The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Films

  • 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.

  • P J Wolfson

    Pinkus Jacob Wolfson (1909-73) was a trained pharmacist who took to writing novels. His first, Bodies Are Dust, was published in 1931.

    The book’s success secured Wolfson an offer to write for the screen, and he started at Universal, forming a partnership with Allen Rivkin. They wrote around ten screenplays together in two years. Altogether, Wolfson worked on around thirty-five films in 23 years. He also worked as producer on half a dozen pictures, later moving into television.

    Wolfson co-wrote Mad Love (1935), and two Fred Astaire pictures at RKO (Shall We Dance and Damsel in Distress (both 1937). He also worked on the George Steven comedy Vivacious Lady (1938). In 1939 he directed for RKO a film with the sensational title Boy Slaves, an exposé of child labour.

    Wolfson co-wrote two MGM musicals, Dancing Lady and Reckless.

  • Allen Rivkin

    Allen Irwin Rivkin (1903-90) started out as an advertising copy writer before travelling to Hollywood to work on publicity for RKO.

    Rivkin met P J Wolfson and they established a screenwriting partnership at Universal, their first picture being Night World (1932). Over the next thirty years, working with Wolfson and also with his own wife, Laura Kerr, Rivkin contributed to about fifty screenplays, and also helped to establish the Screenwriters Guild.

    Rivkin’s more notable work included What Price Hollywood? (1932), Dead Reckoning (1946) and The Farmer’s Daughter (1947).

    He co-wrote three MGM musicals, Dancing Lady and, in the 1950s, Grounds for Marriage  and The Strip.

    Rivkin gave up screenwriting in 1962 to work full time for the Writers Guild of America.

  • Dancing Lady

    The Crew

    Robert Z LeonardDirector
    Allen RivkinScreenplay
    P J WolfsonScreenplay
    Robert BenchleyDialogue (uncredited)
    Zelda SearsAdditional writer (uncredited)
    Joan CrawfordScreenplay contributor (uncredited)
    Burton LaneSongwriter
    Harold AdamsonSongwriter
    Richard RodgersSongwriter
    Lorenz HartSongwriter
    Dorothy FieldsSongwriter
    Jimmy McHughSongwriter
    Arthur FreedSongwriter (uncredited)
    Nacio Herb BrownSongwriter (uncredited)
    David O SelznickProducer
    John W Considine JrAssociate Producer
    Oliver T MarshCinematographer
    Maurice De PackhComposer (uncredited)
    Louis SilversConductor
    Slavko VorkapichSpecial Effects
    Douglas ShearerSound Recording Director
    Paul NealSound Recording Engineer (uncredited)
    Margaret BoothEditor
    Merrill PyeArt Director
    Edwin B WillisInterior Decorator
    AdrianCostume Designer
    Sammy LeeChoreographer
    Eddie PrinzChoreographer
    Robert A GoldenAssistant Director (uncredited)

  • Charles C Wilson

    Charles Cahill Wilson (1894-1948) was the type of stage actor with Broadway experience who was welcomed by Hollywood in 1929.

    He started out as dialogue director on Lucky Boy (1929), a George Jessel musical in which he also took a small role. He worked in that capacity on one further picture, in 1933, but otherwise restricted himself to acting., appearing in around 250 films in just seventeen years.

    Wilson was usually uncredited, but he did feature prominently in It Happened One Night (1934), playing Clark Gable’s irascible editor. This was one of several times he worked with Frank Capra; he played Charlie Dawson in Meet John Doe (1941).

    Wilson also played the DA in the first version of The Glass Key (1935) and was Jim Green in James Whale’s Show Boat (1936). In 1945 he made an appearance in the Fritz Lang masterpiece Scarlet Street, and the following year was uncredited in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

    Wilson acted without credit in four MGM musicals:  Dancing Lady, Reckless, Broadway Melody of 1938 and Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry.

  • Charles Williams

    Charles Williams (1898-1958) is seen by millions every year in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), working away at the adding machine as the contributions pour in. But Williams appeared in well over 200 films in a career stretching from 1922 until 1956.

    Williams started out in the East Coast film business, working as a writer and actor. He moved to Hollywood with the advent of sound, and worked as a busy character actor. Most of his appearances were uncredited, and notable pictures included The Thin Man (1934), Dames (1934), History is Made at Night (1937), A Star is Born (1937), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938), Roxie Hart (1942) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

    Williams was in two MGM musicals, Dancing Lady and Ice Follies of 1939. 

  • Charles Sullivan

    Charles Sullivan (1899-1972) was a ubiquitous character actor in American films between 1925 and 1966, accumulating around 550 appearances on the big screen.

    Notable appearances include King Kong (1933, where he was also Robert Armstrong’s stunt double), Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Glass Key (1942), State of the Union (1948) and The Last Hurrah (1958).

    Sullivan can be seen, uncredited, in fourteen MGM musicals: Dancing Lady, Student Tour, San Francisco, Sweethearts, At the Circus, Born to Sing, Swing Fever, Music for Millions, Easy to Wed, Living in a Big Way, Big City, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Rose Marie and It’s Always Fair Weather. 

  • Pat Somerset

    Patrick Holme-Sumner (1897-1974) was a stage actor who starred in British films during the late 1910s, including a series about the adventures of a couple called Adam and Eve.

    After travelling to the USA to work on Broadway, Somerset ended up in Hollywood, where he was generally restricted to uncredited roles. He became a member of John Ford’s stock company, appearing in nine of the director’s films, including The Informer (1935) and Mary of Scotland (1936).

    Somerset also worked with Rouben Mamoulian (Becky Sharp [1935]), Clarence Brown (Anna Karenina [1935]), George Cukor (Sylvia Scarlett [1935]) and Frank Capra (Mr Deeds Goes to Town [1936]).

    Pat Somerset appeared in three Metro musicals: Dancing Lady, Maytime and The Firefly.

  • C Montague Shaw

    Charles Montague Discombe Sparrow (1882-1968) was an Australian actor who acted in the UK and elsewhere before arriving in America. In 1919 he starred, as Charles Sparrow, in With Edged Tools, a rarity in being a film made in South Africa.

    Shaw’s first American feature was The Set-Up (1926), a western. He went on to make over 140 appearances as a character actor, sometimes uncredited but often not. If he had an area of specialism, it was serials.

    Shaw can be seen in Blondie of the Follies (1932), The Mummy (1932), Cavalcade (1933), Queen Christina (1933, as King Gustavus Adolphus), Becky Sharp (1935), Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1936, as the Clay King), Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and Unconquered (1947). 

    The only MGM musical featuring Shaw is Dancing Lady, where he was uncredited.

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