The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Tag: MGM musical

  • Clifford Grey

    Percival Davis (1887-1941) was a prolific lyricist and librettist for the West End and Broadway. His many stage musicals and revues included The Bing Boys are Here and Mr Cinders (1928), from which ‘If You were the Only Girl in the World’ and ‘Spread a Little Happiness’ became standards.

    Like many other songwriters, Grey was invited to Hollywood in 1929, where he worked on the early sound masterpiece, The Love Parade (1929) at Paramount.

    At MGM he wrote regularly with Herbert Stothart in the 1930s, contributing numbers to Devil-May-Care, Montana Moon, The Rogue Song, In Gay Madrid, The Florodora Girl, Call of the Flesh, New Moon and Madam Satan.

    Grey’s lyrics for ‘Like Monday Follows Sunday’ featured in Everything I Have is Yours and Hit the Deck was based on his stage musical from 1927.

    As late as 2010 The Guardian was still perpetuating the myth that Clifford Grey was also an Olympic bobsleigher and winner of a gold medal. This arises from a confusion with athlete Clifford ‘Tippi’ Gray (1892-1968), who also dabbled in songwriting. 

  • Herbert Stothart

    Herbert Pope Stothart (1885-1949) is a composer whose name is less familiar today than, say, Dimitri Tiomkin or Max Steiner, but in Hollywood’s golden age he was ranked alongside them for his work at MGM.

    Stothart had a successful career writing stage musicals, most notably Rose-Marie, but was invited to join Metro in 1929. He signed a contract and stayed there for the rest of his life. 

    Scores by Stothart were prominent in some of the studio’s most important pictures of the 1930s and 40s. These included Queen Christina (1933), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Camille (1936), The Good Earth (1937), Pride and Prejudice (1940), Mrs Miniver (1942), They Were Expendable (1945) and The Yearling (1946). In all, Stothart wrote over 100 scores.

    Stothart worked on many of MGM’s musicals. He and Clifford Grey wrote the songs for Devil-May-Care and contributed numbers to Montana Moon, The Rogue Song, In Gay Madrid, The Florodora Girl, Call of the Flesh, New Moon and Madam Satan. 

    He worked with other lyricists on A Lady’s Morals, The Cuban Love Song, Here Comes the Band, Maytime, The Firefly (composing ‘The Donkey Serenade’), Broadway Serenade, Balalaika, The Chocolate Soldier and I Married an Angel.

    Stothart was the musical director on some of these films and also on The Cat and the Fiddle, Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow, The Night is Young, Naughty Marietta, Reckless, San Francisco, Rosalie, The Girl of the Golden West, Sweethearts, The Wizard of Oz (picking up an Oscar), New Moon, Bitter Sweet, Rio Rita, Thousands Cheer, Ziegfeld Girl, Cairo, Thousands Cheer, Kismet, The Unfinished Dance. Musical direction usually involved writing incidental music.

    And, of course, Metro produced two versions of Stothart’s greatest stage success, Rose-Marie, and he worked on the first version.

  • Albert Lewin

    Albert Parsons Lewin (1894-1968) was one of the more exotic figures working behind the scenes in Hollywood’s golden age. He joined MGM in 1924 as a writer. Trusted by Irving Thalberg, he was made head of the story department, and subsequently a production supervisor and trusted adviser to Thalberg. He became a full-fledged producer after Thalberg’s responsibilities were reduced.

    An intellectual in a doggedly non-intellectual world, Lewis later became a somewhat eccentric auteur, writing, producing and directing a series of oddities, most notably Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951).

    Producer responsibilities were often vague at Metro during the years of Thalberg’s pomp, but Lewin was certainly responsible for The Cuban Love Song. He is also believed to have worked as producer on Devil-May-Care. 

  • Zelda Sears

    Zelda Paldi (1873-1935) was a journalist, actor, playwright, novelist and occasional scenarist wrote her first screenplays for Cecil B DeMille’s company.

    She subsequently went to MGM, where she definitely worked on three musicals: Devil-May-Care, for which she wrote dialogue, and uncredited contributions to Dancing Lady and The Cat and the Fiddle. She is also believed to have worked unofficially on Broadway to Hollywood. 

  • Hans Kraly

    Hanns Kräly (1884-1950) was a German actor and screenwriter, notable for writing many of Ernst Lubitsch’s German films. Their partnership ended when Kraly had an affair with, and subsequently married, Lubitsch’s wife.

    In Hollywood, he was nominated three times for Academy Awards for writing, winning in 1930 for The Patriot. His three MGM musicals were the European-set Devil-May-Care and A Lady’s Morals, for which he wrote screenplays, and Broadway Serenade, where he provided the original story. 

  • Sidney Franklin

    Sidney Arnold Franklin (1893-1972) was a director and occasional producer for over forty years, co-directing in the early years with his brother Chester. His experience working with Mary Pickford and the Talmadge sisters led Irving Thalberg to invite him to MGM in 1928 to direct Norma Shearer. 

    Franklin’s career at Metro was not spectacular (David Thomson described him as colourless), though he did direct some prestigious projects, including The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934 and 1957) and The Good Earth (1937), and he produced Mrs Miniver (1942).

    Franklin made two attempts at directing musicals, Devil-May-Care and A Lady’s Morals, and many years later he produced Torch Song. 

  • George Chandler

    W C Fields’s fans will know George Chandler (1898-1985) as Chester Snavely, the unfortunate youth who drank The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933).

    In his fifty-year career Chandler kept very busy, right up to a final appearance in the Lou Grant TV series. He made credited appearances in two MGM musicals–In Gay Madrid and The Florodora Girl–and also showed up uncredited in Devil-May-Care, Love in the Rough, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Broadway Melody of 1940, Swing Fever and The Pirate.

  • Lionel Belmore

    Lionel Belmore (1867-1953) was 46 when he made his first film, following a successful stage career in his native England. Yet he still managed almost 200 screen appearances, including as the Burgomaster in Frankenstein (1931).

    Belmore was in three MGM musicals: Devil-May-Care (as the innkeeper), The Rogue Song and Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry.

  • John Miljan

    John Miljan (1892-1960) was a supporting actor who appeared in over 200 films during his thirty-four-year career. He made regular appearances in Cecil B DeMille pictures, notably as General Custer in The Plainsman (1936).

    Miljan’s four MGM musicals began with Devil-May-Care, as Ramon Novarro’s nemesis. He played himself in the Hollywood-set Free and Easy, and was with Novarro again in In Gay Madrid. His final appearance was as Pierre Brugnon in the remake of New Moon.

  • Dorothy Jordan

    Dorothy Jordan (1906-88) made her film debut in Black Magic (1929), one of the many trained stage actors to find employment in Hollywood with the advent of sound. After playing Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew (1929), she starred opposite Ramon Novarro in his talking debut in Devil-May-Care. 

    Jordan and Novarro were teamed again in two more musicals, In Gay Madrid  and Call of the Flesh. She was also female lead to Robert Montgomery in Love in the Rough.

    Jordan retired in 1933 after marrying producer Merian C Cooper, returning later only in occasional supporting roles. She made notable appearances in two of John Ford’s greatest films: The Sun Shines Bright (1953), where she was the sex worker whose life and death are central to two plot lines; and as John Wayne’s sister-in-law, who meets a tragic end, in The Searchers (1956)

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