The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Main Crew

  • Abe Lyman

    Abraham Simon (1897-1957) was a drummer who ended up leading his own orchestra. One of his regular singers in the 1920s was Charles Kaley, who starred in Lord Byron of Broadway.

    Lyman was also a songwriter, his biggest hit being the standard ‘I Cried for You’, co-written with Gus Arnheim and with lyrics by Arthur Freed. It was sung by Judy Garland in Babes in Arms.

    Abe Lyman and his Orchestra made their screen debut in Syncopated Symphony (1928), a Vitaphone short. Out of a dozen or so subsequent film appearances, two were in Good News and Madam Satan.

    Lyman gave up music in the late forties to become a restaurateur. 

  • Keester Sweeney

    Lewis Keester Sweeney (1910-96) is not credited on this website against any of the musicals listed, but mention of him is essential.

    Sweeney was an art student sent from UCLA in 1936 to help MGM with makeup for The Good Earth (1937). He stayed at the studio for over a quarter of a century.

    His internet presence is peculiar. It acknowledges him as an important makeup artist who worked with the great MGM stars of the classic period, but both IMDb and the AFI only show a few credits from 1956 onwards, largely television assignments. There is no indication of which films he worked on through the bulk of his career.

    Sweeney knew nothing about makeup when called to MGM and had to learn on the job. In an interview, he said the first star he worked with was Jeanette MacDonald, who helped him out and became a friend.

    The obituary for Keester Sweeney in the Los Angeles Times described him as the “MGM makeup artist who prepared such stars as Jeanette MacDonald, Judy Garland, Greta Garbo and Fred Astaire for the cameras”. The unavailability of details about this apparently eminent career is mystifying.

  • The Makeup Artists

    Westmore, George

  • George Westmore

    George Westmore (1879-1931) was the founder of what is unquestionably Hollywood’s greatest dynasty. Five generations of Westmores, including six of George’s sons, worked as makeup artists for over a hundred years.

    George Westmore was a hairdresser with a distinguished clientele before emigrating from the UK to Canada and then to the United States, where he worked in beauty parlours. In 1917 he established Hollywood’s first makeup department, for the Selig company, and can be credited with creating the profession of film makeup artist. In the 1920s, Westmore worked on some of the most notable pictures starring Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, including The Sheik (1921) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924).

    Shortly before taking his own life in a particularly unpleasant fashion (mercury poisoning), Westmore worked on three musicals at MGM: The Rogue Song, Call of the Flesh and New Moon.

  • Dorothy Farnum

    Dorothy Farnum (1897-1970) acted in a couple of films as a teenager, but realized that her real strength was writing. In 1919 she sold an original scenario to producer Harry Rapf, who would later be a colleague at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After a few years of journeyman work in which she learned her trade, Rapf hired Farnum to write Beau Brummel (1924). Star John Barrymore told a newspaper it was the best part he had ever been given, and the film launched Farnum’s reputation as an expert adapter of literary works.

    Farnum became one of MGM’s top-earning writers, In 1926 her adaptation of the potboiler The Torrent was the first of several collaborations with Greta Garbo. It was described at the time as “the first picture with an unhappy ending to win a box-office success”.

    Dorothy Farnum wrote two MGM musicals, providing the stories for Call of the Flesh and A Lady’s Morals. Shortly afterwards she relocated to Europe, writing a screenplay in French (she was fluent in a number of languages, and had previously written the French version of A Lady’s Morals), and then working for Gaumont-British. In 1934 she retired to the south of France.

  • Charles Brabin

    Charles J Brabin (1882-1957) emigrated from Liverpool to New York in 1900 and found work as a stage actor. In 1908 he joined the Edison company, first as an actor, and later taking up writing and directing. 

    Brabin directed for a variety of studios throughout the silent era, generally with success. The major exception was MGM’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1924) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Brabin began shooting the film in Italy, with George Walsh playing the title character. Irving Thalberg did not like the rushes that were being sent back to Hollywood, and decided to replace both Brabin and Shaw with, respectively, Fred Niblo and Ramon Novarro.

    It would seem no long-term grudges were held on either side, as Brabin did work subsequently for the studio, including on two musicals, Call of the Flesh and Stage Mother. He also had considerable success for MGM with The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932).

    Charles Brabin was married to screen star Theda Bara for 34 years, until her death, one of the most successful of Hollywood marriages.

  • Call of the Flesh

    The Crew

    Charles BrabinDirector
    Dorothy FarnumStory
    John ColtonDialogue
    Herbert StothartComposer
    Clifford GreyLyricist
    Hunt StrombergProducer (uncredited)
    William AxtComposer
    Merritt B GerstadCinematographer
    Cedric GibbonsArt Director
    Conrad A NervigEditor
    Douglas ShearerSound Recording Director
    Ralph ShugartSound Recording Engineer (uncredited)
    David CoxCostume Designer
    Paul LamkoffOrchestration
    George WestmoreMakeup Artist (uncredited)

  • Owen Hall

    James Davis (1853-1907) was a solicitor who allegedly chose the pen name Owen Hall because it sounded like ‘owing all’, reflecting his frequently bankrupt state. 

    Hall achieved greater success as a librettist, helping to write some of the most successful British musical comedies of his day. Amongst these was Florodora (1899), for which he provided lyrics to Leslie Stuart’s music.

    The show’s breakout song, ‘Tell Me Pretty Maiden’ is performed by Marion Davies and chorus, with interruptions by Lawrence Gray, at the end of The Florodora Girl.

  • Directors N to Z

    Nigh, William
    Ober, Robert
    Reisner, Charles F
    Roach, Hal
    Sedgwick, Edward
    St Clair, Mal
    Vidor, King
    Wood, Sam

  • Directors A to M

    Barrymore, Lionel
    Beaumont, Harry
    Brabin, Charles
    Cabanne, Christy
    Conway, Jack
    DeMille, Cecil B
    Franklin, Sidney
    Grinde, Nick
    Houston, Norman
    Leonard, Robert Z
    MacGregor, Edgar J
    Mack, Willard
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