Tag: MGM musical

Lucile Browne

Lucile Ruth Browne (1907-76) had been working with a theatre company in Chicago when the Fox Film Corporation gave her the female lead in the western The Last of the Duanes (1930).

Browne’s subsequent career was a combination of featured roles in ‘B’ westerns and uncredited appearances in ‘A’ pictures. For example, in 1935 she played a bit as a nurse in Magnificent Obsession, and also starred opposite Gene Autry in Republic’s singing cowboy picture Tumbling Tumbleweeds.

A rare exception to this rule was a featured role in MGM/Hal Roach’s The Devil’s Brother. Her only other appearance in an MGM musical was as a chorus girl in Sweethearts.

Browne effectively retired in 1938 to raise a family, making only occasional screen appearances thereafter, ending with the Margaret Sullavan weepie No Sad Songs for Me (1950).

July 22, 2026
James Finlayson

James Henderson Finlayson (1887-1953) was acting on the stage in his native Scotland when he travelled with a play to the United States in 1911. His parents had recently died and he decided, along with one of his brothers, to stay there.

Finlayson obtained a part in a 1912 production of Bunty Pulls the Strings, and later worked in vaudeville with Alex Lauder, the lesser-known brother of Harry. He ended up touring with a play that took him to Los Angeles, and never left.

He made his first film appearance in 1917, and by 1919 was working at the Mack Sennett studio. He became a key member of Sennett’s troupe, working repeatedly with Ben Turpin. But in 1922, Finlayson signed with Hal Roach.

Roach tried to groom him as a lead player, but this did not work out. He is said to have considered partnering Finlayson with Laurel and Hardy as a comedy trio, but staff director Leo McCarey realized that the duo was a better bet. So Finlayson became an unofficial third member of the partnership, appearing in thirty-three films with Stan and Ollie, right the way through to Saps at Sea in 1940.

Finlayson always wore a fake walrus moustache and became famous for his overacting, master of the double take and the quizzical or exasperated face, accompanied by the extended cry of ‘D’oooh!’.

James Finlayson was in five Metro musicals, initially with Laurel and Hardy. He featured prominently in The Devil’s Brother, followed by The Bohemian Girl. Later on, when he had become a bit-part player, he appeared in Two Sisters from Boston, Till the Clouds Roll By and Royal Wedding.

Finlayson also worked with Hawks in The Dawn Patrol (1930), Hitchcock in Foreign Correspondent (1940), and Lubitsch in Angel (1937) and To Be or Not to Be (1942).

July 22, 2026
Thelma Todd

Thelma Alice Todd (1906-35) made well over 100 film appearances in her brief life, largely in shorts, but also in many notable features.

A teenage beauty pageant winner, Todd inevitably came to the attention of Hollywood scouts. She made a few undemanding appearances for Paramount, before finding a berth at the Hal Roach Studios in 1929. After working successfully with Roach’s stars, including Laurel and Hardy, Todd was eventually partnered with ZaSu Pitts in a double act intended as a distaff version of Stan and Ollie. Though not achieving the comic heights of their models, the Todd and Pitts shorts are entertaining enough, even using the same theme and incidental music as Laurel and Hardy.

Thelma Todd was a gifted comedian, and worked well with the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932). Todd always looks genuinely amused by the comics she is working with, and incorporates this into her performances.

Todd could also play it straight, and was Iva Archer, widow of Sam Spade’s partner, in the first version of The Maltese Falcon (1931).

Todd made two appearances in MGM musicals, both of them in Laurel and Hardy vehicles. She had the female lead in The Devil’s Brother, and was later cast in The Bohemian Girl. Unfortunately, she died before the latter film’s release, and most of her part was edited out.

Thelma’s Todd’s death was deemed to be suicide, but this was always unbelievable to those who knew her, who said she had never shown the slightest sign of depression. She was in a relationship with director Roland West, and it is claimed that he confessed to her murder on his death bed in 1952.

