Louis John Bartels (1895-1932) was at the tail end of his short film career when he made two MGM musicals, The Florodora Girl and The Prodigal.
Bartels was a New York stage manager turned actor who Paramount cast in a few features and shorts, most notably in The Canary Murder Case (1929).
Bartels was found dead at home, aged 36. An autopsy concluded he died from a stomach ailment brought on by acute alcoholism.
For lovers of screwball comedy, Walter Leland Catlett (1889-1960) will always be the befuddled Constable Slocum who throws almost the entire cast of Bringing Up Baby (1937) into his jail. He also has immortality as the voice of J Worthington Foulfellow, the villainous fox, in Pinocchio (1940).
But Catlett had a successful career on the stage in musical comedies before making Second Youth in 1924, the first of over 160 screen credits. He was a comic performer of exceptional ability. Howard Hawks asked him to coach Katharine Hepburn in playing comedy, contributing in no small part to her outstanding performance in Bringing Up Baby. But Catlett’s brief appearance in the closing minutes of A Tale of Two Cities (1935) shows that, like all great comic actors, he could play straight when he needed to.
Catlett only appeared in one MGM musical, when he played the hero’s friend De Boer in The Florodora Girl.
The Cast
| Marion Davies | Daisy Dell |
| Lawrence Gray | Jack Vibart |
| Walter Catlett | De Boer |
| Louis John Bartels | Oliver Hemingway |
| Ilka Chase | Fanny |
| Vivien Oakland | Maud |
| Jed Prouty | Old Man Dell |
| Claud Allister | Lord Rumblesham |
| Sam Hardy | Harry Fontaine |
| Nance O’Neil | Mrs. Vibart |
| Robert Bolder | Commodore – Stage Doorman |
| Jane Keithley | Constance Caraway |
| Maude Turner Gordon | Mrs. Caraway |
| George Chandler | Georgie Smith |
| Anita Louise | Younger Vibart Daughter |
| Mary Jane Irving | Older Vibart Daughter |
| Jack Baxley | Carriage Driver (uncredited) |
| Lenore Bushman | Florordora Sextette Member (uncredited) |
| Patricia Caron | Florordora Sextette Member (uncredited) |
| Lee Phelps | Bartender (uncredited) |
| Ethel Sykes | Florordora Sextette Member (uncredited) |
| Leo White | Mr. Crownshield (uncredited) |
The Numbers
| Don’t Wake Me Up, I’m Dreaming (?)* | Unknown | Male quartet |
| My Mother Was a Lady | Edward B Stark, Joseph W Stern | Unidentified singer |
| Pass the Beer and Pretzels | Herbert Stothart, Clifford Grey | Marion Davies and chorus |
| In the Good Old Summertime | George Evans, Ren Shields | Marion Davies and chorus |
| A Hot Time in the Old Town | Theodore A Metz, Joe Hayden | Marion Davies and chorus |
| Little Annie Rooney | Michael Nolan | Marion Davies and chorus |
| Swing Me Higher, Obadiah | Maurice Scott, Alfred E Rick | Marion Davies and chorus |
| On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away | Paul Dresser | Marion Davies and chorus |
| My Kind of Girl | Herbert Stothart, Clifford Grey, Andy Rice | Lawrence Gray |
| Tell Me Pretty Maiden | Leslie Stuart | Marion Davies and chorus |
* The opening of this song is very similar to ‘Don’t Wake Me Up, I’m Dreaming’ (1910) by Herbert Ingraham and Beth Slater Whitson, but the lyrics are different and more relevant to the film. It may be that the filmmakers took the Edwardian original and tweaked it. If so, the lyrics are probably by Clifford Grey.
The Synopsis
Jack Vibart, “the fastest young blood in town,” leaves the Florodora show with his friend Lord Rumblesham.
In their dressing room, the chorus girls discuss Jack and his reputation. Daisy Dell is the only one from the original Florodora sextet not to have bagged a millionaire; all she has is little Georgie Smith from the cigar store. Daisy does not want to land a man just for his money. Her friends Fanny and Maude encourage Daisy to play the game, which means playing hard to get. “When a man is fascinated, the first thing he wants to do is buy you something expensive”.
To her surprise, Daisy receives an invitation to supper from Jack. Her friends force her to refuse: if he is serious, he will come back. Daisy watches Jack smile fondly as his flowers are returned to him [Don’t Wake Me Up, I’m Dreaming].
All the girls meet their stage door johnnies, leaving Daisy alone. Georgie arrives to take Daisy for a tandem ride, and she makes him stop at the saloon to collect her father [My Mother Was a Lady].
The next day, the performers from the show and their followers are at a beach party. While Daisy is swimming, she sees Jack and pretends to be drowning. Jack ‘saves’ her and carries her back to shore, where considerable efforts are made to revive her. [Pass the Beer and Pretzels; In the Good Old Summertime; A Hot Time in the Old Town; Little Annie Rooney; Obadiah (Swing Me Just a Little Bit Higher); On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away].
