Category: Films

Lane Chandler

Robert Clinton Oakes (1899-1972) made close to 400 film and television appearances in a career that lasted over forty years. The son of a Montana horse rancher, it was fitting that a huge proportion of his roles were in westerns.

Chandler made his first, uncredited, appearance in a Paramount western in 1927, but was starring opposite Betty Bronson in his second, Open Range (1927). Sound posed no problem for him, and he had a featured role in The Forward Pass (1929). But the status of his roles on non-westerns and ‘A’ pictures started to decline. Eventually, he settled into a long series of credited and uncredited character parts.

Chandler had small parts in ten Cecil B DeMille pictures, took orders from Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials, and showed up in films as diverse as Roman Scandals (1933), Marie Antionette (1938), They Died with Their Boots On (1941), Laura (1944), The Dark Mirror (1946), Red River (1948) and Rancho Notorious (1952).

For MGM, Chandler appeared in The Devil’s Brother and, uncredited, in The Merry Widow, The Bohemian Girl, The Firefly, Rosalie and Born to Sing.

July 23, 2026
Matt McHugh

Matthew O’Grady McHugh (1894-1971) never achieved the level of fame of his brother Frank, but appeared in more films (well over 200) than his sister Kitty.

From a theatrical family, the three siblings performed a stage act together as teenagers. Afterwards, Matt worked in stock companies before making his Broadway debut in Street Scene in 1929, and recreated his role in the 1931 film version.

The following year, McHugh and Edward Brophy played the Rollo brothers, owners of the carnival in Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932). Here, as in most of his other roles, he acted with a Brooklyn accent, despite having no connection with the area.

McHugh’s later appearances, mostly uncredited, included parts in Barbary Coast (1935), Holiday (1938), Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Devil and Miss Jones (1942), Phantom Lady (1944) and The Dark Corner (1945).

Matt McHugh was in four MGM musicals: The Devil’s Brother, and uncredited in Dancing Lady, Broadway Melody of 1938 and At the Circus.

July 23, 2026
Henry Armetta

Enrico Armetta (1888-1945) left Sicily aged 14, as a stowaway on a boat bound for New York. He managed to avoid being sent back, and was working as a valet at the Lambs Club when actor Raymond Hitchcock got him a job in the chorus of a musical.

Armetta worked for stock companies and on Broadway for a few years, and also appeared in a handful of films for New York-based companies. In 1920, he made his way to Hollywood, and established a career playing stereotypical Italians in pictures such as Fantômas (1920) and A Girl in Every Port (1928).

Armetta’s career as a supporting player really took off with the coming of sound, when there was a demand for actors who could do ethnic accents, and he became a familiar face in about 150 films as various Luigis, Giuseppes and Tonys. He had featured roles in two of John M Stahl’s greatest melodramas, Imitation of Life (1934) and Magnificent Obsession (1935), while also playing uncredited barbers, waiters and street vendors.

Henry Armetta had a featured role in The Devil’s Brother, and appeared in a further MGM musicals: The Cat and the Fiddle (as the taxi driver), The Merry Widow (uncredited as the lascivious Turk at Maxim’s), Everybody Sing, The Big Store and Anchors Aweigh.

July 23, 2026
Arthur Pierson

Actor and director Arthur Pierson (1901-75) was born in Norway but raised in Seattle.

As an actor, he made it to Broadway in 1929, making his first film three years later, a supporting role in Paramount’s No One Man (1932). The following year he made his sole appearance in an MGM musical, as Lorenzo in The Devil’s Brother.

Pierson left Hollywood in 1935 to return to Broadway. He acted in a couple of more pictures in the forties, but then turned to writing and directing. He went into television as a producer, and ended his career as an executive responsible for story supervision at Hanna-Barbera. Series on which he worked included The Jetsons, Jonny Quest and The Secret Squirrel Show.

