The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Main Crew

  • Jeanie MacPherson

    Abbie Jean MacPherson (1886-1946) acted in over 140 silent films and directed a couple, but is remembered for her work as a screenwriter, and in particular for writing 30 of Cecil B DeMille’s pictures.

    MacPherson made her debut in 1908 in D W Griffith’s The Fatal Hour, and amassed all-but-one of her acting credits between then and 1917. In 1913, at the age of only 27, she wrote, directed and starred in The Tarantula, playing a Mexican young woman with a psychopathic bent.

    After joining the Lasky Studio and acting in a couple of films for DeMille, he persuaded her to concentrate on writing. This led to, amongst other titles, Old Wives for New (1918), Male and Female (1919), The Ten Commandments (1923), The Plainsman (1936) and Union Pacific (1939).

    One of the DeMille pictures worked on by MacPherson was Madam Satan. Not her finest hour, but possibly her craziest. 

  • Jack King

    Albert King (1903-43) was a child prodigy, giving concert performances on the piano at a very young age. He later became a singing instructor and performed in vaudeville.

    As a songwriter, normally in partnership with Elsie Janis, King produced songs for a number of early sound musicals, including MGM’s Madam Satan and Reckless.

    King also made an appearance in Madam Satan as Herman, Lillian Roth’s pianist.

  • Jimmy McHugh

    James Francis McHugh (1894-1969), like many other contributors to the Great American Songbook, had worked as a song plugger before producing his own hits.

    He worked in partnership with many lyricists, but perhaps most fruitfully with Dorothy Fields. Amongst the many standards they produced were ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’ and ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’.

    Fields and McHugh numbers were used by MGM in Love in the Rough, and later contributed to Flying High, The Cuban Love Song, Dancing Lady, Till the Clouds Roll By, Big City, The Strip and Lovely to Look At. Songs written with other lyricists are featured in Two Girls and a Sailor, A Date With Judy (notably ‘It’s a Most Unusual Day’) and Looking for Love.

  • Dorothy Fields

    Born into a showbiz family, Dorothy Fields (1904-74) worked on the stage for a few years before finding her true vocation as a songwriter. She was one of the few women to find success on Tin Pan Alley, and undoubtedly the greatest of them. She wrote the songs for Roberta in 1933 and for Sweet Charity in 1966, and it is astonishing to consider that ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ and ‘The Rhythm of Life’ came from the pen of the same writer. Few songwriters had the same ability to adapt to changing musical styles.

    Fields’s early work found little success, but she came into her own after partnering with composer Jimmy McHugh. Together, they wrote a string of popular hits, including ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’ and ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’.

    Fields and McHugh wrote the songs used by MGM in Love in the Rough, and later contributed to Flying High, The Cuban Love Song, Dancing Lady, Till the Clouds Roll By, Big City, The Strip and Lovely to Look At, the studio’s updated version of Roberta, on which she worked with Jerome Kern.

    Numbers by Fields working in collaboration with other composers also featured in Mr Imperium, Excuse My Dust and Texas Carnival.

    Fields co-wrote the book for the stage show adapted into Annie Get Your Gun.

  • Love in the Rough

    The Crew

    Charles F ReisnerDirector
    Sarah Y MasonAdaptation
    Joseph FarnhamDialogue
    Robert E HopkinsDialogue
    Dorothy FieldsLyricist
    Jimmy McHughComposer
    Henry SharpCinematographer
    Basil WrangellEditor
    Cedric GibbonsArt Director
    Douglas ShearerSound Recording Director
    Ralph ShugartSound Recording Engineer
    David CoxCostume Designer
    Sammy LeeChoreographer

  • Carl ‘Major’ Roup

    Carl Roup (1915-2002) had a long career with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, briefly as a child actor, and then in various production capacities.

    Roup was discovered and cast in his first film, The Red Mill (1925), by Marion Davies, who saw him selling newspapers on the studio lot. She paid for his education at a military school, leading Lon Chaney to nickname him ‘Major’. 

    Roup made a number of other appearances in silent pictures, and played a young baseball fan in They Learned About Women. 

    Roupe later became a script clerk, including on A Day at the Races and At the Circus. In 1946, he started working as a second assistant director on Till the Clouds Roll By, and also carried out that role on On an Island With You, Easter Parade, The Kissing Bandit, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Pagan Love Song, Show Boat, Lili, Dangerous When Wet, Rose Marie, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Jupiter’s Darling, Silk Stockings and Billy Rose’s Jumbo.

    The Los Angeles Times obituary described Roup as “as much a part of MGM as Leo the Lion”.

  • Ernest Belcher

    Ernest Belcher (1882-1973) is almost totally forgotten, but was a very significant figure in the presentation of dance in early Hollywood. One of the few writers on his work described him as “a figure of national importance”.

    Belcher studied ballet in the UK and worked in the music halls and as a principal danseur before travelling to the United States with a dance troupe in 1914. After various dancing jobs, he established himself as a teacher in Los Angeles.

    His career in film choreography began in 1918 he was hired by D W Griffith to stage dances for Broken Blossoms (1918). Working as a dance director, he taught, amongst others, Pola Negri, Betty Grable, Cyd Charisse, Rita Hayworth, Gwen Verdon and Gower Champion, as well as his own daughter, Marge Champion.

    Belcher provided dance direction in many silent films, including The Phantom of the Opera (1925), almost always without onscreen credit. But in 1928 the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers dubbed him ‘Dance Director of Movieland’. 

    He was there at the beginning of the sound era, arranging dance in The Jazz Singer (1927), and he trained Shirley Temple, staging the ballet in The Little Princess (1939).

    It is ironic, given the size of Belcher’s contribution to dance on film, that his only known involvement in MGM musicals was the appearance of Ernest Belcher’s Dancing Tots in The Hollywood Revue of 1929.

  • Larry Shay

    Lawrence Fredrick Schaetzlein (1897-1988) was a prolific songwriter with one immortal classic to his name. In 1928 he co-authored that paean to optimism, ‘When You’re Smiling (the Whole World Smiles With You)’.

    Shortly before MGM appointed him Music Director, Shay co-wrote ‘Gee, But I’d Like to Make You Happy’ for the 1930 Good News.

  • George Waggner

    George Waggner (1894-1984), or george waGGner as he sometimes, and inexplicably, chose to credit himself, is best known as a writer, director and producer. 

    Wagner produced and directed Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941), establishing himself in the horror pantheon. He also produced Cobra Woman (1944), the once-in-a-lifetime joining of Robert Siodmak with Maria Montez.

    Much earlier in life, Waggoner worked as an actor (up against Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1921) and songwriter.

    In the latter capacity, Waggoner teamed with J Russel Robinson to write ‘I Feel Pessimistic’ for the 1930 version of Good News.

  • J Russel Robinson

    Joseph Russel Robinson (1892-1963) was a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and a notable jazz composer. He co-wrote the standard ‘Singin the Blues’, which was recorded by Bix Beiderbecke.

    In the 1930s Robinson turned to songwriting, including for the screen. The title song for Portrait of Jennie’ (1948), with lyrics by Gordon Burge, became a hit record for Nat ‘King’ Cole.

    Robinson co-wrote ‘I Feel Pessimistic’ for the 1930 version of Good News. 

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