July 22, 2026
Dennis King

British-born Dennis Pratt (1897-1971) could thank army surgeons for his successful career as an actor and singer. Serving during the First World War, he was injured in battle and required surgery to repair the damage done to his face by shrapnel.

King was a rare performer who was equally at home in Shakespeare and operettas. He made his West End debut in 1919, and was performing on Broadway just two years later. After working for some years as a classical actor, King gained the lead role in Rose-Marie (1924) and then created the role of François Villon in The Vagabond King (1925).

King recreated his stage role in Paramount’s The Vagabond King (1930), the first of his handful of film appearances. In 1933, he worked for Hal Roach and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on The Devil’s Brother.

Dennis King made his first television appearance in 1948, and worked for many years in that medium and on the stage.

July 21, 2026

The Devil’s Brother

The Cast

Stan Laurel	Stanlio
Oliver Hardy	Ollio
Dennis King	Fra Diavalo/Marquis de San Marco
Thelma Todd	Lady Pamela
James Finlayson	Lord Rocburg
Lucile Brown	Zerlina
Arthur Pierson	Lorenzo
Henry Armetta	Matteo
Matt McHugh	Francesco
Lane Chandler	Lieutenant
Nina Quartero	Rita
Wilfred Lucas	Alessandro
James C Morton	Woodchopper
Marion Bardell	Tavern Bartender (uncredited)
Alice Belcher	Old woman in tavern (uncredited)
Louise Carver	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Kay Deslys	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Scotty Mattraw	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Rolfe Sedan	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Lillian Moore	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Walter Shumway	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Leo White	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Grace Woods	Tavern Customer (uncredited)
Carl Harbaugh	Second Woodchopper (uncredited)
Tiny Sandford	Big Woodchopper (uncredited)
Harry Bernard	Drunk (uncredited)
John Collum	Boy (uncredited)
Jackie Lynn Taylor	Girl (uncredited)
Edith Fellows	Girl (uncredited)
Francis Ford	Man under table (uncredited)
Dick Gilbert	Brigand (uncredited)
Arthur Stone	Brigand (uncredited)
Jack Hill	Brigand (uncredited)
George Miller	Minister (uncredited)
Frank Terry	Servant (uncredited)
Brooks Benedict	Unspecified role (uncredited)

July 20, 2026

Paul Marquardt

German-born Paul Alfred Marquardt (1889-1960) was a composer who worked for many years as an arranger at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and for other studios. Although rarely receiving an onscreen credit, Marquardt made a substantial contribution to MGM’s musical history.

He orchestrated the music for many non-musical films, including Anna Karenina (1935), Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936), Captains Courageous (1937), The Women (1939), Northwest Passage (1940), Rebecca (1940),Frank Borzage’s The Mortal Storm (1940), Woman of the Year (1942), Mrs Miniver (1942), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Red River (1948), The Thing from Another World (1951), High Noon (1952) and Friendly Persuasion (1957). Marquardt also composed original scores in the 1930s, including for The Sign of the Cross and A Farewell to Arms (both 1933). He worked on well over 350 films between 1930 and 1957.

The first of Marquardt’s 39 MGM musicals was The Cuban Love Song, collaborating with Charles Maxwell. This was followed by Dancing Lady, The Merry Widow, The Night is Young, Naughty Marietta, Reckless, Here Comes the Band, A Night at the Opera, The Great Ziegfeld, San Francisco. Maytime, A Day at the Races, The Firefly, Rosalie, Everybody Sing, The Girl of the Golden West, The Great Waltz, Sweethearts (in which he also appeared as a conductor), The Wizard of Oz (credited for orchestral and vocal arrangements), Babes in Arms, At the Circus, Balalaika, New Moon, Hullabaloo, Rio Rita, I Married an Angel, Seven Sweethearts, Presenting Lily Mars, Thousands Cheer, Ziegfeld Follies, Holiday in Mexico, Easter Parade, The Kissing Bandit, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, The Barkeleys of Broadway, That Midnight Kiss, Annie Get Your Gun, Royal Wedding and Show Boat.

