Release CalendarDVD & Blu-ray ReleasesTop 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsIn TheatersComing SoonMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV NewsIndia TV Spotlight
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsBest Picture WinnersBest Picture WinnersEmmysLGBTQ+ Pride MonthSTARmeter AwardsSan Diego Comic-ConNew York Comic-ConSundance Film FestivalToronto Int'l Film FestivalAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
IMDbPro

Merry-Go-Round of 1938

  • 19371937
  • ApprovedApproved
  • 1h 27m
IMDb RATING
5.5/10
25
YOUR RATING
Mischa Auer, Billy House, and Jimmy Savo in Merry-Go-Round of 1938 (1937)
  • Comedy
  • Musical
  • Romance
Two screwy characters travel to Hollywood and cause mischief.Two screwy characters travel to Hollywood and cause mischief.Two screwy characters travel to Hollywood and cause mischief.
IMDb RATING
5.5/10
25
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Irving Cummings
  • Writers
    • Monte Brice(story and screenplay)
    • Henry Myers(story)
    • A. Dorian Otvos(screenplay)
  • Stars
    • Bert Lahr
    • Jimmy Savo
    • Billy House
Top credits
  • Director
    • Irving Cummings
  • Writers
    • Monte Brice(story and screenplay)
    • Henry Myers(story)
    • A. Dorian Otvos(screenplay)
  • Stars
    • Bert Lahr
    • Jimmy Savo
    • Billy House
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 3User reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Photos

    Joy Hodges and John 'Dusty' King in Merry-Go-Round of 1938 (1937)
    Joy Hodges, John 'Dusty' King, and Beverly Ann Welch in Merry-Go-Round of 1938 (1937)
    Mischa Auer, Alice Brady, Louise Fazenda, Joy Hodges, Billy House, John 'Dusty' King, Bert Lahr, Barbara Read, and Jimmy Savo in Merry-Go-Round of 1938 (1937)
    Add photo

    Top cast

    Edit
    Bert Lahr
    Bert Lahr
    • Bert Lahr
    Jimmy Savo
    • Jimmy
    Billy House
    Billy House
    • Billy
    Alice Brady
    Alice Brady
    • Aunt Hortense
    Mischa Auer
    Mischa Auer
    • Mischa
    Joy Hodges
    Joy Hodges
    • Sally Brown
    Louise Fazenda
    Louise Fazenda
    • Mrs. Penelope Updike
    John 'Dusty' King
    John 'Dusty' King
    • Tony Townsend
    • (as John King)
    Barbara Read
    Barbara Read
    • Clarice Stockbridge
    Dave Apollon
    • Dave Apollon - Orchestra Leader
    • (as Dave Apollon and His Orchestra)
    Richard Carle
    Richard Carle
    • Col. J. Addison Frooks
    Howard Cantonwine
    • Hector
    Charles Williams
    • Dave Clark
    Joyce Kay
    • Sally
    Fay Helm
    Fay Helm
    • Dainty Doris
    John Kelly
    John Kelly
    • Bus Driver
    Beverly Ann Welch
    • Trap drummer in You're My Dish number
    Herbert Ashley
    • Bus Driver
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Irving Cummings
    • Writers
      • Monte Brice(story and screenplay)
      • Henry Myers(story)
      • A. Dorian Otvos(screenplay)
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

    More like this

    Midnight Intruder
    6.3
    Midnight Intruder

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Universal Pictures production number 889.
    • Soundtracks
      I'm In My Glory
      Music by Jimmy McHugh

      Lyrics by Harold Adamson

      Sung by Joy Hodges

    User reviews3

    Review
    Top review
    4/10
    The merry-go-round broke down.
    During Hollywood's golden era, several of the major studios tried to offer a splashy musical comedy that went through annual editions. MGM had 'Broadway Melody of (insert year)'. Paramount had 'The Big Broadcast of (insert year)'. Warners had 'Gold Diggers of (insert year)'. Typically, the date in the title was the year AFTER the film was released, so that the movie could remain in distribution for an entire year and still seem up-to-date.

    'Merry-Go-Round of 1938' looks and sounds suspiciously like Universal Studios' attempt to get in on this franchise ... except that there was no sequel for 1939 nor any subsequent year.

    The most notable thing about this movie is its two top-billed actors. Bert Lahr plays a rare starring role here, as a vaudevillain clearly based on himself. Second-billed is Jimmy Savo, a wistful little comedian (subclass Norman Wisdom) who was briefly a star on Broadway but made very few films. This is probably Savo's best screen performance, yet the director seems to be deliberately cheating him. Savo had a pleasant singing voice: here, when he warbles a lullaby to an orphaned baby, his face is turned away from the camera to create the (false) impression that Savo's singing voice is dubbed. In a later sequence, Savo does a spirited eccentric dance ... but the camera is so far away from him that the effect is diluted.

