The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Lord Byron of Broadway

  • Lord Byron of Broadway

    The problem and the failure of Lord Byron of Broadway are epitomized by the central cast, whose acting is painfully bad. None of its three leading players–Charles Kaley, Marion Shilling and Ethelind Terry–had any experience of film acting. Kaley, in fact, was not an actor at all, but a singer and band leader. And the result of this bold (or foolhardy) casting by producer Harry Rapf was to bring the careers of Kaley and Terry to an abrupt halt, while Shilling, who continued acting for a few more years, was relegated to ‘B’ westerns. Lord Byron might have turned out very differently with the originally-announced leads, Bessie Love and William Haines, though it is unlikely Love would have thanked anyone for another dose of noble heartbreak.

    Roy (Charles Kaley) gives Bessie (Gwen Lee) the go by. Kaley is using facial expression #1 (serious), rather than #2 (grinning)

    The lack of substance in the lead players (though Terry does her best) meant that much of the heavy lifting, in terms of light and shade, and of humour, was left to supporting players Cliff Edwards and Benny Rubin. Both were affable players, but neither was capable of holding a picture together.

    The problem with the performances was exacerbated by Rapf’s equally bizarre decision to assign the picture to William Nigh, a third-tier action director attempting to punch above his weight at Hollywood’s biggest studio. Harry Beaumont, of Broadway Melody fame, was brought in to undertake significant reshooting, but was unable to save the film, which drags painfully even though only 80 minutes long. Anne Bauchens, the highly-respected editor of Cecil B DeMille’s films, must have despaired at the material she was given to work with.

    Lord Byron of Broadway is further undermined by an inferior Freed-Brown score. The stand-out song, ‘Should I?,’ is familiar to most musical fans from the snatch of it heard in Singin’ in the Rain. 

    Choreographer Sammy Lee is Berkeleyesque before Berkeley

    The film has the Technicolor sequences that seemed obligatory at the time. The ‘Blue Daughter of Heaven’ number was presumably shot by Beaumont, and does show significant development from his first musical. The camera moves in and out of the stage space, and Sammy Lee’s choreography is even captured in Berkeleyesque overhead shots filmed some months before Berkeley himself came to Hollywood. The geometric patterns are simple and lack Berkeley’s firm control, but they are a brave attempt. 

  • Anne Bauchens

    Roseanne Bauchens (1882-1967) spent forty years as the editor-of-choice for Cecil B DeMille’s pictures, from Carmen (1915) to The Ten Commandments (1956). She even appeared alongside DeMille when he did his cameo in Sunset Boulevard (1950). So highly did DeMille value Bauchens that it was stipulated in his contracts that she was to be his editor. She won an Oscar for North West Mounted Police (1940).

    This meant that Bauchens was the cutter on DeMille’s Metro musical, Madam Satan. Earlier that year, she edited Lord Byron of Broadway. 

  • Henry Sharp

    Henry Thomas Sharp (1892-1966) became a cinematographer in 1920, and went on to become a favourite of Douglas Fairbanks. Films shot by Sharp included Don Q Son of Zorro (1925), The Black Pirate (1926), The Iron Mask (1929) and Fairbanks’s curio, Around the World with Douglas Fairbanks (1931). 

    Sharp also photographed The Marriage Circle (1924) for Ernst Lubitsch and Vidor’s The Crowd (1928)

    Henry Sharp’s two MGM musicals were Lord Byron of Broadway and \love in the Rough.

  • Ray Egan

    Canadian Raymond Blanning Egan (1890-1952) was a regular partner of composer Richard A Whiting, and together they wrote a number of standards, notably including the perennial ‘Ain’t We Got Fun’.

    Egan and Whiting’s ‘The Japanese Sandman’ was performed by Cliff Edwards in Lord Byron of Broadway and, some years later, Lucille Norman sang the poignant ‘Till We Meet Again’ in For Me and My Gal.

  • Richard A Whiting

    Richard Armstrong Whiting (1891-1938) was an important contributor to the Great American Songbook, but his name is probably less than many of his contemporaries. Indeed, while working as a song plugger, Whiting discovered the young George Gershwin.

