May Blossom Boley (1881-1963) was a successful actor and dancer on Broadway whose film career started late. She was 45 when she featured as ‘the Strong Woman’ in The Wagon Show.
Despite her background in musical comedy, Boley only made one musical for MGM, when she played Broadway star and husband hunter Fanny Kelly in Children of Pleasure.
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.
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.
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.
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.
British actor Herbert Prior (1867-1954) made his screen debut in 1907. He had featured roles in hundreds of silent features and shorts, including as Mr Jaggers in Great Expectations (1917), but the prominence of his parts declined after the introduction of sound.
Prior was in Children of Pleasure, Flying High and Student Tour.
Harry Franklin Price (1886-1964) was a stage actor who made uncredited appearances in around 300 pictures, including scores of low-budget westerns.
Price was in two MGM musicals: Children of Pleasure and A Night at the Opera.
William H O’Brien (1891-1981) made his first film in Australia in 1918, and in a Hollywood career lasting over fifty years he appeared in around 650 films, almost always without credit. These included Scarface (1931), The Thin Man (1934), Rebecca (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Ace in the Hole (1951), High Noon (1952), Some Like It Hot (1959) and, finally, Bedknobs and Brooksticks (1971).
With a filmography that long, it is little wonder O’Brien was in thirteen Metro musicals across a 36-year period, starting with Children of Pleasure in 1930 and ending with Made in Paris in 1966. In between came New Moon, A Night at the Opera, San Francisco, Nobody’s Baby, The Firefly, Two Girls on Broadway, Thousands Cheer, Two Sisters from Boston, The Glass Slipper, It’s Always Fair Weather and Merry Andrew.
Maude Turner (1868-1940) was a stage actor, dramatist and occasional producer who made her first film appearance in 1915.
Turner Gordon became typecast as ladies of wealth and dignity, as indicated by the playing of dowagers in two of her MGM musicals, Children of Pleasure and Sweethearts. In between, she played affluent Mrs Caraway in The Florodora Girl.
Jay Eaton (1899-1970) had a featured role in his first picture, Her First Elopement (1920), directed by Sam Wood. He went on to act in upwards of 240 films, working for some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, but mostly making small, uncredited appearances.
Nine of these were in MGM musicals, starting with Children of Pleasure, followed by Stage Mother, Hollywood Party and A Night at the Opera (reunited him with Sam Wood). Eaton was in The Great Ziegfeld, Broadway Serenade, Ship Ahoy, Swing Fever and Easy to Wed.
