MGM had some odd casting ideas. They cast Ed Brophy who generally played lovable, inept gangsters as Rollo, the murderer in this film and years later cast Cecil Kellaway as Nick the Greek diner owner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice"....Couldn't have happened at Warner Brothers.
cinefreak
MAD LOVE was filled with "in jokes" and homages to other horror films. Ed Brophy was one of them, from MGM's FREAKS. FREAKS had a pair of knife throwers, called "The Rollo Brothers"...one of whom was played by Brophy. They also had Colin Clive, the original Dr. Frankenstein, being the victim of a mad doctor...with huge, monstrous hands grafted to his wrists...
They even had Gogol's drunken housekeeper running away after seeing Frances Drake trying to escape.
She screeches to the police about Drake "taking a little walk". Homage to Karl Freund, and his work on Karloff's THE MUMMY... It's full of little oddities like these.
Ah! I had forgotten that Brophy was in "Freaks"!
Very interesting about the in-jokes. (When I think of Brophy's hands being grafted onto Colin Clive, I picture Clive spilling drinks on himself when he checks his watch).
The lawyers over at Universal must have raised a couple eyebrows, though, what with all that intellectual property.
cinefreak