Very little is known about Harry Gray. It is probable he was born in the 1840s and lived the first decades of his life as an enslaved person. He was apparently working as a porter when he was cast as the patriarch in Hallelujah, joining a number of other non-professional actors. Gray has two subsequent credits, but remains something of a mystery.
Hallelujah was the last of the handful of films made by William Fountaine (1897-1945), starting with the lead in Oscar Micheaux’s Uncle Jasper’s Will (1922). He was forthright about his refusal, along with other performers, to speak the racist language originally included in Hallelujah!‘s screenplay.
Nina Mae McKinney (1913-67) was one of the many Black performers–talented and beautiful–whose careers were stifled by Hollywood racism.
After relocating from South Carolina to New York, McKinney was only 15 when she was cast in the all-Black Broadway musical revue Blackbirds of 1928. Her performance was noted by King Vidor, who subsequently cast her as the female lead in Hallelujah. She replaced his original choice, who was rejected by Irving Thalberg as lacking sex appeal.
McKinney received glowing reviews for her performance as Chick and it secured her a five-year contract with MGM, but no further roles of substance. She made an uncredited appearance as a singer in They Learned About Women, and eventually walked out on MGM. Richard Watts of The New York Herald Tribune wrote at the time that her “exile from the cinema is the result entirely of narrow and intolerant racial matters.”
She made only a few films thereafter, perhaps most notably as Paul Robeson’s queen in Sanders of the River (1935) and as Rozelia in Pinky (1949).
Daniel M Haynes (1894-1954) was a successful stage actor working as Jules Bledsoe’s understudy in Show Boat when he was offered the lead role of Zeke in Hallelujah. The part had been intended for Paul Robeson, but he was unavailable.
Inevitably, given the times, Haynes’s powerful performance did not open the door to a film career. King Vidor used him again in So Red the Rose, but further down the cast list. Other than that, Haynes’s film work was mostly uncredited bits, and he eventually gave up acting to become a Baptist minister.
Jed Prouty (1879-1956) began his film career in the silent period, but established himself as a comic supporting player with the coming of sound. In The Broadway Melody he plays Uncle Jed, Hank and Queenie’s vaudeville booker.
Hank and Queenie are a fictionalized version of The Duncan Sisters, and a few months later Prouty supported the Duncans themselves in It’s a Great Life.
He played Marion Davies’s father in The Florodora Girl and rounded off his Metro musical career as the theatre owner who critiques the Schnarzan pictures in Hollywood Party.
James Gleason (1882-1959) became an easily-recognized supporting player specializing in hard-nosed, fast-talking types. But early in his career Gleason was a moderately-successful playwright, which explains his dual contribution to The Broadway Melody as both co-scenarist (dialogue) and bit player. (In what has been called a meta-touch, he plays a music publisher named James Gleason.)
Gleason’s only other Metro musical was Babes on Broadway, as the actor-hating producer whose bacon is saved by Mickey Rooney and his troupe.
Anita Page (1910-2008) was only 18 when she was cast in The Broadway Melody, having come to notice alongside Joan Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928). She announced her retirement in 1934, having apparently secured Mussolini as her number one fan, and only returned to film-making occasionally during a very long life. When she died, Page was discussed as the last of the silent Hollywood stars.
Page made only one further musical for Metro, playing Buster Keaton’s love interest in Free and Easy.
The Actors (only the three leads have onscreen credits)
| Charles King | Eddie Kearns |
| Anita Page | Queenie Mahoney |
| Bessie Love | Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney |
| Jed Prouty | Uncle Jed |
| J Emmett Beck | Babe Hatrick |
| Nacio Herb Brown | Pianist |
| James Burroughs | Singer |
| Eddie Bush | Quartet Guitarist and Singer |
| Ray Cooke | Bellhop |
| Drew Demorest | Turpe – Costumer |
| Edward Dillon | Dillon the Stage Manager |
| Mary Doran | Flo |
| Arthur Freed | Bystander in Rehearsal Room |
| Paul Gibbons | Quartet Guitarist and Singer |
| James Gleason | Music Publisher |
| Eddie Kane | Francis Zanfield |
| Ches Kirkpatrick | Quartet Guitarist and Singer |
| Carla Laemmle | Specialty Dancer |
| Carl M Leviness | Party Guest |
| Angella Mawby | One of the Mawby Triplets (uncredited) |
| Claudette Mawby | One of the Mawby Triplets (uncredited) |
| Claudine Mawby | One of the Mawby Triplets |
| Betty Arthur | Chorus Dancer |
| Charlotte Merriam | Flapper in Pearl Necklace |
| Joyce Murray | Specialty Dancer |
| Blanche Payson | Wardrobe Lady |
| Alice Pitman | Chorus Girl |
| Marshall Ruth | Stew – Mr. Zanfield’s Assistant |
| Bill Seckler | Quartet Guitarist and Singer |
| Kenneth Thomson | Jacques Warriner |
| Diana Verne | Chorus Girl |
| Dorothy Vernon | Hotel Housekeeper |
| Alice Weaver | Chorus Girl |
| Dorothy Coonan | Chorus Girl |
| Beatrice Hagen | Chorus Girl |
