The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Here Comes the Band

  • Phillips Tead

    Phillips Tead (1893-1974) was an actor who appeared in over a hundred feature films and around fifty television series in a career lasting fifty-three years.

    Tead made his debut in 1914 in The Lost Paradise, made by Famous Players on the East Coast. He then seems to have concentrated on theatrical work, including on Broadway, since his second credit was not until 1920. Tead only worked on a few pictures in the east during the twenties, only travelling to California in 1930, to appear in Lightnin’.

    Tead played one of the reporters in The Front Page (1931), but most of his appearances thereafter were uncredited. They included roles in What Price Hollywood? (1932), Horse Feathers (1932), The Thin Man (1934), Anything Goes (1936), The Westerner (1940), This Gun for Hire (1942), Act of Violence (1949) and The Tender Trap (1955). 

    In the late fifties, Tead found a degree of fame playing Professor Pepperwinkle in the television series Adventures of Superman. 

    Tead worked on three Metro musicals: The Cat and the Fiddle, Here Comes the Band (but his scenes were deleted) and The Great Ziegfeld.

  • Henry Kolker

    The dates of Joseph Henry Kolker are either 1870-1947 or 1874-1947 (definitely not, as he claimed himself, 1884). He was born either in Germany or Massachusetts. 

    What we do know is that he was a professional actor by 1895, and worked extensively on Broadway from 1904. By 1914, he was both acting in and directing moving pictures in New York. He directed eighteen films in total, and wrote one of them, The Third Generation (1920).

    In a thirty-three year film career (including a six-year break from 1919), Koler appeared in over 160 features, usually in credited character roles. 

    In Baby Face (1933), Kolker was a banker seduced by Barbara Stanwyck in her ascent to the top. He played the family doctor in Imitation of Life (1934), and was Melvyn Douglas’s controlling father in Theodora Goes Wild (1936). As Friar Laurence, he provided the sleeping potion to Norma Shearer’s Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1937), and he played the crooked politician in DeMille’s Union Pacific (1939).

    Kolker’s final appearances were in Edgar G Ulmer’s Bluebeard (1944) and, after a break, in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).

    Henry Kolker was in four MGM musicals: uncredited in The Cat and the Fiddle and Reckless, and credited in Here Comes the Band and Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry.

  • Billy Dooley

    William Dooley (1893-1938) was working in vaudeville, latterly with his wife, Frances Lee, when producer hired him in 1925 to star in comedy shorts. It has been pointed out that Dooley’s onscreen persona owed a lot to the physical appearances of Larry Semon and Harry Langdon: child-like verging on mentally impaired. Dooley’s USP was that he was invariably playing a sailor.

    After 1932, Dooley played generally uncredited supporting roles in around thirty features, including The Cat’s-Paw (1933), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) and Anything Goes (1936).

    Dooley appeared without credit in four MGM musicals, starting with The Cat and the Fiddle. He had a showy few seconds as Jeanette MacDonald’s drunken ‘brother’ in Naughty Marietta, and followed this with Here Comes the Band and A Day at the Races, 

  • Otto Fries

    Otto Hugo Fries (1887-1938) had a background in travelling medicine shows and vaudeville when he started making comedy shorts for Hal Roach in 1916.

    His first feature, Free and Easy, came in 1921. This was the first of over seventy appearances in features, though he made more than 100 shorts across his career, including many filmed in German. 

    Notable pictures featuring Fries include Mauritz Stiller’s Hotel Imperial (1927), John Ford’s Riley the Cop (1928), the Marx Brothers’ Monkey Business (1932), Anna Karenina (1935), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938) and The Mad Miss Manton (1938).

    Fries appeared uncredited in five MGM musicals, beginning with The Cat and the Fiddle, followed by The Merry Widow, Here Comes the Band, A Night at the Opera and Born to Dance. 

  • Herman Bing

    German Hermann Bing (1889-1947) is a Pagliacci-like figure, literally starting out as a circus clown, adding comic eccentricity to dozens of films, and driven by depression to take his own life.

    Bing left home at 16 to join the circus, and later worked as a comedian in varietétheaters. He entered the German film industry in the early 1920s, apparently working on the production side, though he may also have acted. By the late thirties he was working with F W Murnau, and travelled with him to the United States to work as assistant director on Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). He can also be seen onscreen in a brief appearance as a tram conductor. He went on to assist on Murnau’s 4 Devils (1928).

    Bing stayed on in Hollywood and developed a career as a supporting player, playing German characters with exaggerated accents and a general air of frustrated dignity. In the early 1930s, he also appeared in German-language versions of pictures such as Garbo’s Anna Christie (1930) and Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), a version of The Big House (1930) directed by Paul Fejos.

    Herman Bing was often uncredited, but always memorable, and his more than 100 feature films included Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), Ford’s Flesh (1932), Borzage’s A Farewell to Arms (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Hawks’s Twentieth Century (1934) and Barbary Coast (1935) and Lubitsch’s Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938). He was also the voice of the Ringmaster in Disney’s Dumbo (1941).

    His career was hit hard by the war and, by the mid-1940s, Bing was struggling to find work, which contributed to his tragic end.

