The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Films

  • Charles Brabin

    Charles J Brabin (1882-1957) emigrated from Liverpool to New York in 1900 and found work as a stage actor. In 1908 he joined the Edison company, first as an actor, and later taking up writing and directing. 

    Brabin directed for a variety of studios throughout the silent era, generally with success. The major exception was MGM’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1924) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Brabin began shooting the film in Italy, with George Walsh playing the title character. Irving Thalberg did not like the rushes that were being sent back to Hollywood, and decided to replace both Brabin and Shaw with, respectively, Fred Niblo and Ramon Novarro.

    It would seem no long-term grudges were held on either side, as Brabin did work subsequently for the studio, including on two musicals, Call of the Flesh and Stage Mother. He also had considerable success for MGM with The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932).

    Charles Brabin was married to screen star Theda Bara for 34 years, until her death, one of the most successful of Hollywood marriages.

  • Call of the Flesh

    The Crew

    Charles BrabinDirector
    Dorothy FarnumStory
    John ColtonDialogue
    Herbert StothartComposer
    Clifford GreyLyricist
    Hunt StrombergProducer (uncredited)
    William AxtComposer
    Merritt B GerstadCinematographer
    Cedric GibbonsArt Director
    Conrad A NervigEditor
    Douglas ShearerSound Recording Director
    Ralph ShugartSound Recording Engineer (uncredited)
    David CoxCostume Designer
    Paul LamkoffOrchestration
    George WestmoreMakeup Artist (uncredited)

  • Call of the Flesh

    The Cast

    Ramon NovarroJuan de Dios
    Dorothy JordanMaria Consuelo Vargas
    Ernest TorrenceEsteban
    Nance O’NeilMother Superior
    Renée AdoréeLola
    Mathilde ComontLa Rumbarita
    Russell HoptonCaptain Enrique Vargas
    Sidney D’AlbrookPolice Officer (uncredited)
    Julia GriffithDowager Empress Opera Spectator (uncredited)
    Fred HuestonOpera Spectator (uncredited)
    Lillian LawrenceNun (uncredited)
    Lillian LeightonShawl Vendor (uncredited)
    Adolph MilarPolice Officer (uncredited)
    Rolfe SedanActor in Opera (uncredited)
    Leo WhiteImpressario’s Assistant (uncredited)
    Frank YaconelliFruit Vendor (uncredited)

  • Frank Yaconelli

    No one would claim that Italian-born Francesco Yaconelli (1898-1965) had a distinguished film career, yet after his death a Senate resolution described him as “devoting a lifetime to unselfish service and entertainment to people all over the world”. 

    Yaconelli could most often be seen in cheap westerns, frequently as a Mexican, and sometimes playing the accordion, at which he was proficient. In the mid-twenties he and his brother set up their own studio, for which he both produced and directed a handful of pictures before it was wiped out by the Depression.

    Yaconelli had served in a US aero squadron during the First World War. In the Second World War, he worked as a USO tour director, also performing his vaudeville act. He did the same during the Korean War. It was these activities that secured the citation from the Senate.

    Yaconelli was in four 1930s MGM musicals: Call of the Flesh, A Lady’s Morals, A Night at the Opera and The Firefly. 

  • Fred Hueston

    Fred Hueston (1879-1961) was a British-born actor who appears to have made just sixteen screen appearances in 24 years. 

    Hueston was an opera spectator in Call of the Flesh, and rounded off his screen career playing a critic in Till the Clouds Roll By.

  • Julia Griffith

    Julia Griffith (1880-1961) started out in the theatre, but became a perennial bit-part player in Hollywood, from her debut as ‘town gossip’ in 1923 to her last appearance as ‘committee woman’ twenty years later. She was usually uncredited.

    Griffith can be spotted in four MGM musicals. She was an audience member at the opera in Call of the Flesh, and then a party guest in Hollywood Party. She was back in the audience for A Night at the Opera and later played a committee woman in Girl Crazy.

  • Sidney D’Albrook

    Sidney D’Albrook (1886-1948) notched up over 170 film appearances. He started making shorts in 1914, but his first feature was The Gilded Cage (1916). (I draw the last-named film to attention only because it features a character called Lesbia the Goose Girl.) He also appeared as Ambrose, the brother-in-law, in Hal Roach’s series of shorts about the Spat family.

    When the silent period came to a close, most of D’Albrook’s appearances were uncredited. These included five Metro musicals: Call of the Flesh, A Night at the Opera, The Great Waltz, I Married an Angel and The Unfinished Dance.

  • Russell Hopton

    Harry Russell Hopton (1900-45) was an actor who managed to accumulate over 100 screen appearances in less than twenty years, though his parts had declined to mostly uncredited bits by the time he took his own life in 1945.

    Hopton was in two MGM musicals, most prominently as Dorothy Jordan’s brother in Call of the Flesh. Strangely, in the same year he appeared without credit in New Moon.

    Online sources also cite Russell Hopton as the director of two Poverty Row  ‘B’ films for Conn Pictures in 1936. He certainly did acting work for that studio, so it may well be the same person. If so, and given that he acted in ten films released in 1936, it was a busy year.  

  • Mathilde Comont

    Mathilde Comont (1886-1938) started working in French films for the Gaumont studio in 1908, later working for Max Linder.

    After moving to Hollywood, Comont found regular work, most notably playing the Prince [sic] of Persia in The Thief of Bagdad (1924). She notched up around sixty supporting roles for various studios, including two appearances in Metro musicals, Call of the Flesh and The Cuban Love Song.

  • Renée Adorée

    French actor Jeanne de la Fonte (1898-1933) began performing as a child when she joined her parents in their circus act. As a teenager, she toured as a dancer, making her first film in Australia while on tour there in 1918.

    Adorée arrived in America in 1919 and worked both in vaudeville and the legitimate stage, performing in musical comedies. In 1920 she starred in Raoul Walsh’s The Strongest, based on a novel by French politician Georges Clemenceau.

    A Hollywood star, Adorée appeared opposite John Gilbert in nine films, including The Big Parade (1925), and made four with Ramon Novarro. 

    In spite of her French accent, Adorée made a successful transition to talking pictures, but her career ended abruptly after she contracted tuberculosis. She was cast in Call of the Flesh at Ramon Novarro’s insistence, but was extremely ill throughout production. She died shortly afterwards at the tragically early age of 35. 

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