The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Films

  • Free and Easy

    Opinion

    There are things to enjoy in Free and Easy, but it is a film whose final shot is heartbreaking, and not for the hoaky reasons intended by the filmmakers. Buster Keaton’s character, Elmer Butts, has failed to get the girl he loves. Dressed in a ridiculous uniform and in Pagliacciesque clown makeup, Keaton gazes off-camera at Anita Page with a look of utter despondency, then raises his eyes to heaven. It is probably the most downbeat ending ever given to a musical, and that includes West Side Story (1961 and 2021).

    A tragic Buster Keaton is just wrong

    It has been suggested that Keaton is looking, not at his co-star, but at his life as one of the preeminent filmmakers in Hollywood (or anywhere else) disappearing in front of his eyes. It is as though the full implications of what he has given up by signing a contract with MGM is becoming clear for the first time in front of our eyes. Symbolically, Keaton loses the girl for the first time in his career, just as he has lost his independence and potential for creativity.

    Free and Easy was Keaton’s first talking picture, and the first since his earliest days when he had played no real part in its development. The opening titles claim the film as A Buster Keaton Production, but this would seem to have meant little in practice. The film was directed by Edward Sedgwick, a friend of Keaton’s and another comedy specialist who failed to find a settled place at Hollywood’s most successful studio.

    Keaton turns in a professional performance, but he is not playing a Buster Keaton character: in his own films he was never a loser. The finale suggests that Metro were under the impression they had signed Chaplin or Harry Langdon. Left to his own devices, Keaton would probably have made a successful transition to sound: his baritone voice is effective both speaking and singing, and would not have impeded his gag-based comedy.

    Ma Plunkett (Trixie Friganza) and Elmer (Buster Keaton) perform ‘Oh King, Oh Queen’

    The biggest revelation in Free and Easy is Trixie Friganza as the stage mother from hell, Ma Plunkett. Friganza had been a vaudeville star for many years and the film captures some of the talent that made her stage career such a success. 

    Anita Page and Robert Montgomery (who does get the girl) stand around looking attractive, and the film features cameos by a number of MGM luminaries. One of the more interesting aspects of Free and Easy is the glimpse it gives of the Metro studio during the transition to sound.

  • Karl Zint

    Karl E Zindt (1909-78) was a sound engineer who started out in Douglas Shearer’s new sound department at MGM. While there, he worked on the highly successful Grand Hotel (1932) and, with slightly less prestige, Free and Easy. Thereafter, Zint spent most of his career on Poverty Row aand in television.

  • George Todd

    George Todd (1???-1???) is a mysterious figure. Both IMDb and the American Film Institute are certain that he was a cutter on Free and Easy and Children of Pleasure…and that’s it. 

  • William LeVanway

    William LeVanway (1896-1957) was an editor who spent his entire career at Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, latterly as head of the editing department. Unlike Douglas Shearer and Cedric Gibbons, he was not credited on every film.

    While still undertaking editing assignments, LeVanway worked on the silent version of The Broadway Melody (1929), and was the cutter on Free and Easy, Good News and A Night at the Opera. He was the supervising editor for An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain.

  • Paul Dickey

    Paul Bert Dickey (1883-1933) was a former vaudeville performer who partnered with Charles W Goddard to write a number of successful plays. The best-known of these is The Ghost Breaker (1909), which was filmed at least four times, most famously with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in 1940.

    Dickey also directed in the theatre, notably the first production of the musical Rose-Marie in 1924. He acted as well, but only appeared in one film, playing Guy of Gisbourne opposite Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1922). His acting career was hampered by health problems.

    Dickey undertook occasional screenwriting assignments, and provided the adaptation for Free and Easy.

  • Edward Sedgwick

    Edward Sedgwick Jr (1889-1953) was a colleague and friend of Buster Keaton and, like him, started working in a family vaudeville act at a young age. He acted in his first comedy short in 1914, and started directing in 1920. Sedgwick’s first directorial assignment was making episodes of a serial based on the French Fantômas character. 

    Although is today associated with Keaton and comedy, Sedgwick worked in a variety of genres during the 1920s, including many westerns. He also did uncredited work on Lon Chaney’s The Phantom of the Opera (1925).

    Sedgwick joined MGM in 1926, and went on to direct most of Keaton’s films at the studio, including his first talking picture, Free and Easy.

    Some years later Sedgwick did uncredited work on Easy to Wed and Excuse My Dust.

  • Free and Easy

    Crew

    Edward SedgwickDirector
    Richard SchayerScenario
    Paul DickeyAdaptation
    Al BoasbergDialogue
    Fred E AhlertComposer
    Roy TurkLyricist
    Lawrence WeingartenProducer (uncredited)
    Leonard SmithCinematographer
    Cedric GibbonsArt Director
    William LeVanwayEditor
    George ToddEditor (uncredited)
    Douglas ShearerSound Recording Engineer
    Karl ZintSound Recording Engineer (uncredited)
    David CoxCostume Designer
    Sammy LeeChoreographer
    Ann DvorakChoreographer (uncredited)

  • Doris McMahon

    Doris McMahon (1910-61) was a performer whose short, mostly precode, career could largely be described as scantily clad.

    She was in three MGM musicals, Free and Easy, Children of Pleasure and Madam Satan.

  • Theodore Lorch

    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. 

  • Lottice Howell

    Alabama Women's Hall of Fame - Lottice Howell

    Lottice Howell (1897-1982) was a versatile soprano who was happy in both opera and the vaudeville stage.

    Howell signed a contract with MGM in 1929, but only appeared in a handful of films before returning to the stage. Two of these were the musicals Free and Easy and In Gay Madrid.

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