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Goldwyn Pictures Corporation

Studio's 1917 opening logo, featuring a lion
Industry	Film studio
Founded	November 19, 1916; 108 years ago (1916-11-19)
Founders	Samuel Goldwyn Edgar Selwyn Archibald Selwyn
Defunct	April 17, 1924; 100 years ago (1924-04-17)
Fate	Merged with Metro Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Successors	Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Amazon MGM Studios Library: Warner Bros. (through Turner Entertainment Co.) Public domain
Headquarters	Fort Lee, New Jersey, U.S.
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. It was founded on November 19, 1916, by Samuel Goldfish (who later changed his name to Goldwyn), an executive at Lasky's Feature Play Company, and Broadway producer brothers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, using an amalgamation of both last names to name the company.

The studio proved moderately successful, but became most famous due to its iconic 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.

Lee Shubert of The Shubert Organization was an investor in the company.

History

Samuel 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 Selwyn's wife and play writer, and Arthur Hopkins, a Broadway producer, joined the trio as writer and director general.

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 1907 play of the same name, released in September 1917 and starting Mae Marsh. 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, without 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. 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.

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, Goldfish decreased film budgets partly by not using theater divas to cross over to film and reducing design driven films. Instead, he relied on comedies starring Madge Kennedy and Mabel Normand. In August 1918, Goldwyn Pictures 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. The company purchased the Triangle Studios in Culver City in 1918. Goldfish then headed west to Culver City, California in 1918; opening operations there also caused an increase in film expenses. 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. Since 1912 Godsol had been making deals for the Shubert Organization in the U.S. and abroad.

Goldwyn began looking to 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 soon to be opened and the owners, headed by Messmore Kendall, looking for an operator to partner with, agreed to a stock swap and board seats, the Goldwyn Picture company and Moredall Realty Corporation. The Moredall Board, however, did not want the theater to rely only on Goldwyn films and operated The Capitol Theatre separately from the rest of the company.

By 1920 in addition owning its Culver City studio, Goldwyn Pictures was renting two New York studios and operations in Fort Lee.

After many personality clashes on the board, Samuel Goldwyn left the company in 1922. Godsol remained chairman of the board of Goldwyn Pictures in 1922. As things went from bad to worse at Goldwyn, In 1923 Messmore Kendall, along with Lee Shubert had discussions with Marcus Loew about merging the company with Loew's Metro Pictures and after many long negotiations, all parties agreed to the merger. Louis B. Mayer heard about the pending merger and contacted Loew and Godsol, about adding his Louis B. Mayer Productions into the post-merger company, which became the blockbuster Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Feature staff

Filmography

A 1965 fire in an MGM storage facility destroyed many negatives and prints, including the best-quality copies of every Goldwyn picture produced prior to 1924; over half of MGM's feature films from before 1930 are completely lost. On March 25, 1986, Ted Turner and his Turner Broadcasting System company purchased the pre-May 1986 MGM films (including Goldwyn Pictures films) from Kirk Kerkorian for $600 million.

See also

• Samuel Goldwyn Productions, Samuel Goldwyn's next production company
• Samuel Goldwyn Studio, informal name for the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios lot in Hollywood.
• The Samuel Goldwyn Company, founded by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. in 1979, active through 1997
• Samuel Goldwyn Films, founded by Samuel Goldwyn Jr.

References

1. ^ Koszarski, Richard (2004). "18. Goldwyn". Fort Lee: The Film Town. Indiana University Press. pp. 286–311. ISBN 0-86196-653-8.
2. ^ "Studios and Films". Fort Lee Film Commission. Archived from the original on October 20, 2018. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
3. Fort Lee Film Commission (2006). Fort Lee: Birthplace of the Motion Picture Industry. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-4501-5.
4. "Lot History". Sony Picture Museum. Sony Pictures Entertainment. p. 1. Archived from the original on February 5, 2015. Retrieved February 5, 2015.
5. Lewis, Kevin; Lewis, Arnold (June–July 1988). "Include Me out: Samuel Goldwyn and Joe Godsol". Film History. 2 (2). Indiana University Press: 133–153. JSTOR 3815031.
6. Berg, Scott (September 1998). "Goldwyn – A Biography". Film History (1). Riverhead Books: 95. ISBN 1-57322-723-4.
7. Melnick, Ross (March 4, 2014). "Part One Roxy and Silent Film Exhibition". American Showman: Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry, 1908–1935 (Reprint ed.). Columbia University Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-231-15905-0. Retrieved February 5, 2015.
8. "Godsol Heads Goldwyn Pictures". The New York Times. March 11, 1922.
9. Masek, Mark. "Hollywood Remains to Be Seen – Louis B. Mayer". Hollywood Remains to Be Seen.
10. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. History. International Directory of Company Histories. Vol. 25. St. James Press. 1999. Retrieved December 20, 2014.

External links

• American Film Institute Catalog
  • Goldwyn Pictures Corp.
  • Goldwyn Distributing Corp.
• Silent Era.com
  • Goldwyn Distributing Corporation
  • Goldwyn Pictures Corporation
  • Goldwyn Producing Corporation

• Early film in Fort Lee, New Jersey
• Mass media companies established in 1916
• Mass media companies disestablished in 1924
• Silent film studios
• Goldwyn Pictures films
• Defunct American film studios
• Cinema of Southern California
• Companies based in Culver City, California
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• 1916 establishments in New Jersey
• 1916 establishments in California
• 1924 disestablishments in California
• Film production companies of the United States
• 1924 mergers and acquisitions
• Fort Lee, New Jersey
• Companies based in Bergen County, New Jersey