The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Swing Fever

  • Edwin B Willis

    Edwin Booth Willis (1893-1963) worked on the design of over 800 MGM pictures, in a career lasting a little over thirty years. He was nominated for Academy Awards 32 times, and won on eight occasions. In broad terms, Willis was an art director, but his specialism was set decoration and the bulk of his credits were in this capacity. 

    After working as an art director for Tiffany Pictures in the 1920s, Willis worked exclusively for Metro, obtaining three types of credit: Associate Art Director (AAD), Interior Decorations (ID) and Set Decorator (SD). He did early work as SD on Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925).

    Willis worked on some of the studio’s major critical and commercial successes, including Queen Christina (1933, for ID), The Thin Man (1934, as AAD), Anna Karenina (1935, as AAD, Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936, as AAD), Camille (1936, as AAD), The Good Earth (1937, as AAD), Captains Courageous (1937, as AAD), Boys’ Town (1938, as AAD), The Women (1939), Ninotchka (1939, as SD), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Waterloo Bridge (1940), Pride and Prejudice (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Blossoms in the Dust (1941, winning an Oscar), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941), Woman of the Year (1942), Mrs Miniver (1942), Lassie Come Home (1943), Madame Curie (1943), Gaslight (1944, winning an Oscar), John Ford’s They Were Expendable (1944), The Yearling (1946, winning an Oscar), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), State of the Union (1948), Act of Violence (1948), Intruder in the Dust (1949), Little Women (1949, winning an Oscar), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Red Badge of Courage (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful 1952, winning an Oscar), Julius Caesar (1953, winning an Oscar), Bad Day at  Black Rock (1955), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956, winning an Oscar), Forbidden Planet (1956) and Lust for Life (1956).

    Willis had a particularly extensive collaboration with Vincente Minnelli, decorating most of his musical and non-musical pictures

    Edwin B Willis contributed to 153 musicals, around 70 per cent of MGM’s total output. It could be argued that this makes him the single most influential figure on the look of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical. The pictures were:

    Broadway to Hollywood

    Stage Mother (ID)

    Dancing Lady (ID)

    Going Hollywood (ID)

    The Cat and the Fiddle (ID)

    Hollywood Party (ID)

    Student Tour (AAD)

    The Merry Widow (AAD)

    The Night is Young (AAD/SD)

    Naughty Marietta (AAD)

    Reckless (AAD)

    Broadway Melody of 1936 (AAD)

    Here Comes the Band (AAD)

    A Night at the Opera (AAD)

    Rose Marie (AAD)

    The Great Ziegfeld (AAD)

    San Francisco (AAD)

    Born to Dance (AAD)

    Maytime (AAD)

    A Day at the Races (AAD)

    Broadway Melody of 1938 (AAD)

    The Firefly (AAD)

    Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry (AAD)

    Rosalie (AAD)

    Everybody Sing (AAD)

    The Girl of the Golden West (AAD)

    Listen, Darling (AAD)

    The Great Waltz (AAD)

    Sweethearts

    Honolulu

    Let Freedom Ring

    Ice Follies of 1939

    The Wizard of Oz

    Babes in Arms

    At the Circus

    Balalaika

    Broadway Melody of 1940

    New Moon

    Strike Up the Band

    Hullabaloo (Associate Set Decorator, uncredited)

    Bitter Sweet

    Little Nellie Kelly

    Go West

    Free and Easy

    Ziegfeld Girl

    The Big Store

    Lady Be Good

    The Chocolate Soldier

    Smilin’ Through

    Babes on Broadway

    Born to Sing

    Ship Ahoy

    Rio Rita

    I Married an Angel

    Cairo

    Panama Hattie

    For Me and My Gal

    Seven Sweethearts

    Cabin in the Sky

    Presenting Lily Mars

    Du Barry was a Lady

    Best Foot Forward

    Thousands Cheer

    Swing Fever

    Girl Crazy

    Broadway Rhythm

    Two Girls and a Sailor

    Meet the People

    Bathing Beauty

    Meet Me in St Louis

    Music for Millions

    Thrill of a Romance

    Anchors Aweigh

    Ziegfeld Follies

    Yolanda and the Thief

    The Harvey Girls

    Two Sister from Boston

    Easy to Wed

    Holiday in Mexico

    No Leave, No Love

    Till the Clouds Roll By

    It Happened in Brooklyn

    Living in a Big Way

    Fiesta

    The Unfinished Dance

    Good News

    Summer Holiday

    On an Island With You

    The Pirate

    Easter Parade

    A Date with Judy

    Luxury Liner

    The Kissing Bandit

    Words and Music

    Take Me Out to the Ball Game

    The Barkeleys of Broadway

    Neptune’s Daughter

    In the Good Old Summertime

    That Midnight Kiss

    On the Town

    Nancy Goes to Rio

    Annie Get Your Gun

    Three Little Words

    Duchess of Idaho

    The Toast of New Orleans

    Summer Stock

    Two Weeks with Love

    Pagan Love Song

    Grounds for Marriage

    Royal Wedding

    The Great Caruso

    Excuse My Dust

    Rich, Young and Pretty

    Show Boat

    An American in Paris (winning an Oscar)