July 22, 2026
Lucile Browne

Lucile Ruth Browne (1907-76) had been working with a theatre company in Chicago when the Fox Film Corporation gave her the female lead in the western The Last of the Duanes (1930).

Browne’s subsequent career was a combination of featured roles in ‘B’ westerns and uncredited appearances in ‘A’ pictures. For example, in 1935 she played a bit as a nurse in Magnificent Obsession, and also starred opposite Gene Autry in Republic’s singing cowboy picture Tumbling Tumbleweeds.

A rare exception to this rule was a featured role in MGM/Hal Roach’s The Devil’s Brother. Her only other appearance in an MGM musical was as a chorus girl in Sweethearts.

Browne effectively retired in 1938 to raise a family, making only occasional screen appearances thereafter, ending with the Margaret Sullavan weepie No Sad Songs for Me (1950).

July 22, 2026
James Finlayson

James Henderson Finlayson (1887-1953) was acting on the stage in his native Scotland when he travelled with a play to the United States in 1911. His parents had recently died and he decided, along with one of his brothers, to stay there.

Finlayson obtained a part in a 1912 production of Bunty Pulls the Strings, and later worked in vaudeville with Alex Lauder, the lesser-known brother of Harry. He ended up touring with a play that took him to Los Angeles, and never left.

He made his first film appearance in 1917, and by 1919 was working at the Mack Sennett studio. He became a key member of Sennett’s troupe, working repeatedly with Ben Turpin. But in 1922, Finlayson signed with Hal Roach.

Roach tried to groom him as a lead player, but this did not work out. He is said to have considered partnering Finlayson with Laurel and Hardy as a comedy trio, but staff director Leo McCarey realized that the duo was a better bet. So Finlayson became an unofficial third member of the partnership, appearing in thirty-three films with Stan and Ollie, right the way through to Saps at Sea in 1940.

Finlayson always wore a fake walrus moustache and became famous for his overacting, master of the double take and the quizzical or exasperated face, accompanied by the extended cry of ‘D’oooh!’.

James Finlayson was in five Metro musicals, initially with Laurel and Hardy. He featured prominently in The Devil’s Brother, followed by The Bohemian Girl. Later on, when he had become a bit-part player, he appeared in Two Sisters from Boston, Till the Clouds Roll By and Royal Wedding.

Finlayson also worked with Hawks in The Dawn Patrol (1930), Hitchcock in Foreign Correspondent (1940), and Lubitsch in Angel (1937) and To Be or Not to Be (1942).

July 22, 2026
Thelma Todd

Thelma Alice Todd (1906-35) made well over 100 film appearances in her brief life, largely in shorts, but also in many notable features.

A teenage beauty pageant winner, Todd inevitably came to the attention of Hollywood scouts. She made a few undemanding appearances for Paramount, before finding a berth at the Hal Roach Studios in 1929. After working successfully with Roach’s stars, including Laurel and Hardy, Todd was eventually partnered with ZaSu Pitts in a double act intended as a distaff version of Stan and Ollie. Though not achieving the comic heights of their models, the Todd and Pitts shorts are entertaining enough, even using the same theme and incidental music as Laurel and Hardy.

Thelma Todd was a gifted comedian, and worked well with the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932). Todd always looks genuinely amused by the comics she is working with, and incorporates this into her performances.

Todd could also play it straight, and was Iva Archer, widow of Sam Spade’s partner, in the first version of The Maltese Falcon (1931).

Todd made two appearances in MGM musicals, both of them in Laurel and Hardy vehicles. She had the female lead in The Devil’s Brother, and was later cast in The Bohemian Girl. Unfortunately, she died before the latter film’s release, and most of her part was edited out.

Thelma’s Todd’s death was deemed to be suicide, but this was always unbelievable to those who knew her, who said she had never shown the slightest sign of depression. She was in a relationship with director Roland West, and it is claimed that he confessed to her murder on his death bed in 1952.

