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 RevWill |
Monogram to United Artists |
Lead | |
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(07/03/08 6:54 AM) |
For film historians,
I'm curious: Monogram morphed into United Artists, right? And why did United Artists eventually "fold" as a movie making studio? Was it simply lack of money or something else? |
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SparkieGojira |
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(07/03/08 7:58 AM) |
At the risk of mudding things, as I sure ain't no film historian, I believe United Artist was founded in the 1920's by Charlie Chaplin, Mark Pickford,
Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith so they could have total control over their productions. By the 1950's, UA was distributor to a lot of small,
independant productions, many of them horror, and that might be one could comfuse them with Monogram. Is any of this correct, Mr. Weavers, Warrens, Ragones,
Galbraiths, Newsoms and Gluts of the board?
So what did happen to Monogram? Did UA buy them out? And then there is the bizarre business of that fellow attempting to revive Monogram.
www.itcamefromplanetx.com
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Jacque Lecotier |
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(07/03/08 8:59 AM) |
It wasn't UNITED Artists, it was ALLIED Artists which Monogram became. In the early 50s, Monogram decided to get into the A-film business and created a
sister production company for that purpose, Allied Artists Productions. However, since they kept Monogram as the name of the parent company and distribution
service, many exhibitors weren't willing to take a chance on getting anything more than a longer-running Monogram B. So Monogram's next move was to
change the parent & distribution company name to Allied Artists Pictures Corp. and retire the Monogram name altogether. That worked some better, altho
Allied Artists (AA) was then the inheritor of the Monogram B series films, like the Bowery Boys, so no one in the industry was fooled that way either. But AA
was able to get out some reasonable titles and moved more to the program-double-bill format for its B pictures, to which it could supply slightly higher
budgets and which were turned more into teenager-oriented product, following the lead of AIP along with United Artists and Columbia. Allied Artist's demise
in the early 60s seems to have been nothing more than one more in a series of film studio closures, due to changes in the industry and economy of filmmaking,
the impact of affordable color TV, the loss of the production code, and so on. AA retained a peripheral existence marketing its library of films to TV, and
briefly resurfaced as a production entity in the 70s, but just couldn't compete and went bankrupt.
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 Wich2 |
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(07/03/08 9:44 AM) |
And didn't AA briefly release its library to homes, in the early days of VHS? I seem to recall some Rathbone "Sherlocks," etc...?
Best, -Craig W. |
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Jacque Lecotier |
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(07/03/08 10:48 AM) |
The AA name was used for a *few* early videotape releases of AA library pictures but it didn't last long either. The first video I bought was, in fact, a
Beta of ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS in 1980 or early 1981. I think INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN was also available at that time, and maybe one or two others, but there
was just a smattering of titles across several genres. I don't know whether these represented a continuation of the AA which, in the 70s, produced the
likes of THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING and to the best of my knowledge went completely belly up, or a new outfit purchasing a dormant trademark-name and the rights
to a few titles. But, yeah, at the dawn of home video there was an operant company marketing AA titles under the AA name. I'm not sure that any of the
Universal Holmes's were also in that particular product line, however, unless they were licensed from Universal: the resurgance of Holmes films on cable TV
at the same time, which I think was on Showtime, bore superimposed copyright notices to a Leo somebody - Gutowski or Grabowski or Garbonzo or something like
that - which versions vanished entirely in a few short years when the Holmeses migrated to TBS/TNT (before Turner went off his Lithium and purged his entire
library of all films with a dominance of British accents).
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Wich2 |
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(07/03/08 10:56 AM) |
Dear Jacque-
Was able ro run down a few... http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:XASwj8JgmEkJ:www.alliedartists.net/films.htm+sherlock+holmes+allied+artists&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&ie=UTF-8 (I thought I remembered a simple, b & w - or sepia?- cardboard-sleeved VHS.) Best, -Craig W. |
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Wich2 |
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(07/03/08 11:22 AM) |
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SparkieGojira |
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(07/03/08 6:09 PM) |
So was it Allied Artist or United Artist I'm thinking of in connection to releasing independant films? Since you already mentioned THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN
I'm gonna guess that was Alied, but I seem to connect THE BLACK SLEEP, ATOLL A, FLESH EATERS and a few other 50's films with
"Something"Artist. And didn't Ed Wood have a tentative production deal with one or the other for DR. ACULA or some such?
What's UNITED ARTIST's standing today? Thanks.
www.itcamefromplanetx.com
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SparkieGojira |
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(07/03/08 6:10 PM) |
Love that simple, yet totally misleading cover design!
www.itcamefromplanetx.com
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Tom Powers |
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(07/03/08 8:43 PM) |
Leo Gutman was the name for the tv prints mentioned above.
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black hangman |
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(07/03/08 9:31 PM) |
I think AA was releasing films as early as 1948. I just got in a couple of titles made by Jack Wrather's company--THE GUILTY from 1947 was released by
Monogram and STRIKE IT RICH from 1948 states it is an Allied Artists release.
