The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: San Francisco

  • Carl Stockdale

    William Carlton Stockdale (1874-1953) accumulated over 300 screen appearances in a thirty-year career that began in 1913 with Broncho Billy’s Last Deed. The title was misleading, because Stockdale went on to appear in more than thirty of Broncho Billy Anderson’s popular shorts, always playing a different character.

    Prior to his film career, Stockdale was a stage actor and vaudeville performer. In pictures, he came to specialize in villains and heavies, though his first appearance in an MGM musical was on the right side of the law, playing the New York Chief of Police in A Lady’s Morals.

    Stockdale made four additional contributions, in Stage Mother, Student Tour, San Francisco and Babes in Arms (though it would appear his scenes were not used).

    Stockdale became a footnote in Hollywood history when he provided actor Charlotte Selby with an alibi when she was under suspicion for the 1922 murder of William Desmond Taylor. Persistant rumours maintain that the alibi was bought and paid for. 

  • James Basevi

    The name of James Basevi (1890-1962) is probably less familiar today than that of Cedric Gibbons, but he was, like his erstwhile colleague, one of the most influential of all art directors during the classical Hollywood era. Basevi was to 20th Century-Fox, what Gibbons was to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

    James Badevi was British, but emigrated to Canada, then the USA, after serving in the First World War. He gave up his profession as an architect to design films, joining MGM at its formation in 1924. One of his earliest successes was The Big Parade (1925), where he designed battle sequences that drew on his own wartime experiences. 

    In the 1930s, he was put in charge of MGM’s special effects work, and in this capacity contributed to two musicals: Madam Satan and, most significantly, San Francisco, for which he designed “one of the truly great cinematic illusions”, the earthquake sequence.

    After moving to Fox, Basevi soon established one of the great partnerships between a designer and a director, when he worked with John Ford on The Hurricane (1937). He was the art director on a further seven Ford pictures, including some of his greatest westerns: My Darling Clementine (1946), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wagon Master (1950) and (his final film) The Searchers (1956).

    Basevi also made remarkable contributions to two Alfred Hitchcock films of the 1940s, Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945).

  • Bud Geary

    Sigsbee Maine Geary (1898-1946) was a character who made over 250 screen appearances, almost all without credit. His credited roles were at the start of his career, and included Will Scarlett in Robin Hood (1922), where he was billed as Maine Geary.

    During the sound era, Geary played in mostly low-budget pictures and serials (including many westerns), and maintained a parallel career as a stunt performer. Geary was the prison guard escorting James Cagney to the electric chair in Angels with Dirty Faces (1939), and a storm trooper in The Great Dictator (1940).

    Bud Geary had uncredited roles in seven MGM musicals: Madam Satan, Flying High, Stage Mother, Going Hollywood, A Night at the Opera, San Francisco and Ship Ahoy. 

  • Wilbur Mack

    George Frear Runyon (1873-1964) made his stage debut aged 16 and achieved success in vaudeville doing comedy double acts with both his first and second wives. The act can be seen in a Vitaphone short called An Everyday Occurrence (1929).

    Mack made his first film in 1925 and racked up well over 400 appearances. He started out in featured supporting roles, but the quality of his parts declined in the talking era. 

    Nonetheless, Mack made uncredited appearances in no fewer than twenty-two MGM musicals between 1930 and 1956: Love in the Rough, Going Hollywood, A Night at the Opera, San Francisco, A Day at the Races, Broadway Melody of 1938, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Rio Rita, Thousands Cheer, Broadway Rhythm, Two Girls and a Sailor, Thrill of a Romance, Ziegfeld Follies, The Barkeleys of Broadway, Nancy Goes to Rio, The Great Caruso, The Band Wagon, Kiss Me Kate, Easy to Love, Athena, The Glass Slipper and The Opposite Sex. 

  • Paul Lamkoff

    Composer Paul Lambkovitz (1888-1953) was born either in Poland or Russia, and trained at the Petrograd Conservatory before working as both a conductor and cantor. He emigrated to America in 1922.

    Lamkoff was qualified by both his professions to work as a vocal coach and choral arranger for the ‘Kol Nidre’ sequence of The Jazz Singer (1927), roles he also carried out for the 1952 remake.

    He then had a sporadic career in the film industry, working as composer, orchestrator and vocal coach on a dozen or so pictures. These included Call of the Flesh, Here Comes the Band, A Night at the Opera, Rose-Marie and San Francisco.  Alongside this he pursued his work as a cantor and expert on Jewish music.

  • William H O’Brien

    William H O’Brien (1891-1981) made his first film in Australia in 1918, and in a Hollywood career lasting over fifty years he appeared in around 650 films, almost always without credit. These included Scarface (1931), The Thin Man (1934), Rebecca (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Ace in the Hole (1951), High Noon (1952), Some Like It Hot (1959) and, finally, Bedknobs and Brooksticks (1971).

    With a filmography that long, it is little wonder O’Brien was in thirteen Metro musicals across a 36-year period, starting with Children of Pleasure in 1930 and ending with Made in Paris in 1966. In between came New Moon, A Night at the Opera, San Francisco, Nobody’s Baby, The Firefly, Two Girls on Broadway, Thousands Cheer, Two Sisters from Boston, The Glass Slipper, It’s Always Fair Weather and Merry Andrew.

  • Sidney Bracey

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    Sidney Bracy [sic] (1877-1942) was a stage actor in his native Australia before moving to America and commencing his film career in 1909. Later in life he tended to be cast as authority figures and servants, including upwards of 54 butlers and a variety of valets and chauffeurs. 

    Four of Bracey’s MGM musical appearances were as butlers: Children of Pleasure, A Lady’s Morals, Hollywood Party and San Francisco. He also showed up uncredited in Broadway to Hollywood, The Firefly and Rosalie.

  • Jack Baxley

    Andrew Jackson Baxley (1884-1950) appeared in a handful of excellent films during his career as a character actor, including two with Orson Welles (The Magnificent Amberson in 1942 and The Lady from Shanghai in 1947). But there, as in most of his other pictures, he was uncredited.

    Baxley was in eight Metro musicals: Free and Easy, The Florodora Girl, Dancing Lady, The Great Ziegfeld, San Francisco, Strike Up the Band, Thrill of a Romance and Summer Holiday.

  • Tom Held

    Thomas Held (1889-1962) was an Austrian-born editor. After starting out as an assistant director, his first, uncredited editing assignment was on They Learned About Women, where he worked alongside Jack McKay. 

    Held’s other musicals were San Francisco and The Great Waltz (for which he was Oscar-nominated). He also worked uncredited on The Wizard of Oz.

  • John Kelly

    John F Kelly (1901-47) was an actor whose film appearances fluctuated between small featured roles and walk ons. For instance, he went from playing an uncredited henchman in Everybody’s Doing It to being the not-so-bright Elmer in Bringing Up Baby (both 1938).

    Kelly’s MGM musical appearances were all uncredited: They Learned About Women, San Francisco and Born to Dance.

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