Get Our Extension

Mascot Pictures

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
Mascot Pictures Corporation
IndustryFilm studio
Founded1927
Defunct1935
FateMerged
SuccessorRepublic Pictures
HeadquartersFirst: Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, United States
Later: Studio City, Los Angeles, California, United States
Key people
Nat Levine
ProductsThe King of the Kongo (1929)
The Shadow of the Eagle (1932)
In Old Santa Fe (1934)
The Phantom Empire (1935)

Mascot Pictures Corporation was an American film company of the 1920s and 1930s best known for producing and distributing film serials and B-westerns. Mascot was formed in 1927 by film producer Nat Levine. In 1936 it merged with several other companies to form Republic Pictures.

Mascot's serial The King of the Kongo (1929) was the first serial to include sound, beating Universal Studios by several months.

The company's logo featured a roaring tiger resting on top of a model of the planet Earth.

Discover more about Mascot Pictures related topics

Western (genre)

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of fiction set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada.

Film producer

Film producer

A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, directing, editing, and arranging financing.

Nat Levine

Nat Levine

Nat Levine, was an American film producer. He produced 105 films between 1921 and 1946. Born in New York City, he entered the film industry as an accountant for Metro Pictures and became personal secretary to Metro head Marcus Loew.

Republic Pictures

Republic Pictures

Republic Pictures Corporation is an American film studio corporation which originally operated from 1935 to 1967, based in Los Angeles, California. It had production and distribution facilities in Studio City, as well as a movie ranch in Encino. Republic was best-known for specializing in Westerns, cliffhanger serials, and B-films emphasizing mystery and action. Republic was also notable for developing the motion picture careers of John Wayne, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. The studio was also responsible for the financial management and distribution of few big-budget feature films directed by John Ford, as well as one Shakespeare film, Macbeth (1948), directed by Orson Welles. Under the leadership of founder Herbert J. Yates, Republic was considered a mini-major film studio.

The King of the Kongo

The King of the Kongo

The King of the Kongo (1929) is a Mascot film serial, and was the first serial to have sound, although only partial sound rather than the later "All-Talking" productions with complete sound. The first episode was a "three reeler" with the remaining nine episodes being "two reelers".

1929 in film

1929 in film

The following is an overview of 1929 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.

Sound film

Sound film

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923.

Tiger

Tiger

The tiger is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus Panthera. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ungulates, such as deer and wild boar. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, requiring large contiguous areas of habitat to support its requirements for prey and rearing of its offspring. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for about two years and then become independent, leaving their mother's home range to establish their own.

Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only place known in the universe where life has originated and found habitability. While Earth may not contain the largest volumes of water in the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water, extending over 70.8% of the Earth with its ocean, making Earth an ocean world. Earth's polar regions currently retain most of all other water with large sheets of ice covering ocean and land, dwarfing Earth's groundwater, lakes, rivers and atmospheric water. Land, consisting of continents and islands, extends over 29.2% of the Earth and is widely covered by vegetation. Below Earth's surface material lies Earth's crust consisting of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's liquid outer core generates a magnetic field that shapes the magnetosphere of Earth, largely deflecting destructive solar winds and cosmic radiation.

Early years

Mascot was created by Nat Levine, a former personal secretary to Marcus Loew, in 1927 after the success of his independent serial The Silent Flyer (1926).

In the beginning the company operated out of the upstairs offices of a contractor's business on Santa Monica Boulevard. It rented all of its equipment and facilities.

In 1929 the studio made serial history with the production of The King of the Kongo. This was the first serial, from any production company, to be made with sound. Mascot's first all-talking production was The Phantom of the West (1931)

Discover more about Early years related topics

Nat Levine

Nat Levine

Nat Levine, was an American film producer. He produced 105 films between 1921 and 1946. Born in New York City, he entered the film industry as an accountant for Metro Pictures and became personal secretary to Metro head Marcus Loew.

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).

The Silent Flyer

The Silent Flyer

The Silent Flyer is a 1926 10-episode (chapter) American adventure film serial directed by William James Craft. The film serial was sold to Universal Pictures for $75,000 with the resulting funds used in the founding of Mascot Pictures.

1926 in film

1926 in film

The following is an overview of 1926 in film, including significant events, a list of films released, and notable births and deaths.

Santa Monica Boulevard

Santa Monica Boulevard

Santa Monica Boulevard is a major west–east thoroughfare in Los Angeles County. It runs from Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica near the Pacific Ocean to Sunset Boulevard at Sunset Junction in Los Angeles. It passes through Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. A portion of it is designated as California State Route 2.

The King of the Kongo

The King of the Kongo

The King of the Kongo (1929) is a Mascot film serial, and was the first serial to have sound, although only partial sound rather than the later "All-Talking" productions with complete sound. The first episode was a "three reeler" with the remaining nine episodes being "two reelers".