    Get this plot, now. Lahr, Savo, Mischa Auer and Billy House are the Grand Street Comedy Four, a vaude act who (in 1918) play the same bill as aerialist Dainty Doris. Conveniently, Doris has just fallen off her trapeze: she survives just long enough to make the four comedians promise to raise her baby daughter Sally.

    A few years later, the Comedy Four have got themselves booked in the Palace ... but, before they can play the date, their big break is lost when little Sally gives them all the mumps.

    Fade to 1938, and some half-hearted attempts to make the four lead actors look older with makeup. 20-year-old Sally is now a vivacious young vocalist, who has got herself engaged to handsome society scion Tony Townsend. This is one of those annoying films in which there aren't any real problems, so the scriptwriter has got to throw phony obstacles in the characters' paths. Tony and Sally want to get married, but she hasn't the heart to leave her four 'fathers', who are skint and will presumably starve without her. Fair enough, except that wealthy Tony offers to take care of them. Fair enough, except that the Comedy Four have their 'pride' and won't accept 'charity'. Why not consider it as compensation for taking care of an orphan who wasn't their responsibility?

    Then we need an obstacle to the romance, so Sally visits Tony unexpectedly and finds some over-sized and unfashionable female clothes that look like they belong to Margaret Dumont ... so, without giving him a chance to explain, she assumes that Tony's seeing another woman and she storms out. Oh, and Tony's aunt Hortense won't approve of the marriage if she finds out that Sally is a (gasp!) entertainer. So what?

    Those female clothes are part of the drag act of Billy House, a man of huge girth and microscopic acting talent. For implausible reasons, he masquerades as an aristocratic Englishwoman to call on Aunt Hortense. Their scenes together are excruciating: actress Alice Brady (as Hortense) borrows Billie Burke's twee mannerisms, and she actually comes off here as an even phonier female impersonator than House does. American actor Billy House's phony British accent is half-acceptable, which makes me wonder why he didn't attempt an English accent in the movie 'Bedlam', in which he played a genuine Englishman. After House finishes impersonating an Englishwoman, he utters some of that de-rigueur dialogue about how it 'sure feels good' to get back into male clothing (so we won't get any -- ahem! -- ideas about him). House is the least talented of the four lead actors in this movie, yet he plays the leader of their vaude act.

    Mischa Auer is his usual sourpuss self here, but bereft of his moustache and looking handsomer than usual. He spends the final third of the film in Gunga Din drag and body paint as a fake fakir, with Savo as his 'swami-ette'. Oddly, Auer's character has the *genuine* ability to levitate Lahr: a bizarre intrusion of the paranormal into a script which is otherwise all too earthbound.

    The high point of this film is when Lahr performs 'The Song of the Woodman'. Lahr had enacted this skit in a Broadway revue; it was one of his most popular set pieces, and this movie happily preserves Lahr's big comedy song on celluloid. Unfortunately, very little else in this movie is worth watching.

    I never fault a film for having a low production budget, but I'm always annoyed when film makers who know they're lumbered with a low budget obstinately go ahead with a plot about life among the millionaires ... knowing full well they haven't the dosh to depict it properly. Aunt Hortense and her phony-baloney cronies are meant to be the upper crust, but the depictions of her mansion and other 'wealthy' locales in this movie are laughable.

    There are some oddities in the credits. IMDb says that Fay Helm is uncredited for her brief role as the doomed aerialist: in fact, she IS billed. But the credits also list actor Charles Williams as Hollywood producer Dave Clark: that character is mentioned in the dialogue but never seen. Nor does Hattie McDaniel (listed here as a maid) show up, either. I suspect that scenes were written for these characters, but 'Merry-Go-Round of 1938' ran out of money before they were filmed. Maybe it's a good thing there was no 'Merry-Go-Round of 1939'.
    helpful•5
    3
    • F Gwynplaine MacIntyre
    • Nov 2, 2002

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • November 14, 1937 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Os Quatro da Vida Airada
    • Filming locations
      • Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Universal Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 27 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    • IMDb Answers: Help fill gaps in our data
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    View list
    List
    Editors' Picks: What to Watch Now on Netflix
    See the full list
    View image
    Photos
    Hollywood Romances: Our Favorite Couples
    See the full list

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    • Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • IMDb Developer
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Interest-Based Ads
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2022 by IMDb.com, Inc.