UPDATE!! Mostly OT - Can you help identify and date these movie stars?

If multiple suggestions, I've put both using / between them. I put question marks after any that are still in question (which is probably most of them! LOL!)

Top row:
1-Unknown, (post) 2-Lou Costello?, 3-Bud Abbot?, 4-Boris Karloff, 5-Mary Pickford?, 6-Douglas Fairbanks/Rudolf Valentino?/John Boles, 7-Joan Crawford/Irene Dunn?, 8-unknown, 9-unknown, 10-Bela Lugosi?, 11-unknown, 12-Raymond Massey, 13-Lionel Barrymore?/James Cagney?/, 14-Clark Gable

Here are some flaws in the top row list -- Abbot & Costello didn't get together, apparently, until 1936. I doubt that Mickey is 16 in this pic, so that calls those names into question. Still leaning more towards Crawford rather than Dunn and <strike>Fairbanks rather than Valentino</strike>, mostly based on date. (now leaning towards Boles! LOL!)

Whew! That took me awhile! Now onto the middle row!
 
Ok -- Row 2!

1-unknown with hat, 2-unknown, 3-unknown, 4-VERY unknown hiding with hat, 5-unknown woman in black, 6-unknown man with arms around gals, 7-Helen Hayes?, 8-unknown hiding, 9-unknown old guy, 10-unknown tan guy, 11-unknown bald guy, 12-unknown guy with badge, 13-Norma Shearer?/Una Merkel/Marion Davies?, 14-unknown with hat, 15-Bette Davis?/Marion Davies?/(someone else), 16-Tom Mix, 17-Lew Ayres?, 18-unknown, 19-Jean Harlow/Carole Lombard/Bette Davis?/Marion Davies?, 20-unknown guy, 21-unknown older woman with fab coat, 22-unknown with moustache, 23-unknown with hat, 24-Kay Francis
 
Row ~3~

1-unknown, 2- Edward G. Robinson, 3-unknown, 4-unknown, 5, Fatty Arbuckle?, 6-Louise B Mayer?, 7-Mickey Rooney, 8-Don Ameche/Dick Powell/Ronald Coleman

Note -- #5 can't be Fatty Arbuckle since his movie career crashed 1921 when he was accused of rape/murder. Unless he continued in Hollywood in a behind the scenes capability?
 
Well -- since that child is definitely Mickey Rooney, we have to go by the facts. He was born in 1920.
In that photo, he looks to me to be about 8-10 years old... BUT -- he was always a pretty small fella, so we could easily stretch that to about 12 years old.
So -- 1932??

I'm definitely open to any suggestions on this, though!!! I can't seem to find any pictures of Rooney from that era to compare to :(
 
I think the guy next to Raymond Massey looks like Lionel Barrymore rather than Cagney. Raymond Massey was very tall and Cagney was not. So unless he was standing on something, I dont think its Cagney. And that guy really does look like LB to me.
 
Row 1 - Mary Pickford was born in 1892, so she would have been in her 40's in the early 30's. I'm not sure that's her. Next to her - that guy has too much hair to be Douglas Fairbanks. He looks closest to John Boles, but I'm not sure. And I do think that's Joan Crawford next to him.

Row 3 - OK, no on Fatty Arbuckle.

My eyes are going buggy.
 
Can you imagine that, at the time, these were probably some of the most well known faces? Now we struggle to figure them out. Wonder if there will ever be the same issue IDing the Pitts and Clooneys of today? Surely not.
 
I couldn't believe I found them either. It was a link on a page 2 links ago ;) I also found this list of movies made with Louis B. Mayer as executive producer. If a person wanted to look up each title and see who starred in the movies they could get a pretty good idea of the stars of the time. It would take awhile though..... I wasn't for sure where to stop so I've included films a few years before and after '32.



1928 The Wind (Sjöström); Our Dancing Daughters (Beaumont); Voice of the City (Mack); The Divorcee (Leonard); Let Us Be Gay (Leonard); The Kiss (Feyder); Broadway Melody (Beaumont); The Trial of Mary Dugan (Veiller); Wickedness Preferred (Henley); The Mysterious Lady (Niblo); A Lady of Chance (Leonard); Across to Singapore (Nigh); The Cameraman (Sedgwick); The Actress (Cukor); A Woman of Affairs (Brown); The Divine Woman (Sjöström)