July 22, 2026
Dennis King

British-born Dennis Pratt (1897-1971) could thank army surgeons for his successful career as an actor and singer. Serving during the First World War, he was injured in battle and required surgery to repair the damage done to his face by shrapnel.

King was a rare performer who was equally at home in Shakespeare and operettas. He made his West End debut in 1919, and was performing on Broadway just two years later. After working for some years as a classical actor, King gained the lead role in Rose-Marie (1924) and then created the role of François Villon in The Vagabond King (1925).

King recreated his stage role in Paramount’s The Vagabond King (1930), the first of his handful of film appearances. In 1933, he worked for Hal Roach and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on The Devil’s Brother.

Dennis King made his first television appearance in 1948, and worked for many years in that medium and on the stage.

July 21, 2026

The Devil’s Brother

The Cast

Stan Laurel	Stanlio
Oliver Hardy	Ollio
Dennis King	Fra Diavalo/Marquis de San Marco
Thelma Todd	Lady Pamela
James Finlayson	Lord Rocburg
Lucile Brown	Zerlina
Arthur Pierson	Lorenzo
Henry Armetta	Matteo
Matt McHugh	Francesco
Lane Chandler	Lieutenant
Nina Quartero	Rita
Wilfred Lucas	Alessandro
James C Morton	Woodchopper
Marion Bardell	Tavern Bartender (uncredited)
Alice Belcher	Old woman in tavern (uncredited)
Louise Carver	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Kay Deslys	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Scotty Mattraw	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Rolfe Sedan	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Lillian Moore	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Walter Shumway	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Leo White	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Grace Woods	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Carl Harbaugh	Second Woodchopper (uncredited)
Tiny Sandford	Big Woodchopper (uncredited)
Harry Bernard	Drunk (uncredited)
John Collum	Boy (uncredited)
Jackie Lynn Taylor	Girl (uncredited)
Edith Fellows	Girl (uncredited)
Francis Ford	Man under table (uncredited)
Dick Gilbert	Brigand (uncredited)
Arthur Stone	Brigand (uncredited)
Jack Hill	Brigand (uncredited)
George Miller	Minister (uncredited)
Frank Terry	Servant (uncredited)
Brooks Benedict	Unspecified role (uncredited)

July 20, 2026

Paul Marquardt

German-born Paul Alfred Marquardt (1889-1960) was a composer who worked for many years as an arranger at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and for other studios. Although rarely receiving an onscreen credit, Marquardt made a substantial contribution to MGM’s musical history.

He orchestrated the music for many non-musical films, including Anna Karenina (1935), Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936), Captains Courageous (1937), The Women (1939), Northwest Passage (1940), Rebecca (1940),Frank Borzage’s The Mortal Storm (1940), Woman of the Year (1942), Mrs Miniver (1942), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Red River (1948), The Thing from Another World (1951), High Noon (1952) and Friendly Persuasion (1957). Marquardt also composed original scores in the 1930s, including for The Sign of the Cross and A Farewell to Arms (both 1933). He worked on well over 350 films between 1930 and 1957.

The first of Marquardt’s 39 MGM musicals was The Cuban Love Song, collaborating with Charles Maxwell. This was followed by Dancing Lady, The Merry Widow, The Night is Young, Naughty Marietta, Reckless, Here Comes the Band, A Night at the Opera, The Great Ziegfeld, San Francisco. Maytime, A Day at the Races, The Firefly, Rosalie, Everybody Sing, The Girl of the Golden West, The Great Waltz, Sweethearts (in which he also appeared as a conductor), The Wizard of Oz (credited for orchestral and vocal arrangements), Babes in Arms, At the Circus, Balalaika, New Moon, Hullabaloo, Rio Rita, I Married an Angel, Seven Sweethearts, Presenting Lily Mars, Thousands Cheer, Ziegfeld Follies, Holiday in Mexico, Easter Parade, The Kissing Bandit, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, The Barkeleys of Broadway, That Midnight Kiss, Annie Get Your Gun, Royal Wedding and Show Boat.

July 20, 2026