    The Strip

    Texas Carnival

    The Belle of New York

    Singin’ in the Rain

    Skirts Ahoy

    Lovely to Look At

    The Merry Widow

    Because You’re Mine

    Everything I Have is Yours

    Lili

    I Love Melvin

    Small Town Girl

    Dangerous When Wet

    The Band Wagon

    Latin Lovers

    The Affairs of Dobie Gillis

    Torch Song

    Kiss Me Kate

    Easy to  Love

    Rose Marie

    The Student Prince

    Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

    Brigadoon

    Athena 

    Deep in My Heart

    Jupiter’s Darling

    Hit the Deck

    The Glass Slipper

    Interrupted Melody

    Love Me or Leave Me

    It’s Always Fair Weather

    Kismet

    Meet Me in Las Vegas

    High Society

    The Opposite Sex

    Ten Thousand Bedrooms

    Silk Stockings

    Les Girls

  • Busby Berkeley

    The birth name of Busby Berkeley William Enos (1895-1976) is something of a mystery since, according to his biographer, his birth certificate’s ‘name of child’ section was left blank. Busby may have been a nickname.

    IMDb declares that Berkeley “was one of the greatest choreographers of the US movie musical”. Technically, this is only true in part. He was certainly a great dance director, but choreographers usually know something about dancing, and Berkeley actually knew very little. As Jerome Delamater points out, Berkeley “used very little dance as such in his films”. He did not understand dance, but he did understand movement; specifically, the movement of human bodies in geometric patterns and shapes. As the artist Glen Baxter suggested, Busby Berkeley sequences were surrealism in action.

    In the 1920s, Berkeley became a celebrated Broadway dance director, staging around twenty shows and becoming celebrated for his tightly regimented routines. Florenz Ziegfeld invited him to go to Hollywood to work on the film version of the Eddie Cantor hit Whoopee! (1930), and he began honing the camera techniques that made his most famous numbers to stand out. It is important to recognize that these techniques were not necessarily of Berkeley’s devising. The overhead shot, for example, which is seen virtually as his signature, had been used in 1929 in MGM’s The Hollywood Revue of 1929, and the Ziegfeld idea of using a plethora of chorus girls was emulated by Larry Ceballos in Warner’s The Show of Shows (1929). But Berkeley used these techniques with more creativity and greater discipline.

    Berkeley’s reputation rests largely on the numbers he staged for the series of Warner Bros musicals that began with 42nd Street (1933). A couple of years earlier, however, he had staged the big number in MGM’s Flying High.

    Berkeley returned to Metro in 1939, to direct Babes in Arms, and did a lot of work for the studio thereafter. He directed the Garland-Rooney follow-ups Strike Up the Band and Babes on Broadway, as well as For Me and My Gal and Take Me Out to the Ball Game. He was the original director of Annie Get Your Gun, but most of his footage was scrapped when George Sidney took over. He was one of a number of directors who worked on Till the Clouds Roll By, and worked without credit on Swing Fever.

    Berkeley also arranged musical numbers for The Wizard of Oz (though most of his footage was left out), Cabin in the Sky (uncredited), Lady Be Good, Ziegfeld Girl, Born to Sing, Girl Crazy, Two Weeks With Love, Million Dollar Mermaid, Small Town Girl, Easy to Love, Rose Marie and Billy Rose’s Jumbo.

  • Harry Wilson

    The figures of 350+ film and TV appearances by Harry Wilson (1897-1978) is made more impressive by the fact that Wilson worked almost entirely in the sound era, when the turnover of pictures was not so great as in the silent days.

    British-born Wilson dubbed himself ‘the ugliest man in movies’ (though there was competition), and he was many studios’ go-to actor for convicts and criminal henchmen. He features with Mike Mazurki in Some Like it Hot (1959) as one of George Raft’s goons.

    Wilson appeared uncredited in no fewer than fifteen MGM musicals, across more than thirty years and four decades. In the 1930s he made A Lady’s Morals, The Bohemian Girl, A Day at the Races, Let Freedom Ring and The Wizard of Oz (as a Winkie Guard). In the 40s, Wilson was in Go West, Born to Sing, Swing Fever, Luxury Liner and Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

    His 1950s appearances were in Million Dollar Mermaid, It’s Always Fair Weather, Guys and Dolls and Merry Andrew. And finally, in 1963, Wilson played a roustabout in Billy Rose’s Jumbo. 

    As if Wilson was not busy enough making his own films, he worked for fifteen years as Wallace Beery’s stand-in.

  • Jay Eaton

    Jay Eaton (1899-1970) had a featured role in his first picture, Her First Elopement (1920), directed by Sam Wood. He went on to act in upwards of 240 films, working for some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, but mostly making small, uncredited appearances. 

    Nine of these were in MGM musicals, starting with Children of Pleasure, followed by Stage Mother, Hollywood Party and A Night at the Opera (reunited him with Sam Wood). Eaton was in The Great Ziegfeld, Broadway Serenade, Ship Ahoy, Swing Fever and Easy to Wed.

