The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Music for Millions

  • Edwin B Willis

    Edwin Booth Willis (1893-1963) worked on the design of over 800 MGM pictures, in a career lasting a little over thirty years. He was nominated for Academy Awards 32 times, and won on eight occasions. In broad terms, Willis was an art director, but his specialism was set decoration and the bulk of his credits were in this capacity. 

    After working as an art director for Tiffany Pictures in the 1920s, Willis worked exclusively for Metro, obtaining three types of credit: Associate Art Director (AAD), Interior Decorations (ID) and Set Decorator (SD). He did early work as SD on Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925).

    Willis worked on some of the studio’s major critical and commercial successes, including Queen Christina (1933, for ID), The Thin Man (1934, as AAD), Anna Karenina (1935, as AAD, Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936, as AAD), Camille (1936, as AAD), The Good Earth (1937, as AAD), Captains Courageous (1937, as AAD), Boys’ Town (1938, as AAD), The Women (1939), Ninotchka (1939, as SD), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Waterloo Bridge (1940), Pride and Prejudice (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Blossoms in the Dust (1941, winning an Oscar), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941), Woman of the Year (1942), Mrs Miniver (1942), Lassie Come Home (1943), Madame Curie (1943), Gaslight (1944, winning an Oscar), John Ford’s They Were Expendable (1944), The Yearling (1946, winning an Oscar), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), State of the Union (1948), Act of Violence (1948), Intruder in the Dust (1949), Little Women (1949, winning an Oscar), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Red Badge of Courage (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful 1952, winning an Oscar), Julius Caesar (1953, winning an Oscar), Bad Day at  Black Rock (1955), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956, winning an Oscar), Forbidden Planet (1956) and Lust for Life (1956).

    Willis had a particularly extensive collaboration with Vincente Minnelli, decorating most of his musical and non-musical pictures

    Edwin B Willis contributed to 153 musicals, around 70 per cent of MGM’s total output. It could be argued that this makes him the single most influential figure on the look of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical. The pictures were:

    Broadway to Hollywood

    Stage Mother (ID)

    Dancing Lady (ID)

    Going Hollywood (ID)

    The Cat and the Fiddle (ID)

    Hollywood Party (ID)

    Student Tour (AAD)

    The Merry Widow (AAD)

    The Night is Young (AAD/SD)

    Naughty Marietta (AAD)

    Reckless (AAD)

    Broadway Melody of 1936 (AAD)

    Here Comes the Band (AAD)

    A Night at the Opera (AAD)

    Rose Marie (AAD)

    The Great Ziegfeld (AAD)

    San Francisco (AAD)

    Born to Dance (AAD)

    Maytime (AAD)

    A Day at the Races (AAD)

    Broadway Melody of 1938 (AAD)

    The Firefly (AAD)

    Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry (AAD)

    Rosalie (AAD)

    Everybody Sing (AAD)

    The Girl of the Golden West (AAD)

    Listen, Darling (AAD)

    The Great Waltz (AAD)

    Sweethearts

    Honolulu

    Let Freedom Ring

    Ice Follies of 1939

    The Wizard of Oz

    Babes in Arms

    At the Circus

    Balalaika

    Broadway Melody of 1940

    New Moon

    Strike Up the Band

    Hullabaloo (Associate Set Decorator, uncredited)

    Bitter Sweet

    Little Nellie Kelly

    Go West

    Free and Easy

    Ziegfeld Girl

    The Big Store

    Lady Be Good

    The Chocolate Soldier

    Smilin’ Through

    Babes on Broadway

    Born to Sing

    Ship Ahoy

    Rio Rita

    I Married an Angel

    Cairo

    Panama Hattie

    For Me and My Gal

    Seven Sweethearts

    Cabin in the Sky

    Presenting Lily Mars

    Du Barry was a Lady

    Best Foot Forward

    Thousands Cheer

    Swing Fever

    Girl Crazy

    Broadway Rhythm

    Two Girls and a Sailor

    Meet the People

    Bathing Beauty

    Meet Me in St Louis

    Music for Millions

    Thrill of a Romance

    Anchors Aweigh

    Ziegfeld Follies

    Yolanda and the Thief

    The Harvey Girls

    Two Sister from Boston

    Easy to Wed

    Holiday in Mexico

    No Leave, No Love

    Till the Clouds Roll By

    It Happened in Brooklyn

    Living in a Big Way

    Fiesta

    The Unfinished Dance

    Good News

    Summer Holiday

    On an Island With You

    The Pirate

    Easter Parade

    A Date with Judy

    Luxury Liner

    The Kissing Bandit

    Words and Music

    Take Me Out to the Ball Game

    The Barkeleys of Broadway

    Neptune’s Daughter

    In the Good Old Summertime

    That Midnight Kiss

    On the Town

    Nancy Goes to Rio

    Annie Get Your Gun

    Three Little Words

    Duchess of Idaho

    The Toast of New Orleans

    Summer Stock

    Two Weeks with Love

    Pagan Love Song

    Grounds for Marriage

    Royal Wedding

    The Great Caruso

    Excuse My Dust

    Rich, Young and Pretty

    Show Boat

    An American in Paris (winning an Oscar)

