Edward Santree Brophy (1895-1960) was one of the most recognizable character actors in Golden Age Hollywood, both physically and vocally. He made his first screen appearance in 1920, but mostly worked as a unit manager or assistant director during the twenties.
After standing in for an absent actor in Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman (1928) (on which he was working as unit manager), Brophy’s acting career took off, aided by several other supporting roles with Keaton. He specialized in cops, gangsters and sidekicks, notably Goldie Locke in the Falcon series. His distinctive New York accent also won him the voice role of Timothy Q Mouse in Disney’s Dumbo (1941).
Brophy made a couple of uncredited appearances in MGM musicals: with Keaton again, in Free and Easy, and in Broadway to Hollywood. He was then credited as Zeke, one of the settlers who tramp-tramp-tramps with Nelson Eddy in Naughty Marietta.
In keeping with Brophy’s Runyonesque personality, it is fitting that he is alleged to have died while watching a boxing match.
William Morenus (1864-1944) ran away from home, aged 11, to join the theatre. He interrupted his successful stage career forty years later, in 1915, to make a few silent shorts (his first role was playing himself in Fatty and the Broadway Stars), but his film career really started in 1929 with the introduction of sound.
Collier played himself again in Free and Easy, as the MC at the premiere. For a hattrick, he was seen as William Collier Sr once again in Broadway to Hollywood. His non-musical roles offered more variety.
William H Daniels (1901-70) was one of the most eminent cinematographers working during Hollywood’s Golden Age. The American Cinematographer website refers to his “inconspicuously perfect execution”. Daniels’s career lasted fifty years, from silent cinema to the self-conscious kookiness of Move (1970).
Daniels started out as a camera operator at Universal, but followed Erich Von Stroheim to MGM, where he shot Foolish Wives (1922), Greed and The Merry Widow (both 1925). He then, famously, became Greta Garbo’s cinematographer of choice, shooting sixteen of her pictures.
Daniels worked with many major directors, including Clarence Brown, Frank Borzage, Raoul Walsh, George Cukor, Anthony Mann, Ida Lupino and Jules Dassin In 1950 he won an Oscar for Dassin’s The Naked City.
Daniels was photographing musicals for MGM for over thirty years, starting with Montana Moon in 1930 and ending with Billy Rose’s Jumbo in 1962. In between came Broadway to Hollywood, Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, Broadway Melody of 1938, New Moon, For Me and My Gal and Girl Crazy.
Zelda Paldi (1873-1935) was a journalist, actor, playwright, novelist and occasional scenarist wrote her first screenplays for Cecil B DeMille’s company.
She subsequently went to MGM, where she definitely worked on three musicals: Devil-May-Care, for which she wrote dialogue, and uncredited contributions to Dancing Lady and The Cat and the Fiddle. She is also believed to have worked unofficially on Broadway to Hollywood.
Charles Willard McLaughlin (1873-1934) worked as an actor, director and playwright before he took up screenwriting in 1916, carrying this out alongside work on Broadway.
Mack contributed to the scenarios of It’s a Great Life and Lord Byron of Broadway. He also co-wrote and directed Broadway to Hollywood, the film in which producer Harry Rapf recycled content from the abandoned The March of Time.
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.
Sammy Lee (1890-1968), born Samuel Levy, was the first in a line of important choreographers at MGM, though he arguably achieved greater success on Broadway and at Twentieth Century-Fox.
Lee is uncredited on The Broadway Melody, which he might have been quite happy about, given the rudimentary nature of the dance numbers. He had worked on Ziegfeld’s Follies in 1927, but this is not reflected in the style of the fictional Zanfield’s show. Lee and director Harry Beaumont could not, in this first-ever film musical, determine how to make a stage performance cinematic. Nor were the chorines of the quality Lee would have been used to on Broadway.
Lee’s first onscreen credit was for ‘Dances and Ensemble’ in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, where he did his best with non-professional dancers Joan Crawford and Marion Davies. He also essayed a pre-Berkeley overhead shot of the chorus.
Lee went on to stage dances for It’s a Great Life, Chasing Rainbows, Lord Byron of Broadway, They Learned About Women, Free and Easy, Children of Pleasure, Good News, Love in the Rough (which includes an al fresco number performed at a real golf club), A Lady’s Morals, Broadway to Hollywood and Dancing Lady.
A move to Twentieth Century-Fox earned Lee Academy Award nominations for King of Burlesque (1936) and Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937). He was back at Metro for Honolulu, Hullabaloo, Cairo, Born to Sing, Meet the People and Two Girls and a Sailor.
Lee had a parallel career as the director of a series of undistinguished shorts.
Frederick Emil Ahlert (1892-1953) was a composer of popular music who most frequently worked with lyricist Roy Turk. The pair collaborated with Bing Crosby on the singer’s ‘theme song’ ‘Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)’. Ahlert also wrote ‘I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter’ with Joe Young.
Ahlert and Turk contributed songs to Marianne, Free and Easy, Children of Pleasure and In Gay Madrid. In addition, ‘Mean to Me’ was included in Love Me Or Leave Me.
Ahlert’s music for ‘Poor Little G-String,’ written with Turk for the abandoned The March of Time, was used for a dance number in Broadway to Hollywood.
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.
