When was mgm studios founded

Mayer persuaded both President Calvin Coolidge and performer Will Rogers to show up for the studio's grand opening. M-G-M was the most powerful studio in Hollywood, renown for the glossy, bright, Technicolor style of its films, complete with lavish wardrobes, high priced sets, and an unbeatable stable of superstars. In fact, the "Yellow Brick Road" is still inside the lot on Stage 27! It was here that a young Mickey Rooney made seventeen nostalgic " Andy Hardy " movies.

M-G-M used to brag that the studio had " More stars than there are in the heavens. During its heyday, the studio cranked out an average of one film a week. In , the studio made " Ben Hur " with Charlton Heston , which won more Oscars than any other movie in Hollywood history eleven, including Best Picture. Their epic, " Quo Vadis ," holds the record for the largest number of costumes used in any motion picture: 32, Where did the studio get its name?

At the zenith of the mania for corporate buy outs, M-G-M Studios fell victim to just such a takeover. In , movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem. He had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in for a steady supply of films for his large Loew's Theatres chain. With Loew's lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in to improve the quality.

However, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the theaters. Approached by Louis B. Mayer , Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17, MGM produced more than feature films in its first two years. Marcus Loew died in , and control of Loew's passed to Nicholas Schenck. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision.

Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds. During this time, in the summer of , Fox was badly hurt in an automobile accident. By the time he recovered, the stock market crash in the fall of had nearly wiped Fox out and ended any chance of the Loew's merger going through. Schenck and Mayer had never gotten along Mayer reportedly referred to his boss as "Mr.

Skunk" , [26] Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Clark Gable. From the outset, MGM tapped into the audience's need for glamor and sophistication. 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 , Joan Crawford , and Norma Shearer who followed Thalberg from Universal.

MGM was one of the first studios to experiment with filming in Technicolor. MGM released The Viking , the first complete Technicolor feature with a synchronized score and sound effects, but no spoken dialogue.

With the arrival of talkies, MGM moved slowly and reluctantly into sound era, releasing features like White Shadows in the South Seas with music and sound effects, and Alias Jimmy Valentine with limited dialogue sequences. Their first full-fledged talkie, the musical The Broadway Melody , however, was both a box-office success and won the Academy Award as Best Picture of the Year.

MGM, however, was the very last studio to convert to "talkies" with its first all-color, "all-talking" sound feature with dialogue being the musical The Rogue Song MGM included a sequence made in Technicolor's superior new three-color process, a musical number in the otherwise black-and-white The Cat and the Fiddle , starring Jeanette MacDonald and Ramon Novarro.

The studio then produced a number of three-color short subjects including the musical La Fiesta de Santa Barbara ; their first complete feature in the process was Sweethearts with MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, the earlier of the popular singing team's two films in color.

From then on, MGM regularly produced several films a year in Technicolor with Northwest Passage being one of the most notable. In , MGM purchased the rights to the Our Gang series and moved the production in-house, [27] continuing production of the successful series of children's comedies until From to , MGM produced a series of comedy shorts called All Barkie Dogville Comedies , in which trained dogs were dressed up to parody contemporary films and were voiced by actors.

These records were sold only at Loew's theaters. Columbia also created a label called Publix for Paramount music and sold only at Paramount Theaters. MGM produced approximately 50 pictures a year, though it never met its goal of releasing a new motion picture each and every week it was only able to release one feature film every nine days. A fine reputation was gained for lavish productions that were sophisticated and polished to cater to an urban audience. Still, as the Great Depression deepened, MGM began to economize by "recycling" existing sets, costumes, and furnishings from yesteryear projects.

This recycling practice never let up once started. In addition, MGM saved money because it was the only one of the big five studios that did not own an off-site movie ranch. Until the mids, MGM could make a claim its rivals could not: it never lost money, although it did have an occasional disaster like Parnell , Clark Gable's biggest flop.

It was the only Hollywood studio that continued to pay dividends during the s. Spencer Tracy in Fury MGM stars dominated the box-office during the s, and the studio was credited for inventing the Hollywood stable of stars system, as well.

