“Extra stars than there are in heaven” was as soon as the slogan for Hollywood’s largest studio. Bigger than life celebrities like Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Harlow and Gene Kelly have been widespread fixtures at MGM. In the present day, MGM is an IP outpost bought by Amazon for $8.5 billion in 2022, however in its day, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had the largest lot in Hollywood and produced among the most extravagant movies. Positioned in Culver Metropolis, MGM’s famously sprawling lot started because it grew from the 40 acres owned by Samuel Goldwyn. The legendary MGM property was three miles lengthy and housed greater than 45 buildings and 14 levels, along with quite a few out of doors units that might be constructed over time.
MGM was dwelling to numerous basic movies, and in 1939 alone, the studio backed the timeless fantasy The Wizard of Oz, distributed the Oscar-winning Gone with the Wind, the Ernst Lubitsch/Greta Garbo comedy, Ninotchka, and the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney car Babes in Arms. Earlier than investor Kirk Kerkorian bought the corporate and later dismantled the lot, destroying beloved historical past within the course of, the property was dwelling to most of the best stars and movies ever created. A number of the most well-known musicals have been movies as a part of Arthur Freed manufacturing unit, like Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), An American in Paris (1951), Singin’ within the Rain (1952) and Gigi (1958). After all, most moviegoers know the MGM lion that was the corporate’s emblem for many of its life.
Goldwyn Studios in Culver Metropolis, Calif. in a July 1924 version of Exhibitors Herald.
The MGM studio chiefs, as pictured in Exhibitors Herald in 1924.
MGM started in April 1924 as Metro Goldwyn productions. The corporate was born out a merger between Goldwyn Footage, Louis B. Mayer productions and Metro Footage. The group was headed by Marcus Loew, who was one of many trade pioneers in New York Metropolis who shifted from stage manufacturing to film exhibition on the flip of the century. The corporate title quickly shifted so as to add Mayer to focus on their head of manufacturing, a place he would maintain till his ouster in 1951.
Additionally coming alongside for the journey was “boy genius” producer Irving Thalberg, who was poached from Common by Mayer in 1923 (Thalberg could be the main focus of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel The Final Tycoon in addition to movie and TV variations of the identical story). On the time, The New York Instances reported the MGM merger additionally included Cosmopolitan footage, vital for its founder, publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, who created the corporate for his mistress Marion Davies. Not solely was MGM consolidating and maximizing labor forces, however they have been getting in mattress with essentially the most feared newspaper man of the period.
To supply some perspective on the trade in 1924, the Hollywood Signal was solely two years outdated and nonetheless working as a land commercial promoting improvement house in Beachwood Canyon. There have been about 50 completely different manufacturing corporations, almost 30,000 individuals already employed by the trade, the overall value of film manufacturing was rising above 156 million {dollars} a yr. Hollywood, as a spot, was known as the “Sodom of the Twentieth Century” but additionally because the “Paris of America.” Dwelling to a spread of spiritual actions, Hollywood locals typically known as their hometown the “Metropolis of Church buildings.” Hollywood then, very like right this moment, was a locale with many personalities. An ideal place to construct an leisure empire the place MGM may lead from the highest. Common and Paramount have been making waves. United Artists was christened in 1919. Warner Bros. and Disney included in 1923.
The Marx Brothers signing with Irving Thalberg for MGM Studios in 1935, with a duplicate of The Hollywood Reporter sitting on the studio mogul’s desk.
MGM Studios, the Irving Thalberg Administration Constructing, devoted in 1938.
The Culver Metropolis studio, which was the house of Goldwyn movies since 1915, housed 2,500 workers, and in 1924 was anticipated to movie 18,000 miles of celluloid throughout its ten levels. Stage six was stated to have been the most important on the earth on the time, protecting an acre and a half. MGM was one of many first huge again tons, full with short-term buildings and everlasting units reminiscent of “New York Road” and “Russian Road,” every designed to invoke locations all over the world whereas filming at dwelling in Culver Metropolis. In April 1924, the Los Angeles Instances put it bluntly, calling the merger the creation of “one large studio.” Metro government Joseph Schenck instructed the Instances that “this merger provides assurance of higher prosperity within the trade.” “Prepare for lots of labor,” he instructed his workers, “We’re going to make extra footage and higher footage.” Nevertheless, Schenck clarified that “higher footage don’t essentially imply greater footage.”
Regardless of Schenck’s measured tone on bigger productions, the MGM lot was primed for giant issues. Marcus Loew had his personal concepts about what would outline their studio and instructed the press that the studio was about to create “the best movement image of all time” in Ben-Hur: A Story of the Christ (1925). Whereas the studio flirted with location filming in Italy and Catalina Island, key scenes have been filmed on the MGM lot, together with the enduring chariot race. The day of filming the well-known sequence, director Fred Niblo grabbed his megaphone for the 9 am name the place 10,000 extras gathered on the colosseum. Niblo directed from a tower, 100 ft off the bottom, the place he organized forty-two cameras. The director might sign buglers who knowledgeable chariot groups when to begin. MGM even chartered an airplane to movie aerial footage. Ben-Hur was definitely one of the crucial extravagant movies of the silent period and a testomony to the potential of the medium’s skill to seize larger-than-life scenes.