Sound film

Sound film

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923.

The Phantom of the West

The Phantom of the West

The Phantom of the West is a 1931 American pre-Code Western film serial and was the second all-talking serial produced by Mascot Pictures. Tom Tyler stars as Jim Lester, trying to prove that Francisco Cortez is innocent of killing Lester's father years before. The real villain is the mysterious Phantom and his League of the Lawless.

1931 in film

1931 in film

The following is an overview of 1931 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.

Sennett Studios

It was from small Mascot Pictures, but Ladies Crave Excitement (1935) still packed "Bursting Action, Deep Drama...And Up To Date Romance" into its 73 minutes. Supervising editor Joseph H. Lewis would soon become a prolific director of B westerns. His later film noirs, including the independently produced Gun Crazy (1949), would become renowned.
It was from small Mascot Pictures, but Ladies Crave Excitement (1935) still packed "Bursting Action, Deep Drama...And Up To Date Romance" into its 73 minutes. Supervising editor Joseph H. Lewis would soon become a prolific director of B westerns. His later film noirs, including the independently produced Gun Crazy (1949), would become renowned.

By 1933 Mascot was successful enough to rent, and later buy, Sennett Studios after the original owner, silent-film comedy producer-director Mack Sennett, went bankrupt because of the Great Depression. This made the company a true film studio. That studio lot is now CBS Studio Center.

Mascot was responsible for the popularity of the concept of the "singing cowboy" and the "musical western". In 1935 the studio produced The Phantom Empire with the then untried Gene Autry as the lead.

Discover more about Sennett Studios related topics

Ladies Crave Excitement

Ladies Crave Excitement

Ladies Crave Excitement is a 1935 American action–comedy drama film released by Mascot Pictures, directed by Nick Grinde and starring Norman Foster, Evalyn Knapp and Esther Ralston.

Film editing

Film editing

Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology.

Joseph H. Lewis

Joseph H. Lewis

Joseph H. Lewis was an American B-movie film director whose stylish flourishes came to be appreciated by auteur theory-espousing film critics in the years following his retirement in 1966. In a 30-year directorial career, he helmed numerous low-budget westerns, action pictures, musicals, adventures, and thrillers. Today he is remembered for mysteries and film noir stories: My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) and So Dark the Night (1946) as well as his most highly regarded features, 1950's Gun Crazy, which spotlighted a desperate young couple who embark on a deadly crime spree, and the 1955 film noir The Big Combo, with its stunning cinematography by John Alton.

Gun Crazy

Gun Crazy

Gun Crazy is a 1950 American crime film noir starring Peggy Cummins and John Dall in a story about the crime-spree of a gun-toting husband and wife. It was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and produced by Frank and Maurice King.

Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett was a Canadian actor, filmmaker, and studio head, known as the 'King of Comedy'.

Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression (1929–1939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion began around September and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.

Film studio

Film studio

A film studio is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production company. Most firms in the entertainment industry have never owned their own studios, but have rented space from other companies.

Singing cowboy

Singing cowboy

A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films. It references real-world campfire side ballads in the American frontier, the original cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and dangers encountered while pushing cattle for miles up the trails and across the prairies. This continues with modern vaquero traditions and within the genre of Western music, and its related New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country music styles. A number of songs have been written and made famous by groups like the Sons of the Pioneers and Riders in the Sky and individual performers such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Bob Baker and other "singing cowboys". Singing in the wrangler style, these entertainers have served to preserve the cowboy as a unique American hero.

1935 in film

1935 in film

The following is an overview of 1935 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths. The cinema releases of 1935 were highly representative of the early Golden Age period of Hollywood. This period was punctuated by performances from Clark Gable, Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and the first teaming of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. A significant number of productions also originated in the UK film industry.

The Phantom Empire

The Phantom Empire

The Phantom Empire is a 1935 American Western serial film directed by Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason and starring Gene Autry, Frankie Darro, and Betsy King Ross. This 12-chapter Mascot Pictures serial combined the Western, musical and science-fiction genres. The first episode is 30 minutes, the rest about 20 minutes. The serial film is about a singing cowboy who stumbles upon an ancient subterranean civilization living beneath his own ranch that becomes corrupted by unscrupulous greedy speculators from the surface. In 1940, a 70-minute feature film edited from the serial was released under the titles Radio Ranch or Men with Steel Faces. This was Gene Autry's first starring role, playing himself as a singing cowboy. It is considered to be the first science-fiction Western.

Gene Autry

Gene Autry

Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry, nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American actor, musician, singer, composer, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning style on radio, in films, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s. Autry was the owner of a television station and several radio stations in Southern California. He was the founding owner of the California Angels franchise of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1961 to 1997.

