The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: The Devil’s Brother

  • The Devil’s Brother

    Some Thoughts

    Ever since Laurel and Hardy’s last-minute insertion into The Rogue Song, Hal Roach had wanted to put them into a feature-length operetta. He chose Fra Diavolo, a one-hundred-year old work by Daniel Auber; the film was known by that title outside the United States.

    Stanlio (Stan Laurel) listens as Ollio (Oliver Hardy) explains why they have nothing to fear from Fra Diavolo
    Stanlio (Stan Laurel) listens as Ollio (Oliver Hardy) explains why they have nothing to fear from Fra Diavolo

    The Devil’s Brother (a meaningless title) is essentially an editing together of two separate films. Hal Roach directed the musical and dramatic sequences, using Hap Depew as cinematographer, while Charley Rogers (and Stan Laurel) directed the comedy sequences, photographed by Art Lloyd. This ended up proving that Roach was a better producer than he was director: the parts attributed to Rogers were highly praised, while those for which Roach was responsible were not. In fact, previews led to the excision of a significant amount of the non-comedic footage.

    This was an untypical Laurel and Hardy picture (historical setting, no bowler hats) and the pair were hesitant about making it. But it turned out to be one of their favourites amongst their films, as well as the most commercially successful. It features some classic Laurel and Hardy routines, including the introduction of ‘Kneesy-Earsy-Nosy’, the frustratingly difficult coordination game that Stan made look so easy.

    Lady Pamela (Thelma Todd) is pleased that the Marquis de San Marco has arrived at the inn
    Lady Pamela (Thelma Todd) is pleased that the Marquis de San Marco has arrived at the inn

    There is a third excellent performance in The Devil’s Brother, with Thelma Todd being given a rare opportunity to show her range. She plays Lady Pamela, an English aristocrat, and actually sounds more convincing than British-born James Finlayson, playing her husband. Todd is almost unrecognizable as the fast-talking working girl she played in most of her films.

    Dennis King, as might be expected, carries off the musical sequences with aplomb, though it cannot be said he is totally convincing as a ruthless cutthroat. He holds his own in his scenes with Stan and Ollie, though he later admitted to finding their improvisations very challenging. Lucile Brown is an effective ingenue and handles her one song capably (and fetchingly, since she is in lingerie). But Arthur Pierson’s Lorenzo demonstrates why he gave up acting to move behind the camera.

    Stanlio demonstrates Kneesy-Earsy-Nosey
    Stanlio demonstrates Kneesy-Earsy-Nosey

    A feature musical with the MGM imprimatur, The Devil’s Brother clearly has a larger budget than was normal for Hal Roach productions. This is demonstrated by the number of actors and extras on screen, and by Dolly Tree’s costumes. 

  • Leroy Shield

    Leroy Bernard Shield (1893-1962) started playing the piano at a dance academy aged 10, and was a professional concert pianist at 12. Later, he was a regimental band leader during his military service. 

    In 1923, Shield became a staff musician for a company that went on to form part of RCA. In 1929, RCA provided the Hal Roach Studios with the technology for the transition to sound, and Shield travelled to Hollywood to assist with the process. This included working with performers during their initial voice tests.

    While there, Shield composed incidental music that was used in Roach’s Our Gang and Laurel and Hardy shorts. The pieces were used in many of their pictures, and are often misattributed to Marvin Hatley, who composed ‘Dance of the Cuckoos’.

    Shield only received two onscreen credits, for the feature musical The Devil’s Brother and Our Relations (1936). He made one screen appearance, as a band leader in Let’s Do Things (1931), the first of the Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts series.

    In later life, Shield worked extensively in radio, toured with Toscanini, and wrote classical compositions.

  • James Greene

    James Francis Greene (1899-1935) was a sound recording engineer at the Hal Roach Studios, responsible for the sound on some of Laurel and Hardy’s most beloved pictures, including The Music Box (1932, with location recording required on those steps), County Hospital (1932), Towed in a Hole (1932) and Busy Bodies (1935).

    He was also the sound recording engineer on the duo’s first operetta, The Devil’s Brother (1935).

    Greene’s career was tragically cut short when he experienced an insulin shock which the police took to be drunkenness. He was thrown in a cell and died when no treatment was given.

  • Dolly Tree

    British-born Dorothy Marian Isbell (1899-1962) was something of a Renaissance woman, successful in a variety of roles, including as an illustrator, actor and, most notably, as a costume designer.

    As a teenager, Tree’s love of the theatre prompted her to start designing posters. This became a professional opportunity in 1917 when she was employed to produce posters and programmes for a well-known impresario. She also produced comic illustrations for newspapers and periodicals.

    Between 1915 and 1918, Tree starred in around eight British films, including Hindle Wakes (1918), the first version of Stanley Houghton’s 1912 play. 

    Designing costumes for stage and screen began in the early 1920s, and she also designed for the Folies Bergère. Tree emigrated to the United States in 1926 and worked on Broadway, including designing for pre-Hollywood Mae West. By this time, her designs were having an impact on the wider fashion scene of the Jazz Age.

