For someone who died aged 57, David Poole Fronabarger (1912-69) produced an astonishing body of work; he must have been one of the hardest-working people in Hollywood. He appeared in around 240 feature films and shorts. He contributed to at least 50 screenplays and won an Emmy in 1961 for writing for The Red Skelton Show. And he directed about 65 shorts. He even did some stunt work at the beginning of his career.
O’Brien is probably best known as the lead performer in many Pete Smith Specialties, the series of comedy shorts produced by Pete Smith for MGM from 1935 to 1955. He also directed some of them as David Barclay. The acting in the Pete Smith films was always silent, with Smith himself providing narration. O’Brien was one of the last great adepts at silent cinema, with a particular skill at falls.
Dave O’Brien was in five Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals. In the 1930s he was uncredited in Good News, Madam Satan, Flying High and Student Tour. Two decades later he was Ralph the stage manager in Kiss Me Kate.
Ralph Spence (1890-1949) became a scenarist in 1912, working for the Selig Company, and went on to contribute to over 130 films. His 1925 Broadway play The Gorilla was filmed several times.
Spence worked on three of Metro’s musicals. He provided additional dialogue for The Florodora Girl, and co-wrote the screenplays for Student Tour and Here Comes the Band.
Mary Jane Irving (1913-83) made over sixty screen appearances, despite retiring when she was 25. This was owing to the fact that she made her debut at the age of 3 and had a busy career as a child actor. In her twenties, she also worked as Janet Gaynor’s stand-in.
Irving was 16 when she played Lawrence Gray’s sister in The Florodora Girl. A year or so later, she was one of the students in Student Tour.
British actor Herbert Prior (1867-1954) made his screen debut in 1907. He had featured roles in hundreds of silent features and shorts, including as Mr Jaggers in Great Expectations (1917), but the prominence of his parts declined after the introduction of sound.
Prior was in Children of Pleasure, Flying High and Student Tour.
Harry Rapf (1880-1949) joined MGM on its formation in 1924 and worked as one of the studio’s three production supervisors, under the direction of Irving Thalberg. His son Maurice claimed that Thalberg and his father disliked each other, but then Rapf seemed to struggle to be liked by anyone, especially writers. He is also credited with more Goldwynisms than Sam Goldwyn himself: “I woke up last night with a terrific idea for a movie–but I didn’t like it”. Nonetheless, he was one of the powerful inner circle at Metro.
Rapf did some uncredited work on The Broadway Melody and The Hollywood Revue of 1929, but his first credit on a feature musical was Broadway to Hollywood; it might have been The March of Time if it had not been abandoned. He was uncredited again on Hollywood Party and Student Tour, and next produced Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry and Everybody Sing.
Let Freedom Ring followed, and then Rapf inflicted The Ice Follies of 1939 on Joan Crawford, whom he had brought to Hollywood years earlier and had a relationship with.
Rapf’s final musical effort was on Swing Fever, uncredited.
Sherry Hall (1892-1984) appeared in more than 250 features, almost always without credit.
His Metro musicals were Marianne, Hollywood Party, Student Tour, Here Comes the Band, San Francisco, Born to Dance, Hullabaloo, Words and Music, The Barkeleys of Broadway, Three Little Words and The Strip.
William Axt (1888-1959) was a composer and conductor who joined the MGM music department in 1929 and went on to write hundreds of scores. He composed for a number of musicals, mostly early in his career: Marianne, It’s a Great Life, Devil-May-Care, Chasing Rainbows,The Rogue Song, Free and Easy, Call of the Flesh, Madam Satan, Hollywood Party, The Great Ziegfeld, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Everybody Sing and Listen, Darling.
Axi’s work was also taken off the shelf for use as stock music in New Moon, Student Tour, Balalaika and Little Nellie Kelly .
Nacio Herb Brown (1896-1964) was hired by MGM in 1928 to write scores for sound pictures; it was at a point when synchronized music was still perceived by many as the most promising feature of the new system.
