The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Tag: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

  • Ballard MacDonald

    Ballard MacDonald (1882-1935) was a Tin Pan Alley lyricist who collaborated with, amongst others, George Gershwin (notably on ‘Somebody Loves Me’). His best-known song, ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,’ belatedly became a hit in the UK when the Laurel and Hardy version from Way Out West was released as a single. 

    Ballard provided numbers for four MGM musicals. In 1929 he worked with Dave Dreyer on most of the songs for It’s a Great Life. Fifteen years later ‘Somebody Loves Me’ was sung by Lena Horne in Broadway Rhythm. 

    ‘Play That Barbershop Chord,’ a song he co-wrote in 1910, was used in In the Good Old Summertime. Finally, ‘I Love to Go Swimmin With Wimmin,’ written with Sigmund Romberg for the 1921 musical Love Birds, was performed by Gene Kelly and his brother Fred in the Romberg biopic Deep in My Heart.

  • Dave Dreyer

    Dave Dreyer (1894-1967) started out as a pianist for vaudeville stars including Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker before becoming a Tin Pan Alley composer. He is perhaps best-remembered for ‘Me and My Shadow’.

    In Hollywood Dreyer worked as head of the music department at RKO-Radio, but had earlier collaborated with Ballard MacDonald to provide the songs for It’s a Great Life.

  • J Peverell Marley

    John Peverell Marley began his career photographing The Ten Commandments (1923), and ended it forty years later shooting half-hour episodes for television series.

    Marley accumulated over 130 credits, including one MGM musical, It’s a Great Life.

  • Willard Mack

    Charles Willard McLaughlin (1873-1934) worked as an actor, director and playwright before he took up screenwriting in 1916, carrying this out alongside work on Broadway.

    Mack contributed to the scenarios of It’s a Great Life and Lord Byron of Broadway. He also co-wrote and directed Broadway to Hollywood, the film in which producer Harry Rapf recycled content from the abandoned The March of Time. 

  • Alfred Block

    Alfred Block (1897-1949) had a short career as a Hollywood screenwriter, with the highpoint being contributing the story for Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West (1930). A year earlier he worked on the story for It’s a Great Life and wrote the titles for They Learned About Women..

  • Leonard Praskins

    British-born Leonard Praskins (1896-1968) had a long but minor career as a Hollywood screenwriter. For MGM, he contributed to the story for It’s a Great Life and later wrote both the story and screenplay for Ice Follies of 1939.

  • Byron Morgan

    Byron Morgan (1889-1963) began screenwriting in the silent period but did some of his best work in talkies. He worked with Laurel and Hardy on Way Out West (1930) and Sons of the Desert (1933) and wrote the excellent Five Star Final (1931) for Warner Bros. 

    Morgan’s sole contribution to MGM musicals was collaborating on the story of It’s a Great Life.

  • Jeane Wood

    Despite being minor Hollywood royalty, and unlike her younger sister K T Stevens, Jeane Wood (1909-1987) never progressed as an actor beyond small, usually uncredited roles. As a young woman she appeared in three films directed by her father, Sam Wood. These included the musical It’s a Great Life.

    After a long break, Wood resumed film acting in the 1950s, making an appearance as a maid in The Glass Slipper.

  • Crane Wilbur

    Crane Wilbur (1886-1973) acted in his first film in 1910 and found fame opposite Pearl White in The Perils of Pauline (1913). He also became a scenarist, and directed his first picture in 1916. His final film as writer-director was House of Women in 1962.

    In 1929 Wilbur wrote a play, Children of Pleasure, which he helped adapt into a musical the following year. He also wrote Lord Byron of Broadway and made an uncredited appearance in It’s a Great Life.

  • Rolfe Sedan

    Edward Sedan (1896-1982) had a fifty-eight-year career as a Hollywood bit player, notching up over 300 appearances, including many Ernst Lubitsch pictures. He also worked regularly in the theatre and on radio.

    Sedan’s MGM musicals were It’s a Great Life, They Learned About Women, Call of the Flesh, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Merry Widow, A Night at the Opera, Rose Marie, The Firefly, The Wizard of Oz and Silk Stockings.

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