Fanny and Maude continue to be cynical about Jack’s intentions and remind Daisy to make sure she gets a gift from him. When Jack comes over, Fanny and Maude refuse to leave the couple alone. They tell Jack that Daisy has dozens of beaux. Finally, Daisy and Jack go for a walk and sit together on a swing. They swing high and a rope breaks, sending them flying into the bushes.
Fanny and Maude attend a big college football game, but do not tell Daisy that Jack had invited her. They tell Jack that Daisy is at the Vanderbilt party, but then she arrives with Georgie on the tandem.
Georgie points out Harry Fontaine, the big gambler, who is one of his customers. Jack tells Fanny and Maude that Fontaine is one of the biggest crooks in racing. Daisy waves to Jack, but he acknowledges her frostily. Fontaine gets Georgie drunk and then approaches Daisy. The crowd surges and Daisy ends up on Fontaine’s arm. Jack sees Fontaine making advances, and goes over to take Daisy away.
On the ride home Daisy tells Jack that her friends had not passed on his invitation to the game. She explains that they have been trying to teach her how to fascinate a rich man. After she tells him the truth about herself, Jack declares that now he will be the one who has designs on her. Jack’s mother passes in another carriage and wonders who Daisy can be. Jack is reluctant to tell Daisy who the girl riding with his mother was.
At home, Mrs Vibart questions Jack, who says Daisy is “just one of the Florodora sextet”. She asks Jack when he is going to stop philandering and marry Constance. He says he will marry her in June, and assures her that a man in his position could never take a girl like Daisy seriously.
The next day Jack arrives to collect Daisy in his horseless carriage and takes her for tea [You’re My Kind of a Girl]. Jack gives Daisy a bracelet and tries to persuade her to let him find her an apartment where he can stay over. Daisy is offended, gives back the bracelet and slaps him.
Some time later, Rumblesham calls backstage to see Daisy. He invites her to Mrs Commodore Carraway’s ball. Fanny and Maude persuade her to go and dress her up in a costume from the show.
Daisy is approached by Jack at the ball, but she refuses to talk to him. Rumblesham tells Daisy that Jack has been engaged to Constance for a long time. Daisy runs away and Jack follows her. He apologizes to her for his behaviour, and tells her that, while originally he had been playing with her, he now realizes that he loves her. His mother wants him to marry Constance for her money, but when his horse Firebird wins the sweepstake tomorrow, he will have enough money to ignore his mother and set himself up in business.
But Fontaine has got to Firebird’s jockey and the horse does not win. Jack loses everything. At a party to mark Daisy and Jack’s engagement, he asks Rumblesham not to tell Daisy what has happened.
Mrs Vibart sends a carriage for Daisy and tells her that Jack lost their entire fortune at the races. She and her daughters can only be saved from ruin if Jack marries Constance. Daisy agrees to give up Jack.
The other Florodora girls assume the engagement is off because Daisy will not marry a poor man. Daisy has asked Fontaine to take her to a slumming ball on the Bowery. She does not enjoy being with Fontaine, but pretends to be when Jack enters. Jack asks her to come away with him, but she tells him they are through because she is not fool enough to take him when he is broke. Jack leaves and Fontaine comforts her.
Four months later, Fanny and Maude tell Daisy they are engaged. Jack has gone into the horseless carriage business and made a fortune, so he has not married Constance. [Tell Me Pretty Maiden]. Jack tries to speak to Daisy and absentmindedly walks onto the stage with her. He says he loves her and asks her to marry him. When she refuses, Jack picks her up and carries her outside, where the waiting Mrs Vibart says “My dear, this time, we have come for you”.
Gertrude Lamson (1874-1965) was a stage actress with an international reputation who specialized in tragic roles, including Hedda Gabler and Camille.
O’Neil began her film career in 1913, playing Mercedes in a version of The Count of Monte Cristo co-directed by Edwin S Porter. With her stage background, she made an easy transition to sound films, and was fourth-billed in Academy Award-winning Cimarron (1931).
She also featured in three Metro musicals, playing Princess Alexandra in the lost The Rogue Song, wealthy Mrs Vibart (the hero’s mother) in The Florodora Girl and the Mother Superior in Call of the Flesh.
Nance O’Neil attracted press attention in the 1900s when she formed an intimate friendship with Lizzie Borden. That salacious interest is maintained on the internet today.
Maude Turner (1868-1940) was a stage actor, dramatist and occasional producer who made her first film appearance in 1915.
Turner Gordon became typecast as ladies of wealth and dignity, as indicated by the playing of dowagers in two of her MGM musicals, Children of Pleasure and Sweethearts. In between, she played affluent Mrs Caraway in The Florodora Girl.
Andrew Jackson Baxley (1884-1950) appeared in a handful of excellent films during his career as a character actor, including two with Orson Welles (The Magnificent Amberson in 1942 and The Lady from Shanghai in 1947). But there, as in most of his other pictures, he was uncredited.
Baxley was in eight Metro musicals: Free and Easy, The Florodora Girl, Dancing Lady, The Great Ziegfeld, San Francisco, Strike Up the Band, Thrill of a Romance and Summer Holiday.
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.
