Belgian stage actor Carrie Daumery (1863-1938) starred in a couple of French films in 1908, but began her film career in earnest with a featured part in The Conquering Power (1921), an adaptation of Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet.
Daumery continued as a prominent supporting player throughout the 1920s, sometimes credited as Madame Daumery. The advent of sound saw her reduced to playing mostly uncredited bit parts. She made appearances in three Metro musicals: Children of Pleasure, New Moon and The Merry Widow. The last of these reunited Daumery with Ernst Lubitsch, for whom she had played the Countess of Berwick in Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925).
Sidney Bracy [sic] (1877-1942) was a stage actor in his native Australia before moving to America and commencing his film career in 1909. Later in life he tended to be cast as authority figures and servants, including upwards of 54 butlers and a variety of valets and chauffeurs.
Four of Bracey’s MGM musical appearances were as butlers: Children of Pleasure, A Lady’s Morals, Hollywood Party and San Francisco. He also showed up uncredited in Broadway to Hollywood, The Firefly and Rosalie.
German-born Lee Kohlmar (1873-1946) started out in live theatre and made his screen debut in 1915. He worked throughout the silent period, occasionally as director.
Most of Kohlmar’s sound roles were uncredited, and these included Children of Pleasure and, his final film, The Big Store.
Helen Johnson (1906-2002) had a very brief career in leading roles, followed by a slow decline under the name Judith Wood, culminating in an uncredited appearance in The Asphalt Jungle (1950).
In the early 30s, Johnson appeared in a number of ‘A’ features, most notably as the feckless Pat Thayer in Children of Pleasure.
Winifred Elaine Gibson (1898-1987) was an actor who starred in films without ever really becoming a film star. She had performed in vaudeville, burlesque and musical comedies before featuring in Nothing But the Truth (1929). The following year she was given the female lead in Children of Pleasure.
Thereafter, Gibson mostly appeared in ‘B’ pictures; Richard Barrios calls her “one of the best tough blondes in Depression cinema”. In the 1950s, as she moved into television work, she and her partner, Beverley Roberts, were heavily involved in the development of theatrical trade unionism in New York.
There are things to enjoy in Free and Easy, but it is a film whose final shot is heartbreaking, and not for the hoaky reasons intended by the filmmakers. Buster Keaton’s character, Elmer Butts, has failed to get the girl he loves. Dressed in a ridiculous uniform and in Pagliacciesque clown makeup, Keaton gazes off-camera at Anita Page with a look of utter despondency, then raises his eyes to heaven. It is probably the most downbeat ending ever given to a musical, and that includes West Side Story (1961 and 2021).
A tragic Buster Keaton is just wrong
It has been suggested that Keaton is looking, not at his co-star, but at his life as one of the preeminent filmmakers in Hollywood (or anywhere else) disappearing in front of his eyes. It is as though the full implications of what he has given up by signing a contract with MGM is becoming clear for the first time in front of our eyes. Symbolically, Keaton loses the girl for the first time in his career, just as he has lost his independence and potential for creativity.
Free and Easy was Keaton’s first talking picture, and the first since his earliest days when he had played no real part in its development. The opening titles claim the film as A Buster Keaton Production, but this would seem to have meant little in practice. The film was directed by Edward Sedgwick, a friend of Keaton’s and another comedy specialist who failed to find a settled place at Hollywood’s most successful studio.
Keaton turns in a professional performance, but he is not playing a Buster Keaton character: in his own films he was never a loser. The finale suggests that Metro were under the impression they had signed Chaplin or Harry Langdon. Left to his own devices, Keaton would probably have made a successful transition to sound: his baritone voice is effective both speaking and singing, and would not have impeded his gag-based comedy.
Ma Plunkett (Trixie Friganza) and Elmer (Buster Keaton) perform ‘Oh King, Oh Queen’
The biggest revelation in Free and Easy is Trixie Friganza as the stage mother from hell, Ma Plunkett. Friganza had been a vaudeville star for many years and the film captures some of the talent that made her stage career such a success.
Anita Page and Robert Montgomery (who does get the girl) stand around looking attractive, and the film features cameos by a number of MGM luminaries. One of the more interesting aspects of Free and Easy is the glimpse it gives of the Metro studio during the transition to sound.
Karl E Zindt (1909-78) was a sound engineer who started out in Douglas Shearer’s new sound department at MGM. While there, he worked on the highly successful Grand Hotel (1932) and, with slightly less prestige, Free and Easy. Thereafter, Zint spent most of his career on Poverty Row aand in television.
George Todd (1???-1???) is a mysterious figure. Both IMDb and the American Film Institute are certain that he was a cutter on Free and Easy and Children of Pleasure…and that’s it.
William LeVanway (1896-1957) was an editor who spent his entire career at Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, latterly as head of the editing department. Unlike Douglas Shearer and Cedric Gibbons, he was not credited on every film.
While still undertaking editing assignments, LeVanway worked on the silent version of The Broadway Melody (1929), and was the cutter on Free and Easy, Good News and A Night at the Opera. He was the supervising editor for An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain.
Paul Bert Dickey (1883-1933) was a former vaudeville performer who partnered with Charles W Goddard to write a number of successful plays. The best-known of these is The Ghost Breaker (1909), which was filmed at least four times, most famously with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in 1940.
Dickey also directed in the theatre, notably the first production of the musical Rose-Marie in 1924. He acted as well, but only appeared in one film, playing Guy of Gisbourne opposite Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1922). His acting career was hampered by health problems.
Dickey undertook occasional screenwriting assignments, and provided the adaptation for Free and Easy.