    Tree’s Hollywood career began in 1929, first at Fox, and then eleven years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Pictures she worked on included The Thin Man (1934), David Copperfield (1935), Libeled Lady (1936) and Fury (1936) and The Good Earth (1937).

    Dolly Tree designed costumes for fifteen MGM musicals: The Devil’s Brother, The Night is Young, Here Comes the Band, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Rosalie, Listen Darling, Tce Follies of 1939, Babes in Arms, Let Freedom Ring, At the Circus, Strike Up the Band, Little Nellie Kelly and Go West.

    Tree’s career effectively ended in 1942, when divorce led to a drink problem. Her reputation has long rested in the shadows created by Adrian and Orry-Kelly, but there is now a growing awareness of her importance as a designer.  

  • William H Terhune

    William Hilton Terhune (1899-1940) directed half a dozen shorts for Hal Roach in the 1930s, but was predominantly an editor, starting at the studio as a cutter in 1926.

    Terhune was the editor on Topper (1937) and its first sequel, Topper Takes a Trip (1938). He also worked on the Joan Crawford picture Susan and God (1940) for MGM.

    William Terhune edited the four Laurel and Hardy musicals, The Devil’s Brother, Babes in Toyland, The Bohemian Girl and Swiss Miss, as well as the Marx Brothers’ At the Circus.

  • Bert Jordan

    Albert Adrian Jordan (1887-1983) worked in the British film industry in the 1910s before emigrating to America, where he found work as a cutter at Vitagraph.

    Jordan moved to the Hal Roach Studios in 1921, where he stayed for the bulk of his career. Stan Laurel, who was the creative force behind the Laurel and Hardy films, admired Jordan’s work to the extent of insisting that he edit all of their pictures, if he was available.

    This meant that Jordan worked on virtually all of the Laurel and Hardy features, including their four musicals, The Devil’s Brother, Babes in Toyland, The Bohemian Girl and Swiss Miss.

    Jordan also edited one of the Roach studio’s most prestigious productions, Lewis Milestone’s Of Mice and Men (1939).

    After leaving Hal Roach, Jordan worked mostly in television until he retired, aged 75.

  • Art Lloyd

    Arthur Raymond Lloyd (1897-1954) was a journeyman cinematographer who shot all of his 200 shorts (plus a handful of features) for the Hal Roach Studios.

    Lloyd was a regular on both Laurel and Hardy and the Our Gang pictures. He shot such classics as Laughing Gravy (1931), County Hospital, Towed in a Hole (both 1932) and Block-Heads (1938).

    He also shot all four of Laurel and Hardy’s operettas: The Devil’s Brother (with Hap Depew), Babes in Toyland, The Bohemian Girl and Swiss Miss. 

  • Hap Depew

    Ernest Depew (1887-1940) is believed to have started working in the film industry in the early 1910s. He made his debut as a cinematographer in 1921, and by 1925 was working for Mack Sennett, alongside a variety of minor studios. 

    One of Depew’s rare ‘A’ films for a top rank producer was the MGM/Roach production The Devil’s Brother, where he shared the cinematography credit with Art Lloyd.

  • Marvin Hatley

    Composer Thomas Marvin Hatley (1905-86) achieved a form of immortality when he wrote a piece called ‘Dance of the Cuckoos’ (sometimes known as ‘Ku-Ku’). In 1930, this became the theme music for Laurel and Hardy’s sound shorts after it was heard on the radio. According to Laurel, Hal Roach gave the composer “about fifty bucks’ for the rights to the music.

    But Hatley did also find a job at the Roach studio as musical director, in which capacity he wrote and arranged probably hundreds of scores. Two Laurel and Hardy features, Way Out West (1937) and Block-Heads (1938) earned him nominations for the Best Original Score Oscar.

    Hatley also enjoyed appearing in front of the camera whenever a musician or conductor was required. And he provided the piano sounds for The Music Box (1932).

    He was musical director of The Devil’s Brother, which also utilized ‘Dance of the Cuckoos’, and he composed for The Bohemian Girl and Swiss Miss.

    Hatley was deemed surplus to requirements when Roach restructured his studio in 1939, though Laurel insisted he be brought back to work on Saps at Sea (1940). Hatley became a lounge pianist, often remarking that he was earning more than Hal Roach ever paid him. 

  • Thomas Reynoldson

    Thomas Herbert Reynoldson (1807-83) may or may not have the right to an entry on this website.

    Reynoldson was a British actor and singer of the late Regency period who began, probably in late 1939, to translate and adapt European light operas. One of the works he adapted was Daniel Auber’s Fra Diavolo, written in 1830 with a libretto by Eugène Scribe.

    Fra Diavolo was loosely adapted by Hal Roach and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as The Devil’s Brother, with a number of the original songs retained. Most sources cite Scribe as the author of the lyrics, but this is to ignore the necessary artistry required for the translation of song lyrics. The aria ‘On yonder rock reclining’ may have the same sense as Scribe’s ‘Voyez sur cette roche’, but the former is not a literal translation of the latter.

    It is not certain that Reynoldson’s translations are the ones used by the filmmakers, but it is likely.

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