1929 Anna Christie (Brown); The Big House (Hill); His Glorious Night (Barrymore); Redemption (Niblo); Hallelujah (K. Vidor); The Mysterious Island (Tourneur and Hubbard); Hollywood Revue of 1929 (Reisner); Alias Jimmy Valentine (Conway); The Trail of '98 (Brown); Our Modern Maidens (Conway); Thunder (Nigh); Untamed (Conway); Dynamite (DeMille)

1930 Min and Bill (Hill); Paid (Wood); A Free Soul (Brown); The Easiest Way (Conway); Way for a Sailor (Wood); Those Three French Girls (Beaumont); A Lady's Morals (Franklin); Susan Lenox, Her Fall and Rise (Leonard); Men of the North (Roach); Billy the Kid (K. Vidor); Madam Satan (DeMille); The Sin of Madelon Claudet (Selwyn); Trader Horn (Van Dyke); Romance (Brown); Paid (Wood); The Unholy Three (Conway); The Rogue Song (Barrymore); Good News (Grindé)

1931 The Champ (K. Vidor); Possessed (Brown); As You Desire Me (Fitzmaurice); The Guardsman (Franklin); Private Lives (Franklin); Red-Headed Woman (Conway); Freaks (Browning); Tarzan the Ape Man (Van Dyke); The Wet Parade (Fleming); Come Clean (Horne); Inspiration (Brown); Mata Hari (Fitzmaurice); A Free Soul (Brown); The Squaw Man (DeMille); The Man in Possession (Wood); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Mamoulian); New Moon (Leonard); The Secret Six (Hill)

1932 Rasputin and the Empress (Boleslawsky); Red Dust (Fleming); Grand Hotel (Goulding); Gabriel over the White House (La Cava); Strange Interlude (Leonard); Smilin' Through (Franklin); The Music Box (Parrott)

1933 Tugboat Annie (LeRoy); Treasure Island (Fleming); Manhattan Melodrama (Van Dyke); The Thin Man (Van Dyke); Queen Christina (Mamoulian); Dancing Lady (Leonard); Night Flight (Brown); Dinner at Eight (Cukor); Eskimo (Van Dyke); When Ladies Meet (Beaumont); The Barbarian (A Night in Cairo) (Wood); Hold Your Man (Wood); Bombshell (Fleming)

1934 David Copperfield (Cukor); Merry Widow (Lubitsch); Mutiny on the Bounty (Lloyd); The Barretts of Wimpole Street (Franklin); A Wicked Woman (Brabin); The Show-Off (Riesner); Sadie McKee (Brown); Chained (Brown); The Painted Veil (Boleslawsky); Tarzan and His Mate (Gibbons); Riptide (Goulding); Viva Villa! (Conway)

1935 China Seas (Garnett); A Tale of Two Cities (Conway); San Francisco (Van Dyke); Anna Karenina (Brown); A Night at the Opera (Wood); Libeled Lady (Conway); Rendezvous (Howard); Whipsaw (Wood); No More Ladies (E. Griffith and Cukor); Ah Wilderness (Brown)
 
More information I found:

Having inherited few big names from their predecessor companies, Mayer and Thalberg began at once to create and publicize a host of new stars, among them Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, William Haines, Norma Shearer, and Joan Crawford. Established names like Lon Chaney, William Powell, Buster Keaton, and Wallace Beery were hired from other studios. The arrival of talking pictures in 1928–29 gave opportunities to other new stars, many of whom would carry MGM through the 1930s: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, and Nelson Eddy among them.

MGM stars dominated the box office in the 30's. Norma Shearer (the top star and money maker for the studio), Joan Crawford, and Greta Garbo all reigned as not only the top three figures at the studio but in Hollywood itself.
 
Okay, I think the 2 blondes on the back row might be Joan Blondell and a fresh faced Carole Lombard pre Dietrich/Garbo style makeover. And I think the man in the light coat next to Tom Mix is William Haines.



Hollis
 
I am pretty sure you should be looking around 1932 spot on as the date. I am sure its not before summer 1931 nor after summer 33 because the clothes would be much different and movie stars, if nothing else, are fashionable.
I haven't read all the posts yet, so forgive any duplicates:
Third from left back row - Boris Karloff
To his left is (I am 90% sure) Mary Astor
To her left I recognize but I just can't remember his name -- it will come but to that guy's left is definately Joan Crawford
Third from the right back row is I think Vincent Massey, not Raymond Massey...
The little boy is definately Mickey Rooney who used to play midget parts when he was young, so I think that's why he looks so small for an 11/12 year old ) he was born Sept 1920
The guy with the black ten gallon hat I don't know but I am 99% sure the woman in the trench coat next to him is Joan BLondell

I think that's all I got
 
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