands in 1918.

  • Merritt B Gerstad

    Merritt Brindley Edward Gerstad (1900-74) started out as a cinematographer at Universal, where he worked with Tod Browning and Lon Chaney. He followed Chaney to MGM, where they collaborated on Mockery and London After Midnight (both 1927). He later reunited with Browning on Freaks (1932).

    Gerstad shot a number of musicals for Metro before moving on to Warner Bros. They were: Devil-May-Care, Call of the Flesh, Flying High and, as a big finish, A Night at the Opera.

  • Dimitri Tiomkin

    Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin ((1894-1979) was one of the most celebrated Hollywood composers of all time. He was nominated for Oscars 22 times, and won on four occasions: The High and the Mighty (1954), High Noon (winning for both Best Score and Best Song), and The Old Man and the Sea (1958).

    Tiomkin’s contributions to MGM’s musicals were easrly in his career and more modest. He wrote ballet music for Devil-May-Care and The Rogue Song, in both of which the choreography was by Tiomkin’s wife, Albertina Rasch. He also collaborated with Raymond B Egan on the song ‘Blue Daughter of Heaven’ for Lord Byron of Broadway.  

  • Clifford Grey

    Percival Davis (1887-1941) was a prolific lyricist and librettist for the West End and Broadway. His many stage musicals and revues included The Bing Boys are Here and Mr Cinders (1928), from which ‘If You were the Only Girl in the World’ and ‘Spread a Little Happiness’ became standards.

    Like many other songwriters, Grey was invited to Hollywood in 1929, where he worked on the early sound masterpiece, The Love Parade (1929) at Paramount.

    At MGM he wrote regularly with Herbert Stothart in the 1930s, contributing numbers to Devil-May-Care, Montana Moon, The Rogue Song, In Gay Madrid, The Florodora Girl, Call of the Flesh, New Moon and Madam Satan.

    Grey’s lyrics for ‘Like Monday Follows Sunday’ featured in Everything I Have is Yours and Hit the Deck was based on his stage musical from 1927.

    As late as 2010 The Guardian was still perpetuating the myth that Clifford Grey was also an Olympic bobsleigher and winner of a gold medal. This arises from a confusion with athlete Clifford ‘Tippi’ Gray (1892-1968), who also dabbled in songwriting. 

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