Theodore Andrew Lorch (1873-1947) was a busy supporting player who notched up over 170 screen appearances, most of those in the sound era being uncredited. His adaptability is indicated by a sample of his work in 1934: an abortionist (The Road to Ruin), a ringmaster (A Modern Hero), an executioner (The Affairs of Cellini), a jury member (Two Heads on a Pillow) and a native fakir (Kid Millions).
Lorch found time to be in three Metro musicals: Free and Easy, A Lady’s Morals and Reckless.
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.
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.
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.
Edward Ward (1896-1971) was a composer and musical director, seven-times Oscar nominated, though with no wins.
In 1930 he co-wrote a number for Chasing Rainbows, later composed music for Reckless, Maytime and The Firefly.
Ward also composed music used in the trailer for Broadway Melody of 1936.
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.