Brown was paired with lyricist Arthur Freed to produce songs for the studio’s first all-talking picture, The Broadway Melody. Their partnership continued for many years as the contributed numbers to The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (in which he and Freed appeared onscreen), Marianne, Lord Byron of Broadway, Montana Moon, Dancing Lady, Going Hollywood, Student Tour, Broadway Melody of 1936, A Night at the Opera, San Francisco, Broadway Melody of 1938, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Ice Follies of 1939, Babes in Arms, Two Girls on Broadway, Hullabaloo, Little Nellie Kelly, Lady Be Good, Born to Sing, Presenting Lily Mars, Meet Me in St Louis, Three Little Words, Pagan Love Song, Singin’ in the Rain and The Affairs of Dobie Gillies.
Brown also worked with other lyricists on It’s a Great Life, Ziegfeld Girl, The Big Store, Swing Fever, Holiday in Mexico, On an Island With You, The Kissing Bandit and Seven Hills of Rome.
No one had a longer connection with MGM musicals than Arthur Freed (1894-1974), starting at the very beginning with The Broadway Melody in 1929 and ending in 1960 with Bells Are Ringing. Of course, his role changed significantly during that period.
Freed had not been working long as a lyricist at MGM when he and composer Nacio Herb Brown were assigned the task of producing the first bespoke score for a film musical. Following the success of The Broadway Melody, Freed’s songs were a mainstay of the studio’s musical output for a quarter of a century. He and Brown contributed numbers to The Hollywood Revue of 1929, Marianne, Lord Byron of Broadway, Montana Moon, Dancing Lady, Going Hollywood, Student Tour, Broadway Melody of 1936, San Francisco, Broadway Melody of 1938, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Ice Follies of 1939, Babes in Arms, Two Girls on Broadway, Hullabaloo, Little Nellie Kelly, Lady Be Good, Born to Sing, Presenting Lily Mars, Meet Me in St Louis, Three Little Words, Pagan Love Song, Singin’ in the Rain and The Affairs of Dobie Gillies
He also worked without Brown on the 1930 Good News and on A Lady’s Morals, The Prodigal, Hollywood Party, A Night at the Opera, Strike Up the Band, Babes on Broadway, Bathing Beauty, Anchors Aweigh, Ziegfeld Follies, Yolanda and the Thief and Love Me or Leave Me.
During the 1930s Freed spent time on Metro’s sound stages, watching the staging of his songs and learning about the craft of creating film musicals. He also devoted time to ingratiating himself with studio head Louis B Mayer, making known his ambition to become involved in the production side of the process. Finally, in 1938, Mayer decided to give Freed his chance.
Arthur Freed initiated the filming of The Wizard of Oz and was its de facto producer, although only credited as associate producer; Mayer safeguarded the project by appointing the more experienced Mervyn LeRoy as producer.
Having shown what he could do, Freed was made a full producer and worked on 39 musicals and a handful of non-musicals during the next thirty years. The musicals were Babes in Arms, Little Nellie Kelly, Strike Up the Band, Lady Be Good, Babes on Broadway, For Me and My Gal, Panama Hattie, Cabin in the Sky, Du Barry Was a Lady, Girl Crazy, Best Foot Forward, Meet Me in St Louis, Yolanda and the Thief, The Harvey Girls, Ziegfeld Follies, Till the Clouds Roll By, Good News, Easter Parade, The Pirate, Summer Holiday, Words and Music, The Barkleys of Broadway, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, On the Town, Annie Get Your Gun, Pagan Love Song, An American in Paris, Royal Wedding, Show Boat, The Belle of New York, Singin’ in the Rain, The Band Wagon, Brigadoon, It’s Always Fair Weather, Kismet, Invitation to the Dance, Silk Stockings, Gigi and Bells Are Ringing.
The Freed Unit became MGM royalty and made most of the musicals upon which the studio’s current reputation rests. Opinions vary as to the extent to which Freed can take credit for this achievement, and the unit did produce a few duds. But, at the very least, Arthur Freed was the catalyst for a body of work of unrivalled sophistication and artistry.