    Whiting wrote his first successful songs in 1914 and went on to compose a substantial number of standards, including ‘Ain’t We Got Fun,’ ‘Beyond the Blue Horizon’ and ‘Hooray for Hollywood’. He also provided Shirley Temple with her signature tune, ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’.

    White composed music for a number of films, though only rarely for MGM (for example, Red-Headed Woman in 1932). Notably, he provided the songs for Paramount’s Lubitsch musical Monte Carlo (1930). 

    Cliff Edwards performs ‘The Japanese Sandman’ in Lord Byron of Broadway, originally written by Whiting and Ray Egan in 1920. Some years later, Lucille Norman sang ‘Till We Meet Again’ in For Me and My Gal.

  • William Nigh

    Emil Kreuske (1881-1955) was a silent film actor-turned-director and occasional writer, which probably makes him a kind of Poverty Row auteur. He was essentially a ‘B’ movie director, which makes it all the more surprising that he spent a period at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which officially never made ‘B’ pictures.

    Nigh generally made action and adventure stories, and it was a moment of madness when producer Harry Rapf assigned him to direct a musical, Lord Byron of Broadway. He soon regretted it. According to one of the film’s stars, Marion Shilling, Rapf had just lost heavily in the stock market crash when he watched Nigh’s footage. Appalled by what he saw, he yanked Nigh from the project and brought in Harry Beaumont to undertake substantial retakes. But Nigh was accorded a co-director credit, which was quite unusual at MGM. He made no further musicals for the studio and was back on Poverty Row for his next picture.  

  • Larry Steers

    Lawrence Wells Steers (1888-1951) appeared in around 550 films during his thirty-year career, sometimes credited, more often not.

    Twenty-seven of those uncredited roles were in Metro musicals, starting in 1930 with Lord Byron of Broadway. Steers was subsequently in Stage Mother, Dancing Lady, Hollywood Party, Reckless, Here Comes the Band, The Great Ziegfeld, Nobody’s Baby, The Great Waltz, At the Circus, Broadway Melody of 1940, Ziegfeld Girl, Lady Be Good, Two Girls and a Sailor, Meet the People, Ziegfeld Follies (giving the hattrick of MGM Ziegfeld titles), Yolanda and the Thief, Holiday in Mexico, No Leave, No Love, Till the Clouds Roll By, A Date with Judy, The Barkeleys of Broadway, That Midnight Kiss, Annie Get Your Gun, Duchess of Idaho, The Toast of New Orleans and The Great Caruso.

  • Virginia Sale

    Virginia Sale (1899-1992) was a trained character who maintained a career on stage and screen for almost fifty years. Her first film role was as Fifi in French Leave (1927), but she soon began to specialize in playing older women, though still in her twenties. She played many mothers, aunts and spinsters.

    Sale cropped up in three MGM musicals: Lord  Byron of Broadway, the 1930 New Moon and Strike Up the Band.

  • Bill Elliott

    At the height of his career, Gordon Nance (1904-65) was generally billed as Wild Bill Elliott. So named, he featured in dozens of B westerns, mostly produced at Republic and Monogram, the upper end of Poverty Row. Elliott concluded his career playing Lieutenant Andy Doyle in a series of crime pictures for Allied Artists.

    In the thirties, Elliott made uncredited appearances in five MGM musicals: Lord Byron of Broadway, Stage Mother, Dancing Lady, Hollywood Party and Reckless.

  • Iris Adrian

    Iris Adrian Hostetter (1912-84) was at the very beginning of her career when she played an uncredited audience member in Lord Byron of Broadway. She did not go on to stardom of any kind, but maintained a steady career as a reliable and recognizable supporting player, usually as down-to-earth broads. Fourth-billed in Bob Hope’s The Paleface indicates the best amongst her credits. In the 1960s and 70s Adrian became a regular part of the Disney Studio’s live-action stock company.

    Iris Adrian only featured in one other metro musical, uncredited as Mary Lou in Go West.

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