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Louis B. Mayer Pictures

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Louis B. Mayer Pictures
Founded1918; 105 years ago (1918)
FounderLouis B. Mayer
DefunctApril 17, 1924; 98 years ago (1924-04-17)
FateMerged with Metro Pictures Corporation and Goldwyn Pictures to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
SuccessorsStudio:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Library:
Warner Bros.
ParentMetro Pictures Corporation

Louis B. Mayer Pictures (or Louis B. Mayer Productions) was an American film production company of the silent era which operated from 1918 until 1924.

History

Founded by the New England-based theater owner Louis B. Mayer, it functioned as a high-class producer of films for the first-run market. One of the leading Mayer stars was Anita Stewart who was recruited from Vitagraph Studios.[1] The company had a long-running distribution arrangement with First National Pictures. Mayer appointed Irving Thalberg as head of production following his stint at Universal Pictures.

In 1924, the company was part of a series of mergers by Marcus Loew that brought together Metro Pictures and Goldwyn Pictures into a single outfit MGM, which was a central major studio of the classical era. Although the new company was initially known as Metro-Goldwyn, within a year the name Mayer had been added to the title in acknowledgement of his key role in the studio.

Discover more about History related topics

New England

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Louis B. Mayer

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Louis Burt Mayer was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industry's most prestigious movie studio, accumulating the largest concentration of leading writers, directors, and stars in Hollywood.

Anita Stewart

Anita Stewart

Anita Stewart was an American actress and film producer of the early silent film era.

Vitagraph Studios

Vitagraph Studios

Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. It was bought by Warner Bros. in 1925.

Film distribution

Film distribution

Film distribution is the process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marketing and release strategy for the film, the media by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing and other matters. The film may be exhibited directly to the public either through a movie theater or television, or personal home viewing. For commercial projects, film distribution is usually accompanied by film promotion.

First National Pictures

First National Pictures

First National Pictures was an American motion picture production and distribution company. It was founded in 1917 as First National Exhibitors' Circuit, Inc., an association of independent theatre owners in the United States, and became the country's largest theater chain. Expanding from exhibiting movies to distributing them, the company reincorporated in 1919 as Associated First National Theatres, Inc., and Associated First National Pictures, Inc. In 1924 it expanded to become a motion picture production company as First National Pictures, Inc., and became an important studio in the film industry. In September 1928, control of First National passed to Warner Bros., into which it was completely absorbed on November 4, 1929. A number of Warner Bros. films were thereafter branded First National Pictures until July 1936, when First National Pictures, Inc., was dissolved.

Irving Thalberg

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Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures is an American film production and distribution company owned by Comcast through the NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment division of NBCUniversal.

Marcus Loew

Marcus Loew

Marcus Loew was an American business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loew's Theatres and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio (MGM).

Metro Pictures

Metro Pictures

Metro Pictures Corporation was a motion picture production company founded in early 1915 in Jacksonville, Florida. It was a forerunner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The company produced its films in New York, Los Angeles, and sometimes at leased facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey. It was purchased in 1919.

Goldwyn Pictures

Goldwyn Pictures

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 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.

Classical Hollywood cinema

Classical Hollywood cinema

Classical Hollywood cinema is a term used in film criticism to describe both a narrative and visual style of filmmaking which first developed in the 1910s to 1920s, during the latter years of the silent film era. It then became characteristic of American cinema during the Golden Age of Hollywood, between roughly 1927 and 1969. It eventually became the most powerful and pervasive style of filmmaking worldwide.

Films

Source: "Louis B. Mayer Pictures", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, February 4th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_B._Mayer_Pictures.

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References
  1. ^ Eyman p.50
Bibliography
  • Eyman, Scott. Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
  • Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. Henry Holt and Company, 2015.


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