The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Madam Satan

  • Ann Dvorak

    Anna McKim (1911-79) made her name as an actor of great talent in Scarface (1932) and flourished for a time at Warner Bros. But only a couple of years earlier she had been a regular member of the chorus line in no fewer than eleven of Metro’s early musicals. She is prominent in all her appearances, largely owing to her unique beauty and a screen presence that would be fully revealed by Howard Hawks.

    Dvorak is cited by some sources as assistant choreographer to Sammy Lee, who certainly was the dance director on most of her MGM appearances. This would certainly explain her prominence.

    Dvorak starts off big in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 in a two-shot with Jack Benny. She gets to speak two words (“Pardon me”) and slap Benny in the face. After playing a student in So This Is College, she was back in the chorus line in It’s a Great Life, supporting the Duncan Sisters.

    After that, Dvorak was in Devil-May-Care, Chasing Rainbows, Lord Byron of Broadway, Free and Easy and Children of Pleasure. She was another student in Good News, another chorus girl in Love in the Rough and, finally, a party-goer in the zeppelin in Madam Satan.

    Dvorak also worked on The March of Time before it was abandoned.

  • William Axt

    William Axt (1888-1959) was a composer and conductor who joined the MGM music department in 1929 and went on to write hundreds of scores. He composed for a number of musicals, mostly early in his career: Marianne, It’s a Great Life, Devil-May-Care, Chasing Rainbows,The Rogue Song, Free and Easy, Call of the Flesh, Madam Satan, Hollywood Party, The Great Ziegfeld,  Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Everybody Sing and Listen, Darling. 

    Axi’s work was also taken off the shelf for use as stock music in New Moon, Student Tour, Balalaika and Little Nellie Kelly .

  • Adrian

    The costumes he designed for The Wizard of Oz, which included the iconic ruby slippers, were unquestionably the high point of the career of Adrian Adolph Greenburg (1903-59), known simply as Adrian. But his designs were included in hundreds of MGM features, mostly between 1928 and 1941, including 34 other musicals. These included eleven Jeanette MacDonald pictures: The Cat and the Fiddle, The Merry Widow, Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, San Francisco, Maytime, The Firefly, The Girl of the Golden West, Sweethearts, New Moon and Bitter Sweet.

    Adrian was very active during 1929-31, designing for Marianne, Devil-May-Care,The Rogue Song, Montana Moon, In Gay Madrid, Madam Satan, New Moon andThe Cuban Love Song.

    Dancing Lady reunited Adrian with Joan Crawford a year after the white mousseline de soie dress he created for her in Letty Linton (1932) was copied commercially and sold over 500,000 units.

    Going Hollywood, Hollywood Party, Reckless, Broadway Melody of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, Born to Dance, Broadway Melody of 1938, The Great Waltz and Honolulu led up to the triumph ofThe Wizard of Oz. Adrian then worked on Balalaika, Broadway Melody of 1940, Ziegfeld Girl andThe Chocolate Soldier before leaving MGM in 1941 to open his own fashion business.

    He continued to freelance for a variety of studios and returned to Metro for a final musical, the aptly-named Lovely to Look At.

  • Gladys Unger

    Gladys Buchanan Unger (1884/5-1940) was an Anglo-American playwright and occasional scenarist. She contributed dialogue to Marianne and, the following year, helped to flesh out Jeanie MacPherson’s screenplay for Madam Satan.

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