  • Jack Byron

    Byron Moses Cheek (1895-1991) began his film career with a featured role in Fixed By George (1920), but spent the next thirty-five years mostly in uncredited parts. His final appearance was as a photographer at the start of This Island Earth (1955).

    Byron played five uncredited roles in Metro musicals, in Lord Byron of Broadway, Madam Satan, Hollywood Party, Du Barry Was a Lady and Swing Fever.

  • George Chandler

    W C Fields’s fans will know George Chandler (1898-1985) as Chester Snavely, the unfortunate youth who drank The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933).

    In his fifty-year career Chandler kept very busy, right up to a final appearance in the Lou Grant TV series. He made credited appearances in two MGM musicals–In Gay Madrid and The Florodora Girl–and also showed up uncredited in Devil-May-Care, Love in the Rough, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Broadway Melody of 1940, Swing Fever and The Pirate.

  • Sammy Fain

    Samuel E Feinberg (1902-89) was a successful composer of popular songs who worked extensively in Hollywood. He was nominated ten times for the Oscar for Best Song, winning twice for ‘Secret Love’ from Calamity Jane (1953) and for the title song from Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Fain also worked regularly for the Disney Studio.

    Fain contributed songs to fourteen MGM musicals, frequently for Joseph Pasternak productions. ‘Let a Smile be Your Umbrella’ was featured in It’s a Great Life. He later wrote numbers for I Dood It, Swing Fever, Two Girls and a Sailor, Meet the People and Thrill of a Romance.

    For Anchors Aweigh Fain composed ‘The Worry Song’ to accompany Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry Mouse. His work also features in Two Sisters from Boston, Holiday in Mexico, No Leave, No Love, The Unfinished Dance, This Time for Keeps, Three Daring Daughters and Made in Paris. From Rosetta Duncan to Ann-Magret in 37 years.

  • Harry Rapf

    Harry Rapf (1880-1949) joined MGM on its formation in 1924 and worked as one of the studio’s three production supervisors, under the direction of Irving Thalberg. His son Maurice claimed that Thalberg and his father disliked each other, but then Rapf seemed to struggle to be liked by anyone, especially writers. He is also credited with more Goldwynisms than Sam Goldwyn himself: “I woke up last night with a terrific idea for a movie–but I didn’t like it”. Nonetheless, he was one of the powerful inner circle at Metro. 

    Rapf did some uncredited work on The Broadway Melody and The Hollywood Revue of 1929, but his first credit on a feature musical was Broadway to Hollywood; it might have been The March of Time if it had not been abandoned. He was uncredited again on Hollywood Party and Student Tour, and next produced Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry and Everybody Sing. 

    Let Freedom Ring followed, and then Rapf inflicted The Ice Follies of 1939 on Joan Crawford, whom he had brought to Hollywood years earlier and had a relationship with. 

    Rapf’s final musical effort was on Swing Fever, uncredited.    

  • Charles F Reisner

    Charles Francis Reisner (1887-1962) was an actor and director who might best be described as ‘competent’. Yet he managed, in both careers, to be associated with some very impressive projects. Reisner acted with Chaplin in A Dog’s Life (1918), The Kid (1921) and The Pilgrim (1923), and also worked for him as a gag writer. And he was the named director on Keaton’s masterpiece, Steamboat Bill Jr (1928). In fact, it was Reisner who came up with the original story idea, and who was literally on his knees praying while Keaton performed the stunt where the house fell down around him.

    Reisner’s career at MGM was less prestigious, though he was considered a capable pair of hands. This is why he was brought in to rescue The Hollywood Revue of 1929 when Christy Cabanne’s work was judged to be lacking by Irving Thalberg. 

    From there Reisner moved straight on to directing Chasing Rainbows, to which he also contributed dialogue. He then directed Love in the Rough and was working on The March of time when it was abandoned. His next completed musical was Flying High.

    Reisner did uncredited writing for Hollywood Party and was one of its eight directors. He directed Student Tour, then took a break from musicals after a busy couple of years. He returned in 1941 to direct The Big Store, the last and least of the Marx Brothers’ films for Metro.

    In 1943 Reisner made Swing Fever, and ended his career in MGM musicals with Meet the People.

  • Ernie Alexander

    Ernie Alexander (1890-1961) was typical of Hollywood’s hardworking bit players. Out of over 200 mostly uncredited performances, sixteen were in Metro musicals.

    Beginning as a doughboy in Marianne, Alexander was a student in So This Is College, a servant in Hollywood Party, and a townsman in Babes in Toyland.

    Alexander’s contribution to Here Comes the Band was lost in the edit, but he came back with an elevator operator in Rose-Marie and a racetrack usher in Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry.

    He was a revolutionary in The Great Waltz, a photographer in Broadway Serenade and an expectant father in Little Nellie Kelly. He played a pageboy in Lady Be Good and stagehands in Ship Ahoy and For Me and My Gal. 

    He delivered flowers in Du Barry Was a Lady and finally acquired a name as Charlie the bellboy in I Dood It. 

    Finally, Alexander was back in uniform as a commissionaire in Swing Fever.

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