Very little seems to be known about George Cunningham (?1904-?62). He is mentioned as the uncredited creator of the rudimentary choreography in The Broadway Melody, though it has been suggested that some of that work was by Sammy Lee. Both Cunningham and Lee are credited on The Hollywood Revue of 1929.
The trail ends there, though IMDb also cites Cunningham as the director of a few jukebox musical shorts in the 1940s.
Hallelujah was the first film photographed by Gordon Avil (1899-1970), who went on to work with King Vidor again on The Champ (1931). These were the most prestigious projects of his lengthy career, much of which was spent in television from 1955 onwards.
The Boy Wonder Irving Thalberg (1899-1937) was the creative engine room of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from the studio’s creation in 1925 until his early death. In twelve years he supervised over 400 pictures, including virtually all of its prestige productions, without ever choosing to take an on-screen credit.
Thalberg had some level of involvement with most of MGM’s musical output from The Broadway Melody in 1929 until A Day at the Races, on which he was working at the time of his death; it was he who brought the Marx Brothers to Metro, reviving their flagging careers at the cost of comedic purity.
Thalberg effectively launched the musical genre as the driving force behind The Broadway Melody. He showed his inclination for experimentation-within-limits by okaying Hallelujah even though King Vidor warned him it would make no money.
Thalberg brought Grace Moore and Lawrence Tibbet from the Metropolitan Opera and gifted stardom to Jeanette MacDonald. He persuaded Luise Rainer to take the small role in The Great Ziegfeld that won her an Oscar.
Although business-oriented, Thalberg was prepared to devote time and money to producing high-quality work, and he made profits as a result. His impact on the early development of the MGM musical is impossible to quantify, but a philosophy of excellence can certainly be seen in the work that followed, especially in the golden age of the early 1950s.
In 1928 Ransom Rideout (1889-1975) had some success in New York with Goin’ Home, a melodrama about miscegenation in which, regrettably, the central character was played by an actor in blackface.This may or may not have qualified him to contribute dialogue to Hallelujah, which stands as his sole contribution to the cinema.
Richard Schayer (1880-1956) helped to write over 100 films during a forty-year career, and perhaps staked his claim to a place on the lower levels of immortality by co-writing the treatment that became Universal’s The Mummy (1932).
While at MGM, Schayer worked on four of the studio’s early musicals. He wrote the treatment for Hallelujah, developing King Vidor’s basic idea. In the same year he adapted a French play from 1851 into the Roman Novarro swashbuckler Devil-May-Care. He then displayed his versatility by scripting Free and Easy for Buster Keaton and turning a recent Crane Wilbur play into Children of Pleasure.
By 1932, Schayer was a member of the Laemmles’ team at Universal.
Writing the scenario forHallelujah was the only MGM musical credit for Wanda Tuchock (1898-1985), though she did script Youth Will Be Served (1940) for 20th Century-Fox. Tuchock worked in most of the other major genres during her career, and was also one of only three women credited as a Hollywood director during the 1930s (the others being Dorothy Arzner and the less well-known Dorothy Davenport).
King Vidor (1894-1982) was celebrated throughout his career at MGM and later as a maker of ‘prestige’ pictures. This applies to Hallelujah, his only musical and a film celebrated (and criticized) for many things other than its musical performances. Hallelujah stands alongside The Crowd (1928), The Champ (1931), The Citadel (1938) and War and Peace (1956) as a film for which Vidor was nominated for the Best Director Oscar (he never won).
Principal Crew
| King Vidor | Director |
| Wanda Tuchock | Scenario |
| Richard Schayer | Treatment |
| Ransom Rideout | Dialogue |
| King Vidor | Story |
| Marian Ainslee | Titles: in sound version, uncredited |
| King Vidor | Producer |
| Irving Thalberg | Producer (uncredited) |
| Gordon Avil | Cinematographer |
| Hugh Wynn | Editor |
| Anton Stevenson | Editor (uncredited) |
| Cedric Gibbons | Art Director |
| Douglas Shearer | Sound |
| Irving Berlin | Songwriter/composer |
| Eva Jessye | Musical Director (uncredited) |
| Henrietta Frazer | Wardrobe |
It is typical of the unfathomable decisions sometimes made by MGM in its early musicals that it cast Victoria Spivey (1906-76) in a non-singing role in Hallelujah!. In her day job Spivey was a notable blues singer and songwriter who went on to work with artists ranging from John Lee Hooker to Bob Dylan, and whose personality bore no resemblance to Missy Rose. Hallelujah! was her only acting credit.
Very little is known about Harry Gray. It is probable he was born in the 1840s and lived the first decades of his life as an enslaved person. He was apparently working as a porter when he was cast as the patriarch in Hallelujah, joining a number of other non-professional actors. Gray has two subsequent credits, but remains something of a mystery.
