Ray McCarey: Leo’s Kid Brother

No foolin’–Leo McCarey’s younger brother Ray (1904-1948) was also a hard-working screen director, one also associated with comedies. I’m not quite sure why this is an obscure fact. Leo is often spoken of and Ray rarely is, not even in connection with his brother. It’s true that Ray’s career was more modest. He directed fewer pictures and none are as well known as Leo’s most lauded ones. But many are of interest to classic comedy and vaudeville fans.

Obviously Ray got into the biz because Leo already was. He started as a prop boy, then worked his way to assistant director by 1926, then to director four years later. All of his movies were either comedy shorts, or B pictures. He worked for Mack Sennett, Hal Roach, Vitaphone, Columbia, Pathe, Republic, RKO and other studios. And some of his pictures are indeed notable — at least to us, kindred spirits, if not to the wider public. For example he directed most of Fatty Arbuckle’s comeback talkies, several classic early Three Stooges’ shorts (Men in Black, Three Little Pigskins, both 1934), as well as the Laurel and Hardy pictures Scram and Pack Up Your Troubles (both 1932). McCarey also directed shorts starring Our Gang, Nat Carr, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Shemp Howard, Ben Blue, Cliff Edwards, Eugene Pallette, Gus Shy, Lionel Stander, Jans and Whalen, George Givot, Charles Judels, and Willie Howard. He directed a Pete Smith Specialty, and occasional sports themed short subjects starring the likes of Buster Crabbe or Red Grange.

By the mid ’30s, McCarey was entrusted with B movie features. Some were westerns or mysteries, but the majority were comedies. Among them Hot Tip (1935) with James Gleason and Zasu Pitts; Let’s Make a Million (1936) and Oh, Doctor (1937) both with Edward Everett Horton; Goodbye Broadway (1938) with Charles Winninger and Alice Brady; Torchy Runs for Mayor (1939) with Glenda Farrell; You Can’t Fool Your Wife (1940) with Lucille Ball; The Perfect Snob (1941) with Charles Ruggles, Charlotte Greenwood, and a terrific supporting cast; A Gentleman at Heart (1943) with Cesar Romero, Milton Berle, and Carole Landis; and So This is Washington (1943) with Lum and Abner.

McCarey’s most significant film could well be Atlantic City (1944), which will reach the ripe old age of 80 in a few days. It was one of the most lavish movies to be released by Republic Pictures, and stars several vaudeville vets recreating their acts or otherwise cutting up, including Jerry Colonna, Buck and Bubbles, Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, Dorothy Dandridge, Belle Baker, Joe Frisco, Al Shean (with act actor playing Ed Gallagher), and Gus Van (with an actor playing Joe Schenck). Also in the cast are Constance Moore, Charley Grapewin, and Adele Mara, with Dell Henderson, Sam Bernard, Wilbur Mack, and Mary Kornman in bit parts. Oddly, the lead in the film Stanley Brown (here billed as Bradley Taylor) is the most obscure person in the movie.

Atlantic City might be considered the peak of Ray McCarey’s career. Unfortunately that same year was also his brother Leo’s much taller peak, with the release of the multiple Oscar winning Going My Way, the highest grossing picture of 1944. It was followed by the 1945 sequel The Bell’s of St. Mary’s. Meanwhile, Ray was still being assigned fare like The Falcon’s Alibi (1946). His final picture was a 1948 comedy called The Gay Intruders with John Emery and Tamara Geva.

Then, it all came to an abrupt end. On December 2 of that year, Ray McCarey ended it all by swallowing two bottles of prescription pills. His body was found kneeling over the bed as children do when they’re saying their prayers. In a public statement, Leo claimed that his brother had been in “ill health”. He was only 44 years old.