Behind the scenes stills of MGM’s 1925 epic Ben-Hur, because it appeared in Exhibitors Herald that yr.
Clark Cable, David O. Selznick and Louis B. Mayer finalize the star’s contract for Gone With the Wind.
The purpose of the Metro, Goldwyn, and Mayer partnership was to get rid of manufacturing overlap between the businesses, pooling sources to make higher movies and enhance service with exhibitors. Over half of MGM’s first movies have been completed forward of schedule. Loew’s theaters, the most important possession within the nation, was a surefire option to assure return on product from three corporations that merged. “Nice stars have been joined below one banner,” learn Marcus Loew’s 1924 assertion, “we imagine unreservedly that henceforth the exhibitors’ strongest and reliable supply of image provide is Metro-Goldwyn.” The Exhibitors Commerce Assessment agreed, noting that the mixture of Goldwyn’s lot and Loew’s theaters makes for the “strongest unit in [the] image trade.” The most important key to success, was not simply the equipment that was put in place, however the thoughts to run it – Louis B. Mayer.
The face of each studio, regardless of having extra highly effective bosses above him, was the manufacturing boss. Warner’s had the dapper Jack Warner, Common had the astute Carl Laemmle, Fox nonetheless had their enigmatic founder William Fox, Columbia had the a lot feared Harry Cohn, and MGM’s lengthy serving Louis B. Mayer made an indelible mark on the evolution of flicks and leisure. Through the years chronicling Hollywood historical past, I’ve been delightfully acquainted with Alicia Mayer, the good grandniece of Louis. Mayer got here to america from New Brunswick when he was two years outdated. A Jewish immigrant like most of Hollywood’s founding fathers.
Alicia just lately mirrored about Louis over e mail, that she’d been considering, “How really exceptional it’s that coming from an observant Jewish family, my nice uncle wouldn’t have been uncovered to something resembling leisure as a baby (seemingly the one singing he heard was in synagogue). He seemingly noticed his first theatre present or vaudeville program solely after he left dwelling as a younger man, in all probability when he left Saint John, New Brunswick and went to Boston. No matter he skilled, it appeared to have unlocked one thing in him that was each awe-inspiring and a potential enterprise alternative.”
Alicia has lengthy been the keeper of the flame for the household historical past linked to Mayer and MGM, together with legendary biographer Scott Eyman who penned his personal treatise on Mayer and the dominion he watched over. Alicia maintains that her nice uncle was “deeply targeted he was on getting the perfect individuals and getting essentially the most out of them.” Mayer and his sister Ida Mayer Cummings developed “a wealthy civic life that included supporting giant scale Jewish neighborhood initiatives and occasions. On this subject, it’s enjoyable to consider the Three Amigos, who on this case are Mary Pickford, LB Mayer and Ida, all working onerous to drag within the huge funds wanted to construct entire campuses for the Jewish Dwelling for the Aged (JHA).”
Norma Shearer factors towards her dressing room in a miniature mannequin of the MGM studio within the Nineteen Twenties.
MGM Studios, foremost entrance. Culver Metropolis, California, 1936.
From the beginning Mayer knew he couldn’t make an excellent manufacturing outfit on his personal. Because of this he poached Thalberg who, together with Harry Rapf would make MGM’s manufacturing unit an trade juggernaut. 1924, the yr the deal was sealed, noticed some nice and tales movies from MGM. Buster Keaton’s pleasant silent comedy Sherlock Jr., which simply screened with dwell musical accompaniment to a packed viewers a full 100 years later on the TCM Movie Pageant in Hollywood. That yr additionally noticed the storied manufacturing of Erich von Stroheim’s Greed. The primary reduce of the movie was 8 hours lengthy, to which studio executives have been contractually obligated to observe in full earlier than reducing ensued, a lot to von Stroheim’s dismay. Motion pictures like Ben-Hur, different the opposite hand, confirmed audiences that they had not but seen the total potential of flicks. MGM led from the highest and pushed the trade ahead from day one.
Because the filmed 1925 studio tour boasted, MGM “really pays individuals to interact on this attention-grabbing work, not with California sunshine and guarantees, however in chilly onerous {dollars} and cents.” Viewers can nonetheless watch the 30-minute studio tour from 1925 to know the lot’s magistral magnificence. Hollywood was nonetheless only a place then, properly on its option to turning into an thought that might encourage generations of artists to affix the film enterprise. There have been the times when MGM was filling its roster with main stars like Norma Shearer, John Gilbert, Buster Keaton, Marion Davies Roman Novarro, Lon Chaney, and plenty of others. Fifty years later the studio could be demolished, and vital architectural artifacts misplaced ceaselessly, however one can by no means take away the enjoyment MGM movies have delivered to numerous audiences. What MGM established in 1924 helped solidify a equipment that continues a century later.