Jack Buchanan on AllMovie

Scottish-born entertainer Jack Buchanan became caught up in amateur theatricals while he was a London office worker. He made his stage bow in 1911, and his London theatre debut in 1912, but full stardom would have to wait until his long run (beginning in 1915) in the play Tonight's the Night. He entered films with 1917's Auld Lang Syne, playing the sort of sticklike hero that any lesser actor could have portrayed. Buchanan's true celebrity rested on his stage work, notably 1921's Charlot A-Z Revue. The early-talkie hunger for cultured British voices brought Buchanan to Hollywood in 1929, where he appeared opposite Irene Bordoni in Paris (1929), Jeanette MacDonald in Monte Carlo (1930), and just about the entire Warner Bros. contract roster in The Show of Shows (1929). These early films reveal Buchanan to be a dry, debonair tie-and-tail type not far removed from the stage persona of Clifton Webb or Fred Astaire - except that Buchanan's charm did not transfer as well to the screen. Back in England, Buchanan tackled his first directing job with Yes Mr. Brown (1931) and in 1933 he built the Leicester Square Theatre. Relaxing sufficiently before the cameras to become an agreeable screen personality, Buchanan starred in the 1934 British production of Brewster's Millions, and costarred with Maurice Chevalier, whose style was similar to Buchanan's, in Break the News (1937). American film audiences did not see Buchanan again until 1953, when he was cast as the impresario Cordova in the Fred Astaire vehicle The Band Wagon (1953). Among the treasured musical moments in this delightful film was Triplets, wherein the Astaire, Buchanan and Nanette Fabray were decked out in baby bonnets. It would be nice to record Band Wagon as Buchanan's final appearance before his death in 1957; alas, Buchanan was subsequently and unhappily cast in the misfire farce Le Carnets Du Major Thompson, a.k.a. The French They Are a Funny Race (1957) - also the swan song of once-great director Preston Sturges.