Goldwyn Pictures
Ars Gratia Artis
|
|
Industry | Film studio |
---|---|
Fate | Merged with Metro Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures |
Successor | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Founded | April 20, 1916 |
Defunct | April 16, 1924 |
Headquarters | Fort Lee, New Jersey |
Key people
|
Samuel Goldwyn |
Products | movies |
Goldwyn Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company that operated from 1916 to 1924 when it was merged with two other production companies to form the major studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The studio proved moderately successful, but became most famous due to the Leo the Lion trademark. Although Metro was the nominal survivor, the merged studio inherited Goldwyn's old facility in Culver City, California where it would remain until 1986. The merged studio also retained Goldwyn's Leo the Lion logo, which has become perhaps the most famous movie studio logo in the world.
Lee Shubert of Shubert Theater was an investor in the company.[1]
Contents
History
Goldwyn Pictures Corporation (GPC) was founded in 1916 by Samuel Goldfish partnering with Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn using an amalgamation of both last names to create the name. Goldfish had left Lasky's Feature Play Company, of which he was a co-founder, in 1916 when Feature Play merged with Famous Players. Margaret Mayo, Edgar's wife & play writer, and Arthur Hopkins, a Broadway producer, joined the trio as writer and director general.[1]
At the beginning, Goldwyn Pictures rented production facilities from Solax Studios when it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The company's first release was Polly of the Circus, an adaptation of Mayo's play, in September 1917 starting Mae Marsh.[2][3] By April 1917, Goldwyn Pictures agreed to rent the Universal Pictures studios in Fort Lee, then having the second largest stage, and had two film companies operating at the time with plans for more production companies. The company management planned on having 12 films done by September 1, 1917 with out distributing the films so as to be able to show advanced footage to the theaters. Goldfish also associated the company with Columbia University via Professor Victor Freeburg's Photoplay Writing class in 1917 to increase the company's artistic standings.[1] The company also released other production companies films with Marie Dressler's Dressler Producing Corporation film, The Scrub Lady, in 1917. The company was forced in October 1917 to switch out The Eternal Magalene for Fighting Odds, both starring Maxine Elliott, after the National Board of Review cleared the Magalene movie while censors in Pennsylvania state and Chicago city did not approve the film. Thais starring Mary Garden was released in late 1917 which was a costly loss.[1]
In January 1918, Goldfish signed director Raoul Walsh and prematurely announced it as there were two years left on Walsh's contract with Fox. With Thais being the company's second costly loss, Goldwyn decreased film budgets partly by not using theater divas to cross over to film and reducing design driven films. Instead, he rely on comedies starring Madge Kennedy and Mabel Normand. In August 1918, GPC signed Will Rogers, at that time a Broadway Follies favorite, to star in a Rex Beach production, Laughing Bill Hyde, filmed at the Fort Lee studio for release in September.[1] The company purchased the Triangle Studios in Culver City in 1918.[2][4] Goldwyn then headed west out to Culver City in the Winter of 1918 which opening operations there also caused an increase in film expenses.[1] Seeing an opportunity in December, Samuel Goldfish then had his name legally changed to Samuel Goldwyn.
In 1919, Frank Joseph "Joe" Godsol became an investor in Goldwyn Pictures.[5]
Goldwyn began looking at follow other film companies, like Loews Theaters/Metro Pictures and First National, into vertical integration. Goldwyn and the company backers were looking at renting the Astor Theatre for movie premiers instead with the Capitol Theatre's financial problems in May 1920, the backer purchased a controlling interest in that theater. Shubert and Godsol, however, did not want the theater to rely only on Goldwyn films and operated it separately from the company.[6]
By 1920 in addition owning its Culver City studio, GPC was renting two New York studios and nearly ceased operations in Fort Lee.[2]
After personality clashes, Sam Goldwyn left the company in 1922. Lee Shubert of Shubert Theater contacted Marcus Loew about merging the company with Loew's Metro. Loew agreed to the merger. Louis B. Mayer heard about the pending merger and contacted Leow about adding his Louis B. Mayer Productions into the post merger company, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.[7]
Feature staff
Directors |
Filmography
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A 1967 fire in a MGM Archive#7 storage facility destroyed over negatives and prints, including the best-quality copies of every Goldwyn's pictures produced prior until 1924; over MGM's feature films from before 1930 are completely lost. But, on March 25, 1986, Ted Turner and his Turner Broadcasting System purchased pre-May 1986 MGM films (including Goldwyn Pictures films) from Kirk Kerkorian for $600 million.
- Polly of the Circus (1917)
- Tillie the Scrubwoman (1917)
- Thirty a Week (1918)[2]
See also
- Samuel Goldwyn Productions, Samuel Goldwyn's next production company
- Samuel Goldwyn Studio, informal name for the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios lot in Hollywood.
- Samuel Goldwyn Films, founded by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. in 1979, active through 1997
- The Samuel Goldwyn Company, founded by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. in 2000.
References
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External links
- Goldwyn Pictures at the Internet Movie Database
- American Film Institute Catalog
- Silent Era.com
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with hatnote templates targeting a nonexistent page
- Silent film studios
- Goldwyn Pictures films
- Defunct American film studios
- Cinema of Southern California
- Companies based in Culver City, California
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Media companies established in 1916
- Media companies disestablished in 1924
- 1916 establishments in California
- 1924 disestablishments in California