Republic Pictures

Mascot's film laboratory was Consolidated Film Industries, known today as CFI Industries. In 1935, under pressure from that company's owner, Herbert Yates, Mascot was merged by CFI with Monogram Pictures, Liberty Pictures, Chesterfield Pictures and Invincible Pictures to form Republic Pictures, a production-distribution company designed by Yates. Levine was designated head of the serial and B-Western arm of the company, and the Mascot studio facilities and contract personnel became Republic assets as part of the merger. Within two years, however, along with most of his colleagues at Republic who had owned other companies, Levine found himself in a disagreeable situation and left Republic. With only the Mascot name and film library remaining in his possession, Levine found employment elsewhere in the motion picture industry and Mascot Pictures survived only through reissues of its sound serials and a single, new feature film edited from the "Phantom Empire" serial, released in 1940.

Discover more about Republic Pictures related topics

Consolidated Film Industries

Consolidated Film Industries

Consolidated Film Industries was a film laboratory and film processing company and was one of the leading film laboratories in the Los Angeles area for many decades. CFI processed negatives and made prints for motion pictures and television. The company and its employees received many Academy Awards for scientific or technical achievements.

Monogram Pictures

Monogram Pictures

Monogram Pictures Corporation was an American film studio that produced mostly low-budget films between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram was among the smaller studios in the golden age of Hollywood, generally referred to collectively as Poverty Row. Lacking the financial resources to deliver the lavish sets, production values, and star power of the larger studios, Monogram sought to attract its audiences with the promise of action and adventure.

Liberty Pictures

Liberty Pictures

Liberty Pictures was an American film production company of the 1930s. Part of Poverty Row, the company produced low-budget B pictures. It was one of two companies controlled by the producer M.H. Hoffman along with Allied Pictures.

Chesterfield Pictures

Chesterfield Pictures

Chesterfield Motion Picture Corporation, generally shortened to Chesterfield Pictures, was an American film production company of the 1920s and 1930s. The company head was George R. Batcheller, and the company worked in tandem with its sister studio, Invincible, which was led by Maury Cohen. The production company never owned its own studio and rented space at other studios, primarily Universal Pictures and RKO.

Invincible Pictures

Invincible Pictures

Invincible Pictures was an Australian Film Production company active from the 1930s through to the early 1980s. It was started by cinematographer Paul Ruckert in Brisbane in the mid-1930s and mainly produced documentaries. The first commercial productions were black-and-white newsreels covering local events, and the first documentary was a colour film entitled Beauty Spots around Brisbane in 1939.

Republic Pictures

Republic Pictures

Republic Pictures Corporation is an American film studio corporation which originally operated from 1935 to 1967, based in Los Angeles, California. It had production and distribution facilities in Studio City, as well as a movie ranch in Encino. Republic was best-known for specializing in Westerns, cliffhanger serials, and B-films emphasizing mystery and action. Republic was also notable for developing the motion picture careers of John Wayne, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. The studio was also responsible for the financial management and distribution of few big-budget feature films directed by John Ford, as well as one Shakespeare film, Macbeth (1948), directed by Orson Welles. Under the leadership of founder Herbert J. Yates, Republic was considered a mini-major film studio.

Legacy

Several careers began at Mascot Pictures.

Actors

Production crew

Discover more about Legacy related topics

Gene Autry

Gene Autry

Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry, nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American actor, musician, singer, composer, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning style on radio, in films, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s. Autry was the owner of a television station and several radio stations in Southern California. He was the founding owner of the California Angels franchise of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1961 to 1997.

Smiley Burnette

Smiley Burnette

Lester Alvin Burnett, better known as Smiley Burnette, was an American country music performer and a comedic actor in Western films and on radio and TV, playing sidekick to Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and other B-movie cowboys. He was also a prolific singer-songwriter who is reported to have played proficiently over 100 musical instruments, sometimes more than one simultaneously. His career, beginning in 1934, spanned four decades, including a regular role on CBS-TV's Petticoat Junction in the 1960s.

John Wayne

John Wayne

Marion Robert Morrison, professionally known as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films which were produced during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially through his starring roles in Western and war movies. His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades, and he appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.

Ford Beebe

Ford Beebe

Ford Beebe was a screenwriter and director. He entered the film business as a writer around 1916 and over the next 60 years wrote and/or directed almost 200 films.

B. Reeves Eason

B. Reeves Eason

William Reeves Eason, known as B. Reeves Eason, was an American film director, actor and screenwriter. His directorial output was limited mainly to low-budget westerns and action pictures, but it was as a second-unit director and action specialist that he was best known. He was famous for staging spectacular battle scenes in war films and action scenes in large-budget westerns, but he acquired the nickname "Breezy" for his "breezy" attitude towards safety while staging his sequences—during the famous cavalry charge at the end of Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), so many horses were killed or injured so severely that they had to be euthanized that both the public and Hollywood itself were outraged, resulting in the selection of the American Humane Society by the beleaguered studios to provide representatives on the sets of all films using animals to ensure their safety.

