Between 1927 and 1953, Johnny Mack Brown made over 150 films. While he continued to make a few more movies through 1966, he also made appearances on television. He’s remembered now for his series of low-budget westerns and serials that made big money for several “poverty row” studios. But for a while Brown was a big star at MGM and worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
Brown was an All-American halfback at the University of Alabama and hero of the 1920 Rose Bowl, where Alabama defeated Washington. Trailing 12-0 at halftime, Alabama changed its offensive strategy to utilize Brown’s pass-catching abilities. In the third quarter, Brown was on the receiving end of 61-yard and 38-yard touchdown pass plays. Alabama won the game and boasted a perfect 10-0 record for the season. Many assumed Brown would become a professional player, but he chose the silver screen over the football field when he graduated.
Signed to a contract by MGM in 1926, Brown debuted as himself in Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) with William Haines in a hit film about baseball. This film was followed by The Bugle Call (1927), which starred Jackie Coogan. He had a small part in Mockery (1927) with Lon Chaney and in After Midnight (1927) with Norma Shearer.
Brown finished off 1927 by landing the “leading man” role opposite MGM superstar Marion Davies in The Fair Co-Ed, playing the college basketball coach and love interest of Davies and her rival, played by Jane Winton. The film was a hit, and Brown’s starring career was off and running.
In 1928 Brown appeared in eight films. He landed roles opposite Greta Garbo in The Divine Woman (with Lars Hanson), the only Garbo film that is mostly lost: only one reel is known to survive. Brown co-starred again with Garbo in the terrific A Woman of Affairs (with John Gilbert) in a story that opens with the wild Diana (Garbo) driving recklessly down the road. Garbo’s character is a carefree woman who has loved Gilbert since childhood. She has a brother (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), a pampered youth who’s so bored with his life that his only satisfaction is boozing. To no avail, his friend (Brown) tries to stop him from his wicked ways. The film follows the loves of Diana and their sad outcomes until she simply becomes a woman of affairs. Although Gilbert is the male star here, Brown has a solid role opposite Garbo.
Brown also nabbed a major role opposite Joan Crawford in the smash hit Our Dancing Daughters. This is the film that made Crawford a star and features her famous and frantic tabletop Charleston. Although Crawford and her female co-stars (Anita Page, Dorothy Sebastian) take center stage, Brown is quite good as the wealthy but naïve man Page steals away from Crawford. Brown starred with Madge Bellamy in Soft Living and The Play Girl, with Robert Armstrong in Square Crooks, and as a cadet in Annapolis. Closing out 1928, Brown co-starred with Norma Shearer in her final silent film, A Lady of Chance.
In 1929 MGM cast Brown in another Garbo silent film, The Single Standard. This film examined one woman’s desire to be as sexually free as most men. This was the third and final film Brown made with Garbo.
1929 saw Brown in perhaps his most highly-visible role, starring with Mary Pickford in their talkie debut, Coquette. The film was a big hit; it won Pickford an Oscar and a ton of publicity. The Broadway play, starring Helen Hayes, ran for a year in the late 20s. Pickford hoped that this vehicle would be a solid entrance into the new sound medium as well as scuttle her “little Mary” image that had plagued her for years. Brown plays Michael and excels as the doomed boyfriend. He exhibits some real fireworks in the argument scene with Pickford’s father and has a very touching death scene. But the success of Coquette did not launch Brown toward major stardom.
Despite having a pleasing voice (although heavily accented), his good looks only carried him so far. By 1930 he had yet to really find his place at MGM where Clark Gable and Robert Montgomery were already winning the starring roles that Brown was up for. Brown sang “Someone” in Jazz Heaven (1929) with Sally O’Neil, played a laconic lighthouse keeper in the bizarre Undertow (1930) with Mary Nolan. Neither of these films were hits.
He was assigned against director King Vidor’s wishes to star in Billy the Kid along with the always-difficult Wallace Beery (as Pat Garrett). The set was not a happy one. Some ads gave top billing to Beery. Even though the picture was successful, Brown’s career at MGM was doomed after his re-teaming with Crawford in Montana Moon, a modern western that flopped. In it, Crawford escapes the lecherous Ricardo Cortez by bailing off a train in Montana and meeting up with Brown. They instantly fall in love and get married. But it turns out the ranch he works for is owned by her father. Worse, Crawford’s mob of friends is at the ranch for an extended weekend party. Will Cortez win Crawford? Will Brown mix with the society friends? Audiences didn’t care.
Although his A-list stardom seemed derailed, in 1931 Brown was still working in films like The Secret Six, a gangster film that boasted a great cast: Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, and Ralph Bellamy. The Last Flight is a solid film about World War I pilots drifting around Europe after the war. Brown co-starred with Richard Barthelmess, Helen Chandler, and David Manners. The Great Meadow is an interesting “western” about the settling of Kentucky. Brown starred with Eleanor Boardman.
The Last Flight was a loan out to First National. It’s an amazing film in which Brown co-stars with the great Richard Barthelmess as members of the “lost generation” who wander around Europe looking for something to believe in. The film perfectly captures the Hemingway/Fitzgerald feeling of hopelessness after World War I and also boasts terrific performances. Barthelmess stars with Helen Chandler, Brown, David Manners, Elliott Nugent, and Walter Byron as a group that boozes its way from Paris to Lisbon. Each has his/her wounds (physical or emotional) as they try to find their balance after the hideous war. Chandler’s remark whenever she’s confused or bored is “I?ll take vanilla.” The film is full of wry humor and a deep sadness. Barthelmess is solid as always; Brown and Chandler are nothing short of superb. This is the first American film for German actor/director William Dieterle. But as good as The Last Flight is, it signaled the end of Brown’s starring roles in A-list films.
None of these 1931 films did well at the box office. Brown made four films in 1932 – all duds. And in 1933, Brown appeared in Female, a snappy film for Warners starring Ruth Chatterton (who was nearing the end of her reign as “queen of the lot”). The film made money, but Chatterton’s husband, George Brent, got the male lead; Brown had only a few scenes.
It seemed like Brown was on his way out as a movie star, but he got the last laugh. Although he still appeared in occasional dramas like Belle of the Nineties with Mae West, after 1933 Brown made westerns almost exclusively, and they were for poverty-row studios like Mascot. Brown descended to westerns at even lower-rung Supreme Pictures and made serials (a format even lower in stature than B-films) like Wild West Days (1937) at Universal. In 1943 Brown moved to Monogram Pictures, where he made over 60 westerns. Although he was relegated to westerns and serials, Brown consistently ranked among the top ten moneymakers in westerns from 1942-50 and kept working for decades after his glory days at MGM. His cowboy character was so popular there was even a series of comic books based on the movies.
Unlike other movie cowboys like Roy Rogers, Brown didn’t take his act to television when the cowboy genre started to die out in movies. He made a few guest appearances on TV shows, but after 1953’s The Marshal’s Daughter, he semi-retired. Brown made a few more appearances in minor film roles in the 1960s; his final film appearance was in 1966’s Apache Uprising.