    The Strip

    Texas Carnival

    The Belle of New York

    Singin’ in the Rain

    Skirts Ahoy

    Lovely to Look At

    The Merry Widow

    Because You’re Mine

    Everything I Have is Yours

    Lili

    I Love Melvin

    Small Town Girl

    Dangerous When Wet

    The Band Wagon

    Latin Lovers

    The Affairs of Dobie Gillis

    Torch Song

    Kiss Me Kate

    Easy to  Love

    Rose Marie

    The Student Prince

    Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

    Brigadoon

    Athena 

    Deep in My Heart

    Jupiter’s Darling

    Hit the Deck

    The Glass Slipper

    Interrupted Melody

    Love Me or Leave Me

    It’s Always Fair Weather

    Kismet

    Meet Me in Las Vegas

    High Society

    The Opposite Sex

    Ten Thousand Bedrooms

    Silk Stockings

    Les Girls

  • Jimmy Durante

    James Francis Durante (1893-1980) had what in Britain might be called a Marmite personality: some people loved him, others hated him. For some, a little went a long way. (Personally, I’m a fan.) But what is undeniable is that Jimmy Durante had the longest career of any performer starring in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals. It began in 1931, ended in 1962, and included eleven pictures across all four decades.

    Durante started out in show business playing ragtime piano, and developed humour out of the musical performance. This led to vaudeville, and then radio, with time spent as part of a three-man comedy act. 

    He made his film debut in 1930, at Paramount’s New York studios. By the following year he was in Hollywood, working for Metro. Jimmy Durante, throughout his career, moved seamlessly between films, Broadway, radio, records and, later on, television. In 1934, for example, he made films in New York because he was appearing on Broadway in Jumbo, which he would film twenty-eight years later.

    Durante was sometimes the leading man in films; for instance, Palooka (1934), where he got top billing over Lupe Velez. More often, however, he was third or fourth billed, providing comic support.

    Durante’s first MGM musical, this time billed below Lupe Velez, was The Cuban Love Song. This was followed by Broadway to Hollywood and Hollywood Party (playing versions of himself), then Student Tour, Two Girls and a Sailor, Music for Millions, Two Sisters from Boston, It Happened in Brooklyn, This Time for Keeps, On an Island with You and, finally, Billy Rose’s Jumbo.

    Durante’s last big screen appearance was in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), but he continued to work on television. 

  • Broderick O’Farrell

    George William Broderick O’Farrell (1882-1955) had the rare privilege of making his first film in his hometown (Angelenos excluded, of course). Portland in Oregon was home to the American Lifeograph Company, the brainchild of some local filmmakers. It only produced about five pictures in as many years (1915-20), but still gave O’Farrell his break in The Golden Trail (1920), which was co-directed by Jean Hersholt. The company’s facilities were also used by other filmmakers.

    O’Farrell eventually relocated to Los Angeles, and by 1949 had appeared in more than 200 films. He was in some very good features, but always uncredited.

    He turned up in seven MGM musicals. Love in the Rough was followed by Flying High, Nobody’s Baby, Born to Sing, Ship Ahoy, Music for Millions and Two Sisters from Boston.

  • Harry Burns

    Some confusion surrounds Harry Burns, who played the gardener in Love in the Rough.

    IMDb asserts confidently that he was born in 1887, died in 1948, and in between was married to actor Dorothy Vernon. It says he was an actor who made 15 films between 1915 and 1920, took a ten-year break, then made another 39 appearances between Love in the Rough and 1948, two of which were in Music for Millions and It Happened in Brooklyn. IMDb also claims Burns was the father of Bobby Vernon, even though Bobby was only ten years younger, but we will not go there.

    According to the AFI Catalog, Harry Burns acted in a couple of pictures in 1923-24, but was mainly a director at that time, notably of a series of films starring Joe Martin the Chimp (no space here, but Joe is worth looking up).