July 20, 2026
Rafael Hernández

Rafael Hernández Marín (1892-1965) was a Puerto Rican songwriter who spent much of his career in Mexico and Cuba.

Hernández was a multi-instrumentalist who performed with bands in Puerto Rico and the USA. He relocated to Mexico in 1932 and, at the age of 40, enrolled in the National Music Conservatory, presumably on the basis that there is always more to learn.

Songs by Hernández are featured in two Metro musicals. In The Cuban Love Song, Lupe Velez sings ‘Buchipluma na’ ma’, and Xaviet Cugat and his Orchestra perform ‘Cachita’.

July 20, 2026
Paul Hervey Fox

Paul Hervey Fox (1894-1956) was a dramatist, novelist and screenwriter of modest abilities and moderate success.

One of Fox’s Broadway productions was successful enough to secure him an invitation to work in Hollywood. In 1930, he wrote Prince of Diamonds for Columbia, and the following year he contributed dialogue to MGM’s The Cuban Love Song, perhaps seen as qualified by his marriage to Cuban writer Elsie de Sola. (In a bizarre incident in 1923, they had handed over their new-born daughter to a founding hospital. She grew up to be the celebrated writer Paula Fox.)

Alcohol impeded Fox’s career. Though he contributed some interesting stories, most notably for the Kay Francis pre-code vehicle Mandalay (1934).

July 20, 2026
Moisés Simons

Moisés Simón Rodríguez (1889-1945) was a Cuban composer and band leader who is best remembered today for writing the song ‘El Manisero’, known in English as ‘The Peanut Vendor’.

Simons began his professional career as a pianist and musical director, before establishing his own jazz band in 1924. As a composer, he was part of the Afrocubanismo movement which foregrounded Black identity within Cuban culture.

Simons composed ‘El Manisero’ in 1930, and it went on to sell millions of copies as sheet music and in recordings by a variety of artists. In 1931, the song was used prominently in MGM’s The Cuban Love Song.

July 19, 2026
Flying High

Some Thoughts

Bert Lahr secured screen immortality by playing the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. But his first film, Flying High, demonstrates why he otherwise never achieved major success in Hollywood: he was simply too big for the screen, like Jimmy Durante turned up to 11. Lahr’s gurning, his exaggerated physical movements, and his insistence on saying most of his lines twice, may have come across well in the stalls of a Broadway theatre, but are just too much in medium-closeup.

Pat O’Brien (as Sport Wardell) holds on, to avoid being blown off the screen by Bert Lahr (as Rusty Krause)

When Lahr is on screen with co-star Pat O’Brien, it would be an understatement to say it is as though they were in two different films: it is more as if they were two different species. This is not to suggest that Lahr is not entertaining, because he is, but it is also a relief when he is off screen for a while.

It is interesting to contrast Lahr with his co-star, Charlotte Greenwood. She, too, was a stage performer with an eccentric bent, but she was actor enough to be able to modify (or moderate) her stage persona to the greater intimacy of the screen.

Rusty wants Pansy Potts to keep her distance

Flying High is an enjoyable romp but, as one of MGM’s three 1931 musicals, prior to the 1932 moratorium, it is rather light on music. Twelve of the thirteen DeSylva-Brown-Henderson songs from the Broadway show are missing, replaced by three from the bottom drawer of Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. There are a couple of production numbers directed by Busby Berkeley and featuring Kathryn Crawford. These show Berkeley refining the techniques he had developed on Eddie Cantor vehicles at Goldwyn, but still lacking the precision that would be on display a couple of years later in 42nd Street.

A bit of early chorus girl regimentation by Busby Berkeley

Berkeley’s numbers are the liveliest parts of the picture, with Charles Reisner clearly happy to point his camera at Bert Lahr and let him get on with it.

July 18, 2026