Shearer was still a money maker despite screen appearances becoming scarce, and Crawford continued her box-office power until Mayer and Irving Thalberg's relationship began warmly, but eventually the two became estranged; Thalberg preferred literary works to the crowd-pleasers Mayer wanted.

Thalberg, always physically frail, was removed as head of production in Mayer encouraged other staff producers, among them his son-in-law David O. Selznick, but no one seemed to have the sure touch of Thalberg.

As Thalberg fell increasingly ill in , Louis Mayer could now serve as his temporary replacement. Rumors began circulating that Thalberg was leaving to set up his own independent company; Script error: No such module "Unsubst". After Thalberg's untimely death, Mayer became head of production, as well as studio chief, becoming the first million-dollar executive in American history. Also playing a huge role was Ida Koverman, Mayer's secretary and right hand.

Selznick , Mayer's son-in-law, to obtain the services of Gable as well as financial assistance to complete the film. After a two-year hiatus, Crawford moved to Warner Brothers, where her career took a dramatic upturn. Shearer and Garbo never made another film after leaving the lot. Of the five stars, Loy and MacDonald were the only two whom Mayer rehired, in and respectively. Increasingly, before and during World War II, Mayer came to rely on his "College of Cardinals" — senior producers who controlled the studio's output.

This management-by-committee resulted in MGM losing its momentum, developing few new stars and relying on the safety of sequels and bland material. Dorothy Parker memorably referred to it as "Metro-Goldwyn-Merde. Production values remained high, and even "B" pictures carried a polish and gloss that made them expensive to mount. After , production was cut from 50 pictures a year to a more manageable 25 features per year.

Audiences began drifting to television in the late s. MGM found it difficult to attract them to theaters. With its high overhead expenses, MGM's profit margins continued to decrease. Word came from Nicholas Schenck in New York: find "a new Thalberg" who could improve quality while paring costs. Mayer thought he had found this savior in Dore Schary , a writer and producer who had found success at running RKO.

One bright spot was MGM musical pictures, under the aegis of producer Arthur Freed, who was operating what amounted to an independent unit within the studio. MGM produced some well-regarded and profitable musicals that would be later acknowledged as classics, among them An American in Paris , Singin' in the Rain , and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers However, Brigadoon , Deep in My Heart , It's Always Fair Weather , and Invitation to the Dance , were extravagant song and dance flops, and even the now-classic The Band Wagon lost money in its initial release.

Movie audiences more and more were staying home and watching television. In , as a settlement of the government's restraint-of-trade action, United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. As the studio system faded in the late s and s, MGM's prestige faded with it. In by coincidence, the year Mayer died , the studio lost money for the first time in its year history.

Schary's reign at MGM had been marked with few bona-fide hits, but his departure along with the retirement of Schenck in left a power vacuum that would prove difficult to fill.

Initially Joseph Vogel became president and Sol Siegel head of production. By , MGM had released all of its contract players, with many either retiring or moving on to television.

Gigi was a box-office and critical success which won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In animation, MGM purchased the rights in to distribute a series of cartoons that starred a character named Flip the Frog , produced by Ub Iwerks. The first cartoon in this series entitled Fiddlesticks was the first sound cartoon to be produced in two-color Technicolor.

In , Ub Iwerks cancelled the unsuccessful Flip the Frog series and MGM began to distribute its second series of cartoons, starring a character named Willie Whopper , that was also produced by Ub Iwerks. After initial struggles with a poorly received series of The Captain and the Kids cartoons, the studio rehired Harman and Ising in , and Ising created the studio's first successful animated character, Barney Bear.

The Tom and Jerry cartoons won seven Academy Awards between and In , Tex Avery , another Schlesinger alumnus, joined the animation department. Avery left the studio in , leaving Hanna and Barbera to focus on the popular Tom and Jerry and Droopy series. Although Deitch's Tom and Jerry cartoons were considered to be vastly inferior to the earlier Hanna and Barbera shorts, they did receive positive reviews in some quarters.

Jones' group also produced its own works, winning an Oscar for The Dot and the Line , as well as producing the classic television version of Dr. Seuss 's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Tom and Jerry folded in , and the animation department continued with television specials and one feature film, The Phantom Tollbooth. The long-running reality competition series Survivor on CBS has regularly been one of the top 20 most watched programs on U.

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