Category: Main Crew

Hal Roach

Most of the names synonymous with silent film comedy are performers: Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, and Laurel and Hardy. But they are joined by two producer-directors: Mack Sennett and Harold Eugene Roach (1892-1992).

Roach began working as an extra in Hollywood in 1912, and produced his first comedy shorts in 1915, in partnership with his friend Harold Lloyd. He worked with Lloyd until 1923, and went on to establish the Laurel and Hardy team. Roach wrote, produced and sometimes directed hundreds of comedy shorts and features.

In 1928, the Hal Roach studio began releasing its films through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which is how he became connected with its early musical pictures. In 1930, MGM wanted to add comic relief to The Rogue Song, so Roach directed additional sequences featuring Stan and Ollie as members of Lawrence Tibbetts band of outlaws.

In 1933, the Hal Roach Studio and MGM co-produced The Devil’s Brother, a Laurel and Hardy musical that Roach directed. He also worked as an uncredited director on Swiss Miss and The Bohemian Girl (which he co-wrote), and produced Babes in Toyland and Nobody’s Baby.

April 15, 2026

The Rogue Song

Crew

Lionel Barrymore	Director
Hal Roach	Director (uncredited)
Wells Root	Idea
John Colton	Screenplay
Frances Marion	Screenplay
Herbert Stothart	Composer
Franz Lehar	Composer
Clifford Grey	Lyricist
Dimitri Tiomkin	Composer
William Axt	Composer
Paul Bern	Producer (uncredited)
Irving Thalberg	Producer (uncredited)
Percy Hilburn	Cinematographer
Charles Edgar Schoenbaum	Cinematographer
Margaret Booth	Editor
Cedric Gibbons	Art Director
Adrian	Costume Designer
Douglas Shearer	Sound Recording Engineer
Paul Neal	Sound Recording Engineer
Albertina Rasch	Choreographer
Westmore, George	Makeup Artist (uncredited)
Charles Dorian	Assistant Director (uncredited)

April 15, 2026

Blanche Sewell

Blanche Irene Sewell (1898-1949) died far too young, but had become one of the most talented of all Hollywood editors and a seminal influence on the MGM musical style . After training under pioneer Viola Lawrence, Sewell became a full-fledged editor at MGM in 1925 and spent the rest of her career there.

She was the sister-in-law of Walt Disney, and it is generally accepted that she tutored him on the principles of editing and was very influential, in particular, on the form of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

Sewell cut some of Metro’s most memorable pictures of the 1930s, including Grand Hotel, Red Dust and Queen Christina. In the 1940s, she edited twenty films, fourteen of which were musicals.

Sewell’s involvement with musicals began in 1930 with Children of Pleasure, after which she cut Naughty Marietta, Broadway Melody of 1936, Rose-Marie, Born to Dance, Broadway Melody of 1938, Rosalie and Listen Darling.

In 1939, Sewell was chosen to edit The Wizard of Oz, and it was claimed that this was in the hope she could bring to it some of the magic that Disney had produced in Snow White.

After this cameBroadway Melody of 1940, Go West, Ziegfeld Girl, Ship Ahoy, Panama Hattie, Seven Sweethearts, Du Barry Was a Lady, Best Foot Forward, Bathing Beauty, Easy to Wed, It Happened in Brooklyn, Fiesta andThe Pirate. Sewell’s last work, shortly before her death, was on Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

April 9, 2026
Percy Hilburn

Percy Hilburn (1889-1946) had a career as a cinematographer lasting only from 1915 to 1931, but still managed to shoot over 70 pictures. Most notable amongst these was MGM’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), on which he was one of several DoPs.

During the remainder of his career at the studio Hilburn shot two musicals, Children of Pleasure and Good News.

April 9, 2026
George Ward

It is difficult to find any information about George Ward (????-????), the co-writer of songs featured in Children of Pleasure, Good News and the uncompleted The March of Time. Most online sources seem to confuse him with George Warde, a child actor during the 1920s.

April 9, 2026
Howard Johnson

Lyricist Howard Johnson (1887-1941) both served in the First World War and wrote popular songs about it, including the immortal ‘I’d Like to See the Kaiser with a Lily in his Hand’:

I’d like to see all mothers free from sorrow,

I’d like to see poor Belgium free from pain;

I’d like to see this cruel conflict ended,

I’d like to see my daddy once again.

I’d like to see the Yankees win this battle,

I’d like to see France get back her promised land;

I’d like to see this whole big world United,

And I’d like to see the Kaiser with a lily in his hand!

Johnson was capable of better than this, and his best-known song is probably ‘What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?,’ written in 1916 and made a UK chart hit by Shakin’ Stevens 70 years later.

Johnson co-wrote numbers for Children of Pleasure and the abandoned March of Time. His songs are also featured in Madam Satan, A Night at the Opera, For Me and My Gal and Hit the Deck.

April 8, 2026

Children of Pleasure

Crew

Harry Beaumont	Director
Crane Wilbur	Play and dialogue
Richard Schayer	Scenario
Robert E Hopkins	Scenario (uncredited)
Fred Fisher	Composer
Andy Rice	Lyricist
Fred E Ahlert	Composer
Roy Turk	Lyricist
Reggie Montgomery	Composer
Howard Johnson	Lyricist
George Ward	Lyricist
Percy Hilburn	Cinematographer
Blanche Sewell	Editor
George Todd	Editor (uncredited)
Cedric Gibbons	Art Director
Douglas Shearer	Recording Director
David Cox	Wardrobe
Sammy Lee	Choreographer

April 7, 2026

Karl Zint

Karl E Zindt (1909-78) was a sound engineer who started out in Douglas Shearer’s new sound department at MGM. While there, he worked on the highly successful Grand Hotel (1932) and, with slightly less prestige, Free and Easy. Thereafter, Zint spent most of his career on Poverty Row aand in television.

March 26, 2026
George Todd

George Todd (1???-1???) is a mysterious figure. Both IMDb and the American Film Institute are certain that he was a cutter on Free and Easy and Children of Pleasure…and that’s it.

March 26, 2026
William LeVanway

William LeVanway (1896-1957) was an editor who spent his entire career at Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, latterly as head of the editing department. Unlike Douglas Shearer and Cedric Gibbons, he was not credited on every film.

While still undertaking editing assignments, LeVanway worked on the silent version of The Broadway Melody (1929), and was the cutter on Free and Easy, Good News and A Night at the Opera. He was the supervising editor for An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain.

March 26, 2026