The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Seven Sweethearts

  • 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

  • Paul Marquardt

    German-born Paul Alfred Marquardt (1889-1960) was a composer who worked for many years as an arranger at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and for other studios. Although rarely receiving an onscreen credit, Marquardt made a substantial contribution to MGM’s musical history.

    He orchestrated the music for many non-musical films, including Anna Karenina (1935), Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936), Captains Courageous (1937), The Women (1939), Northwest Passage (1940), Rebecca (1940),Frank Borzage’s The Mortal Storm (1940), Woman of the Year (1942), Mrs Miniver (1942), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Red River (1948), The Thing from Another World (1951), High Noon (1952) and Friendly Persuasion (1957). Marquardt also composed original scores in the 1930s, including for The Sign of the Cross and A Farewell to Arms (both 1933). He worked on well over 350 films between 1930 and 1957.

    The first of Marquardt’s 39 MGM musicals was The Cuban Love Song, collaborating with Charles Maxwell. This was followed by Dancing Lady, The Merry Widow, The Night is Young, Naughty Marietta, Reckless, Here Comes the Band, A Night at the Opera, The Great Ziegfeld, San Francisco. Maytime, A Day at the Races, The Firefly, Rosalie, Everybody Sing, The Girl of the Golden West, The Great Waltz, Sweethearts (in which he also appeared as a conductor), The Wizard of Oz (credited for orchestral and vocal arrangements), Babes in Arms, At the Circus, Balalaika, New Moon, Hullabaloo, Rio Rita, I Married an Angel, Seven Sweethearts, Presenting Lily Mars, Thousands Cheer, Ziegfeld Follies, Holiday in Mexico, Easter Parade, The Kissing Bandit, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, The Barkeleys of Broadway, That Midnight Kiss, Annie Get Your Gun, Royal Wedding and Show Boat.

  • Cecilia Parker

    Cecilia Parker (1914-93) and her family emigrated from Canada to Los Angeles when she was a child, which was the gateway to her obtaining extra work and a place on a training course at Fox Studios.

    Aged 16, she appeared (literally) alongside her younger sister Linda, playing Siamese twins in A Lady’s Morals. She went on to play in three other MGM musicals: Naughty Marietta, Love Finds Andy Hardy and Seven Sweethearts.

    Cecilia Parker was in all but two of the Andy Hardy pictures, playing Andy’s sister, having previously appeared, as the love interest, in the series’s progenitor, Ah, Wilderness! (1935). 

    Parker more or less retired from acting in 1942, but returned for the failed Andy Hardy revival, Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958).

  • Blanche Sewell

    Blanche Irene Sewell (1898-1949) died far too young, but had become one of the most talented of all Hollywood editors and a seminal influence on the MGM musical style . After training under pioneer Viola Lawrence, Sewell became a full-fledged editor at MGM in 1925 and spent the rest of her career there.

    She was the sister-in-law of Walt Disney, and it is generally accepted that she tutored him on the principles of editing and was very influential, in particular, on the form of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

    Sewell cut some of Metro’s most memorable pictures of the 1930s, including Grand Hotel, Red Dust and Queen Christina. In the 1940s, she edited twenty films, fourteen of which were musicals. 

    Sewell’s involvement with musicals began in 1930 with Children of Pleasure, after which she cut Naughty Marietta, Broadway Melody of 1936, Rose-Marie, Born to Dance, Broadway Melody of 1938, Rosalie and Listen Darling.

    In 1939, Sewell was chosen to edit The Wizard of Oz, and it was claimed that this was in the hope she could bring to it some of the magic that Disney had produced in Snow White.

    After this cameBroadway Melody of 1940, Go West, Ziegfeld Girl, Ship Ahoy, Panama Hattie, Seven Sweethearts, Du Barry Was a Lady, Best Foot Forward, Bathing Beauty, Easy to Wed, It Happened in Brooklyn, Fiesta andThe Pirate. Sewell’s last work, shortly before her death, was on Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

  • Leonard Smith

    Leonard Smith (1894-1947) photographed his first film in 1915 and spent most of his career at Metro. He was nominated four times for an Academy Award, finally winning for The Yearling shortly before his death. Smith was best known for his Technicolor work, but most of the thirteen musicals he worked on were in black and white. 

    In the 1929-30 period Smith shot So This Is College, They Learned About Women and Free and Easy. 

    After a seven-year break he worked uncredited on A Day at the Races and Rosalie, photographed Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, then shot the Marx Brothers next two pictures, At the Circus and Go West.

    There followed Ship Ahoy and uncredited work on I Married an Angel and Seven Sweethearts. Finally, Smith photographed Best Foot Forward and Broadway Rhythm in colour.

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