Joseph Kane

Joseph Kane

Jasper Joseph Inman Kane was an American film director, film producer, film editor and screenwriter. He is best known for his extensive directorship and focus on Western films.

Lydecker brothers

Lydecker brothers

Howard and Theodore Lydecker, always known—and billed—as such, were Howard "Babe" Lydecker and Theodore Lydecker, a special effects team primarily working as contract staff members of Republic Pictures. They are best remembered as the producers and photographers of some of the best miniature effects of their time.

William Witney

William Witney

William Nuelsen Witney was an American film and television director. He is best remembered for the action films he made for Republic Pictures, particularly serials: Dick Tracy Returns, G-Men vs. the Black Dragon, Daredevils of the Red Circle, Zorro's Fighting Legion, and Drums of Fu Manchu. Prolific and pugnacious, Witney began directing while still in his 20s, and continued working until 1982.

Filmography

Additionally,

  • The Silent Flyer (1926) was created by Nat Levine but was not in the strict sense of the word a Mascot production.

Discover more about Filmography related topics

1940 in film

1940 in film

The year 1940 in film involved some significant events, including the premieres of the Walt Disney films Pinocchio and Fantasia.

Doughnuts and Society

Doughnuts and Society

Doughnuts and Society is a 1936 American comedy film directed by Lewis D. Collins and written by Karen DeWolf, Robert St. Claire, Wallace MacDonald, Matt Brooks and Gertrude Orr. The film stars Louise Fazenda, Maude Eburne, Ann Rutherford, Edward Nugent, Hedda Hopper and Franklin Pangborn. The film was released on March 27, 1936, by Republic Pictures.

1936 in film

1936 in film

The following is an overview of 1936 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.

The Fighting Marines

The Fighting Marines

The Fighting Marines is a 1935 movie serial. It was the last serial produced by Mascot Pictures before the studio was bought out and merged with others to become Republic Pictures. This new company went on to become the most famous of the serial producing studios, starting with Darkest Africa in 1936.

1935 in film

1935 in film

The following is an overview of 1935 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths. The cinema releases of 1935 were highly representative of the early Golden Age period of Hollywood. This period was punctuated by performances from Clark Gable, Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and the first teaming of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. A significant number of productions also originated in the UK film industry.

Harmony Lane

Harmony Lane

Harmony Lane is a 1935 low-budget American film directed by Joseph Santley, based upon the life of Stephen Foster, released by Mascot Pictures.

Confidential (1935 film)

Confidential (1935 film)

Confidential is a 1935 American crime film directed by Edward L. Cahn and written by Wellyn Totman and Olive Cooper. The film stars Donald Cook, Evalyn Knapp, Theodore von Eltz, Warren Hymer, J. Carrol Naish and Herbert Rawlinson. The film was released on October 16, 1935, by Mascot Pictures.

Waterfront Lady

Waterfront Lady

Waterfront Lady is a 1935 American film directed by Joseph Santley.

Streamline Express

Streamline Express

Streamline Express is a 1935 American comedy drama film directed by Leonard Fields, starring Victor Jory, Evelyn Venable and Esther Ralston, distributed by Mascot Pictures. The film is an adaptation of Twentieth Century, released the previous year, in which Ralph Forbes appears in a similar role.

The Adventures of Rex and Rinty

The Adventures of Rex and Rinty

The Adventures of Rex and Rinty (1935) is a Mascot film serial directed by Ford Beebe and B. Reeves Eason and starring the equine actor Rex and canine actor Rin Tin Tin, Jr.

Ladies Crave Excitement

Ladies Crave Excitement

Ladies Crave Excitement is a 1935 American action–comedy drama film released by Mascot Pictures, directed by Nick Grinde and starring Norman Foster, Evalyn Knapp and Esther Ralston.

The Headline Woman

The Headline Woman

The Headline Woman is a 1935 American crime film directed by William Nigh and starring Heather Angel and Ford Sterling.

Source: "Mascot Pictures", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2022, January 31st), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascot_Pictures.

Enjoying Wikiz?

Enjoying Wikiz?

Get our FREE extension now!

See also
Further reading
  • The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures 1927–1935; Tuska, Jon; 1999 (McFarland Classics); ISBN 978-0-7864-0749-1
External links

The content of this page is based on the Wikipedia article written by contributors..
The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence & the media files are available under their respective licenses; additional terms may apply.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use & Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization & is not affiliated to WikiZ.com.