The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Merry Andrew

  • Frank Jenks

    Francis William Albert Jenks (1902-62) had one of those faces that made him stand out in all of his 140-plus films.

    Jenks started out as a teenager, playing the trombone in a band and, after attending university, became a song and dance man in vaudeville. He went to Hollywood in 1933, and his first three screen appearances were as band leaders. Over the next thirty years, Jenks moved smoothly between small, uncredited parts, usually as working men (mailmen, carnies, furniture removers, taxi drivers), and bigger roles fairly high up the credits. Examples of the latter would include the Paramount musical Dancing on a Dime (1940) and the male lead in PRC’s Shake Hands with Murder (1944). He had a small but key role in Barbara Stanwyck’s Christmas in Connecticut (1945).

    Later in life, Jenks worked extensively in television, notably partnered with Alan Mowbray in Colonel Humphrey Flack (1953-59).

    Jenks appeared in four MGM musicals, commencing with Broadway to Hollywood. His most prominent, and only credited, role was in Thousands Cheer. He also acted in Two Girls and a Sailor and was one of Danny Kaye’s fellow clowns in Merry Andrew.

  • Buddy Roosevelt

    Kenneth Stanhope Sanderson (1898-1973) must be considered one of Hollywood’s nearly-men. After slaving away in dozens of Poverty Row westerns for four years, he was finally offered a part in an ‘A’ picture. Roaul Walsh had been forced to give up the role of the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona (1931) following the bizarre car accident that cost him his eye, and the part was given to Buddy Roosevelt. However, just before shooting was scheduled to start, he also had an accident, breaking his leg. The part ended up with Warner Baxter, who won an Academy Award and went on to a successful career. For Roosevelt, it was back to the cheapo westerns.

    Buddy Roosevelt had started out as a Hollywood stuntman in 1916, after spending time as a cowboy. He got his first substantial acting role in 1924, and was soon on the ‘B’ western treadmill. He made occasional appearances in non-westerns, for example playing a secret service agent in Gabriel Over the White House (1933). He also continued to undertake stunt work, and doubled for Ronald Colman in Under Two Flags (1936) and Lost Horizon (1937). Roosevelt continued acting in films and television until 1962, with a final appearance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).

    Roosevelt made uncredited appearances in four Metro musicals, in none of them playing a cowboy: Flying High, Annie Get Your Gun, The Belle of New York and Merry Andrew.

  • James Brock

    James Kendall Brock (1901-63) was a sound recording engineer who spent most of his career at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and worked on sixteen musicals during that time.

    Brock began, under the supervision of Douglas Shearer, on A Lady’s Morals. Here, as for most pictures, he was uncredited.

    Barnes was the sound mixer on The Merry Widow and A Night at the Opera, then sound engineer on The Great Ziegfeld, Maytime, The Girl of the Golden West, Du Barry Was a Lady, On an Island With You, Easter Parade, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, The Band Wagon, Easy to Love, The Student Prince, Interrupted Melody, Merry Andrew and Gigi.

  • Harry Wilson

    The figures of 350+ film and TV appearances by Harry Wilson (1897-1978) is made more impressive by the fact that Wilson worked almost entirely in the sound era, when the turnover of pictures was not so great as in the silent days.

    British-born Wilson dubbed himself ‘the ugliest man in movies’ (though there was competition), and he was many studios’ go-to actor for convicts and criminal henchmen. He features with Mike Mazurki in Some Like it Hot (1959) as one of George Raft’s goons.

    Wilson appeared uncredited in no fewer than fifteen MGM musicals, across more than thirty years and four decades. In the 1930s he made A Lady’s Morals, The Bohemian Girl, A Day at the Races, Let Freedom Ring and The Wizard of Oz (as a Winkie Guard). In the 40s, Wilson was in Go West, Born to Sing, Swing Fever, Luxury Liner and Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

    His 1950s appearances were in Million Dollar Mermaid, It’s Always Fair Weather, Guys and Dolls and Merry Andrew. And finally, in 1963, Wilson played a roustabout in Billy Rose’s Jumbo. 

    As if Wilson was not busy enough making his own films, he worked for fifteen years as Wallace Beery’s stand-in.

  • William H O’Brien

    William H O’Brien (1891-1981) made his first film in Australia in 1918, and in a Hollywood career lasting over fifty years he appeared in around 650 films, almost always without credit. These included Scarface (1931), The Thin Man (1934), Rebecca (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Ace in the Hole (1951), High Noon (1952), Some Like It Hot (1959) and, finally, Bedknobs and Brooksticks (1971).

    With a filmography that long, it is little wonder O’Brien was in thirteen Metro musicals across a 36-year period, starting with Children of Pleasure in 1930 and ending with Made in Paris in 1966. In between came New Moon, A Night at the Opera, San Francisco, Nobody’s Baby, The Firefly, Two Girls on Broadway, Thousands Cheer, Two Sisters from Boston, The Glass Slipper, It’s Always Fair Weather and Merry Andrew.

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