The March of Time was the title of a planned Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 musical film

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 originally scheduled to be released in September 1930. Production of this early film, which would have been one of the first musicals filmed in two-color Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

, was abandoned, although a number of musical numbers were filmed. The uncompleted film was originally titled Hollywood Revue of 1930 and was conceived by producer Harry Rapf

Harry Rapf

Harry Rapf was a Jewish American producer. He began his career in 1917, and during a 20 year career became a well-known producer of films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He created the comedic duo Dane & Arthur featuring Karl Dane and George K...

 as a follow-up to MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929 which he had also produced.

Footage from The March of Time later found its way into the musical shorts The Devil's Cabaret (1930), Nertsery Rhymes

Nertsery Rhymes

Nertsery Rhymes is the first short film starring "Ted Healy and His Stooges", a musical comedy released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Some footage was from the unfinished MGM musical The March of Time , which was originally to feature Healy and the Three Stooges.-Synopsis:The Stooges are children and...

(1933), Beer and Pretzels

Beer and Pretzels

Beer and Pretzels is the second of five short subjects starring Ted Healy and His Stooges released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. A musical-comedy film, the short also featured Bonnie Bonnell, Healy's girlfriend at the time.-Plot:...

(1933), Jailbirds of Paradise (1934), and The Big Idea (1934). MGM's 1931 musical revue Wir schalten um auf Hollywood (We Tune In to Hollywood), produced for the German market, also featured scenes from The March of Time as did 1933's Broadway to Hollywood

Broadway to Hollywood (1933 film)

Broadway to Hollywood is a film directed by Willard Mack, produced by Harry Rapf, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film features many of MGM's stars of the time, including Frank Morgan, Alice Brady, Madge Evans, Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, and Jackie Cooper...

. In 1994, footage from the unfinished film appeared in That's Entertainment! III.

Among the performers originally scheduled to appear in The March of Time were Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

, Joe Weber

Joe Weber (vaudevillian)

Joe Weber born Joseph Morris Weber was a vaudevillian who, along with Lew Fields, formed the comedy team of Weber and Fields....

 and Lew Fields

Lew Fields

Lew Fields , born as Moses Schoenfeld, was an American actor, comedian, vaudeville star, theatre manager and producer....

 of the Weber and Fields comedy team, Marie Dressler

Marie Dressler

Marie Dressler was a Canadian-American actress and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 in Min and Bill.-Early life and stage career:...

, Gus Edwards, Fay Templeton

Fay Templeton

Fay Templeton was an American stage actress.Her parents were actors/vaudevillians and she followed in their footsteps, making her Broadway debut in 1900. She continued to appear there until 1934...

, DeWolf Hopper Sr., Albertina Rasch

Albertina Rasch

Albertina Rasch was a naturalized American dancer and choreographer.-Early life:Born in Vienna in 1891 to a family of Polish Jewish descent, Rasch studied at the Vienna State Opera Ballet school and became leading ballerina at the New York Hippodrome in...

 and her dancers, Ramon Novarro

Ramón Novarro

Ramón Novarro was a Mexican leading man actor in Hollywood in the early 20th century. He was the next male "Sex Symbol" after the death of Rudolph Valentino...

, Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

, Polly Moran

Polly Moran

Polly Moran was an American actress and comedian.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Moran started out in vaudeville, and widely toured North America, as well as various other locations that included Europe and South Africa...

, Wallace Beery

Wallace Beery

Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...

, Barney Fagan

Barney Fagan

Barney Fagan was a 19th-century American performer, director, choreographer, and composer. He is recognized as being a progenitor of both music and dance genres, and is often referred to as the "Father of Tap Dance."...

, Raquel Torres

Raquel Torres

Raquel Torres was a Mexican-born American film actress. Her sister was actress Renee Torres....

, and Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

. Beery, Dressler, Moran, Weber and Fields, Templeton, Edwards, Fagan, and Hopper were to be included in a series of vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

sketches as the "Old Timers".