    Herman Bing appeared in eleven MGM musicals, including six with Jeanette MacDonald: The Cat and the Fiddle, The Merry Widow, Rose-Marie, Maytime, Sweethearts and Bitter Sweet. The others were The Night is Young, Here Comes the Band, The Great Ziegfeld, The Great Waltz and Broadway Melody of 1940.

  • Harold Adamson

    Harold Campbell Adamson (1906-80) co-wrote a musical while at Harvard, where he was spotted by composer Vincent Youmans and invited to write the lyrics for a 1930 Broadway musical called Smiles. 

    Adamson then partnered with composer Burton Lane, while continuing to write with other composers. He and Lane then went to Hollywood, planning a short visit, but both stayed many years and worked on dozens of films.

    As well as Lane, Adamson wrote with many others, including Hoagy Carmichael, Sammy Fain and Jimmy McHugh. He made a return to Broadway in the 1940s, writing lyrics for several shows.

    Harold Adamson songs were used in thirteen Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals: Dancing Lady, Reckless, Here Comes the Band, The Great Ziegfeld, Ziegfeld Girl, The Big Store, Thousands Cheer, Two Girls and a Sailor, Bathing Beauty, A Date with Judy, Everything I Have is Yours, Jupiter’s Darling and Seven Hills of Rome.

  • Burton Lane

    Burton Levy (1912-97) began writing songs while still a teenager, dropping out of school to do so. By the time he was 18, he had composed music for songs performed in Broadway shows, working regularly with Harold Adamson.

    Working for Irving Berlin Inc, Lane was sent to Hollywood with Adamson in 1934, and subsequently took up residence there. The pair worked together until 1936, writing songs for a number of studios. Lane then partnered with Ralph Freed (Arthur’s younger brother) at Paramount, followed by Frank Loesser. His final screen partnership was with Alan Jay Lerner in the 1950s.

    Lane composed the music for a number of Broadway musicals, the most successful being Finian’s Rainbow (1947) and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965).

    Notable songs composed by Lane include ‘How About You?’, ‘Old Devil Moon’, ‘I Hear Music’ and ‘ How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I’ve Been a Liar All My Life?’

    Lane songs were used in seventeen MGM musicals: Dancing Lady, Reckless, Here Comes the Band, Babes on Broadway, Ship Ahoy, Panama Hattie, Seven Sweethearts, Presenting Lily Mars, Du Barry Was a Lady, Thousands Cheer, Meet the People, This Time for Keeps, Royal Wedding, Everything I Have is Yours, Torch Song, Give a Girl a Break and Jupiter’s Darling.

  • Ferdinand Gottschalk

    Ferdinand Gottschalk (1858-1944) was a British actor who started working in Canada in the late 1880s, supporting music hall star Rosina Vokes. He made his Broadway debut in 1894, and went on to act in and direct many productions, as well as writing for the stage.

    Gottschalk’s first screen appearance was in 1917, when he was 59, in Please Help Emily, recreating one of his stage roles. This, and three other silent films, were shot in New York.

    Moving to Hollywood after the introduction of sound, Gottschalk had a prominent role in the Gloria Swanson comedy Tonight or Never (1931). He only worked in films until 1938, but during that period was a distinguished character actor in over seventy pictures. 

    Gottschalk’s notable appearances included: Grand Hotel (1932), as the ballet master Pimenov; The Sign of the Cross (1932), as the decadent Glabrio, a role he repeated in Cleopatra (1934), but his scenes did not make the final cut; and Thenardier in Les Misérables (1935).

    Gottschalk made many uncredited appearances, and three were in the MGM musicals Dancing Lady, Hollywood Party and Here Comes the Band.

    After retiring, Gottschalk returned to the UK.

  • Frank E Hull

    Frank Edgar Hull (1882-1968) was a film editor who spent most of his career working for MGM and, to a lesser extent, Fox. He worked on around eighty pictures in the period 1920-50.

    Hull is famous to film historians for working closely with Erich von Stroheim on the editing of Greed (1924). He received no credit on the final version of the film after it had been drastically cut and re-edited by MGM. Hull also worked with von Stroheim on The Wedding March (1928), which was also subject to studio interference, this time by Paramount.

    Hull’s projects were never as prestigious again, though he did work with John Ford on one of his masterpieces, They Were Expendable (1945).

    Frank Hull edited six Metro musicals: Stage Mother, The Cat and the Fiddle, Student Tour, Here Comes the Band, A Day at the Races and Panama Hattie.

  • Monte Vandergrift

    John Montanye Vandergrift (1893-1939) was a character actor who appeared in around 140 pictures, playing police officers in at least sixty of them.

    Prior to making films, Vandergrift worked in vaudeville, performing in a double act with his wife. He also acted on Broadway.

    Vandergrift made his screen debut in 1930, and mostly worked uncredited in programme features. Exceptions included John Ford’s Flesh (1932), King Kong (1933), Magnificent Obsession (1934), Captains Courageous (1937) and It’s a Wonderful World (1939).

    He acted in three Metro musicals, Stage Mother, Here Comes the Band and Balalaika (his final film).

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