fine supporting cast: The Unguarded Hour (1936). A Day at the Races (1937) The Marx Brothers arrived for the filming of A Day at the Races having tested new routines at burlesque venues, and Thalberg and Wood were prepared to use this material to emulate the profitability of A Night At the Opera. Shortly into the filming, Thalberg unexpectedly died, at thirty-seven, from pneumonia, a loss that left Wood personally shaken. Wood proceeded with the picture, adhering to the formula that balanced the "romance and musical numbers" with the fulsome humor offered in the Marx Brothers sequences. Final years at M-G-M, 1937-1938 After the success of his two Marx Brothers features, Wood requested and was awarded more substantial stories and scripts from M-G-M. Wood furnished the studio with "good pieces of entertainment" in his next four works "but nothing memorable". Navy Blue and Gold (1937): Here Wood returned to collegiate athletics, endowing this "light comedy" - starring James Stewart, Robert Young and Tom Brown—with a "rousing" Army-Navy football game. Florence Rice provides the love interest. Madame X (1937): A popular stage play by Alexandre Bisson that enjoyed numerous film adaptations until 1966, Wood directed Gladys George as the long-suffering mother who sacrifices for her children. Biographer Tony Thomas reports that the actress was one of the rare cases in which Wood developed a personal dislike for a player. The novel spans the life of an English school master Robert Donat whose lonely and inhibited existence is transformed through the love of his understanding spouse Greer Garson into a good-natured pedagogue beloved by generations of his students. Wood's direction of Donat was painstaking in its precision, a role that required the actor to portray his character in youth and old age (in four stages, at twenty-four, forty, sixty-four and eighty-three years-of-age). An inherently touching tale, Wood demonstrated his restraint in telling the story convincingly without lapsing into sentimentality. Actress Greer Garson made her Hollywood debut with Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Just days before "the still uncast" actress was to return to Great Britain after M-G-M had withdrawn her film option, Wood by chance saw her screen test and quickly informed M-G-M that he wanted her to play the role of Katherine. Goodbye, Mr. Chips won Donat a Best Actor Oscar, and Wood received the first of his three Academy Award nominations for Best Director. Upon his return from England, Wood determined he