    As a further complication, the New York Times reported, in 1939 (not 1948), the death of “Harry Burns, former film director for William Fox and other early film producers and one-time publisher of Filmograph”. It notes that, at the time of his death, he had been working as an extra and was a champion for better treatment for extra players, and that his widow was Dorothy Vernon.

    Which leads to a second IMDb entry, for director Harry Burns (1882-1939), also married to Dorothy Vernon.

    It seems pretty clear that there were two men called Harry Burns making films in the same period and, probably the 1887-1948 version who made appearances in two MGM musicals. The silent pictures attributed to him by IMDb must belong to the 1882-1939 Harry Burns (especially given that one of them starred the aforesaid Joe Martin the Chimp.

    He was also the one married to Dorothy Vernon. He may well have been the father of Bobby Vernon, but, if so, was a father at the age of 15.

    Harry Burns, Director

  • Robert Shirley

    Robert Shirley (1904-81), like most of the engineers in Douglas Shearer’s sound department, never received onscreen credit for his work, despite working on some of Metro’s prestige projects. These included Strange Interlude (1932), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

    Shirley’s musicals were They Learned About Women, Reckless, The Wizard of Oz (though everyone seems to have worked on that), Broadway Rhythm, Meet Me in St Louis, Music for Millions, Thrill of a Romance, Anchors Aweigh, Yolanda and the Thief, The Harvey Girls, Two Sisters from Boston,Easy to Wed, Holiday in Mexico and, to round things off nicely, Singin’ in the Rain.

  • Lee Phelps

    Napoleon Bonaparte Kubuck (1893-1953) notched up over 660 film and TV appearances, most of them uncredited.

    Phelps was in twenty MGM musicals: They Learned About Women, The Florodora Girl, A Lady’s Morals, Flying High, Dancing Lady, Reckless, A Night at the Opera, Rose-Marie, The Bohemian Girl, The Great Ziegfeld, Sweethearts, Balalaika, Little Nellie Kelly, Born to Sing (a rare onscreen credit), Music for Millions, Anchors Aweigh, The Harvey Girls, Till the Clouds Roll By, Take Me Out to the Ball Game and That Midnight Kiss. 

  • Sam McDaniel

    Samuel Rufus McDaniel (1886-1962) started his show business career singing with his three sisters, including the subsequently renowned Hattie. Like most Black actors, his Hollywood career was largely limited to servants and railway porters, though he was notable as Doc (a cook) in Captains Courageous (1937), even if his name was misspelt in the credits.

    McDaniel’s MGM musical appearances were Hallelujah, Going Hollywood, Music for Millions and Living in a Big Way.

  • George Magrill

    George Magrill (1900-52) was a bit-part player and occasional stunt performer whose work spanned cute cartoon animals and a range of henchmen, hooligans and thugs. When you accumulate around 500 films on your cv, it’s inevitable that some of them will be MGM musicals; in Magrill’s case, thirteen of them.

    Magrill began with Marianne in 1929 and ended with Three Little Words in 1950. In between came New Moon, The Merry Widow, The Bohemian Girl, San Francisco, Rosalie, The Great Waltz, New Moon (again), Meet the People, Music for Millions, Yolanda and the Thief and Good News.    

  • Carl M Leviness

    Carleton Mortimer LeViness (1884-1964) first appeared as the Tragedian in a silent version of Nicholas Nickleby in 1912 and his last appearance was an uncredited bit as a man in the hallway of a newspaper office in The Great Race in 1963. He was in hundreds of films, mostly uncredited, and even spent the period 1914-16 as a director. It was an unobtrusively spectacular career.

    Leviness’s MGM musical appearances were The Broadway Melody, Hollywood Party, Reckless (in all three he played a guest at a party), Nobody’s Baby (for a change of pace, he played an elevator passenger), A Day at the Races (another party guest), Ship Ahoy (as a passenger), Presenting Lily Mars (as a tired man–must have been all the partying), Two Girls and a Sailor (nightclub patron), Music for Millions (theatregoer), Thrill of a Romance (hotel guest), Yolanda and the Thief (as a man who says tally-ho), On an Island With You (desk clerk), The Barkeleys of Broadway (guest at a country house), In the Good Old Summertime (patronizing a supper club), The Toast of New Orleans (eating in a restaurant this time), The Great Caruso (opera-goer, naturally), Small Town Girl (back to being a party guest), The Band Wagon (an investor), Easy to Love (maiitre d’), The Student Prince (churchgoer), Athena (another party guest) and Ten Thousand Bedrooms (another nightclub patron). 

    Twenty-two films: Carl M Leviness definitely did his bit for the MGM musical.

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