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The Hoyk |
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(07/12/08 8:50 AM) |
I think what also muddies the issue is that, strangely, some of the Monogram Charlie Chan films were inherited by United Artists, and made up the bulk of
MGM's recent box set of Chan titles.
To clarify some other tiny things...I also recall Leo Gutman being the TV syndicator for the Rathbone Holmes films as a kid, because I was so film-obsessed in my pre-teens I would buy Variety's market issues, and remember a big ad section where he solicited the Holmes package and a Jackie Cooper sitcom called HENNESSEY. Regardless of the studios who made them (Universal, Fox), somehow they all went to one library licensor. Perhaps it was Gutman who initially licensed them to Allied Artists for video, since when AA went under and was absorbed by Lorimar, one of the first titles that emerged from Lorimar's subsequent licensing deal with CBS (which started at MGM and moved to Fox) was a double feature tape of SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON/SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR. CBS/Fox eventually put out all the Holmes films on tape and laserdisc. It would appear that Lorimar lost the package when Warner Bros. acquired them. I don't know who is credited as the licensor on MPI's new DVDs, though of course they do bear credits from UCLA for the film restorations and Hugh Hefner for funding the restoration effort. For a couple years, there was a PD label calling themselves Allied Artists, even using the '70's-era lowercase double-a logo created when producer Emmanuel Wolf revived the company. But they had no connection to the original company, not even to the entertainment company whose link Craig found above; they were simply engaging in squatting on a defunct name and trademark hoping to dupe the public into buying their stuff through use of a familiar and formerly trusted logo. I believe the link that Craig found is related to a music-oriented operation that nonetheless was able to get back some intellectual properties like the old Monogram logo. There was a very short-lived Allied Artists Records in the late '80's; the only album release of theirs I recall was for heavy metal singer Luis Cardenas, who had a minor MTV hit with a cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway," in which Del even appeared. |
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TomWeaver999 |
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(07/12/08 10:29 AM) |
The often unreliable "little voice" in the back of my brain is calling out to me that BLACK GOLD (1947) with Anthony Quinn was the first Allied
Artists movie. The book KINGS OF THE BS features a longish interview with Steve Broidy, Monogram-Allied Artists honcho, talking about the whole history of the
place.
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Rick |
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(07/12/08 2:39 PM) |
What's UNITED ARTIST's standing today?It belongs, basically, to Tom Cruise. He and his company bought it a couple of years back in hopes of revitalizing the corpse. His first release, LIONS FOR LAMBS, only dug the grave a little deeper. They are very much banking on VALKYRIE to turn things around. I don't know how it will turn out, but it's an apt fate for a studio begun by huge boxoffice stars (Fairbanks, Chaplin, Pickford) to wind up in the pocket of another big movie star. |
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Jacque Lecotier |
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(07/12/08 4:14 PM) |
So would that mean that UA is now effectively an agency of the Scientologists??
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Rick |
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(07/12/08 7:45 PM) |
So would that mean that UA is now effectively an agency of the Scientologists??I guess you could say that if you choose. As you could say that the early Hollywood studios were agencies of their Jewish founders. Your call. |
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Jacque Lecotier |
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(07/12/08 10:21 PM) |
I'm not "saying" anything. I am asking a question. But what Judaism in early (or even contemporary) Hollywood has to do with an answer to it, I
cannot see. Back to you.
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Rick |
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(07/13/08 12:45 AM) |
I merely make the comparison because the Jewish owners of the studios were frequently terrified in the old days of being 'outed', of being labeled as
"too Jewish," as pushing some sort of international Jewish agenda. The fact was that they were Jewish and they owned movie studios. Tom Cruise is a
Scientologist and owns a movie studio. That's the only point I was making. If I was curt, I apologize, but the word 'agency' rankled me a mite.
Sorry.
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Ray Faiola |
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(07/14/08 1:51 PM) |
Leo Gutman had no association with Monogram or Allied Artists. He purchased the rights to the Holmes films from Four Star International, which had picked them
up from Motion Pictures For Television. The Holmes films were reissued THEATRICALLY by Associated Artists Productions (AAP), which later was absorbed by United
Artists (though by then the Holmes theatrical rights had gone to Allied Artists). Warner Bros. wound up with the theatrical rights when they purchased Allied
-- I used to have a couple of Allied Home Video editions of the Holmes pictures -- via Orion. With $$ from Hugh Hefner, Warners paid for the Sherlock
restorations. But then they lost the rights which are now owned by CBS by virtue of its purchase of King World. I'm STILL not sure how the tv and
theatrical rights eventually merged, but there they are.
As I've probably mentioned before, Leo Gutman used to dress up in costume as Sherlock Holmes and Charlie Chan and appear in trade ads for the film packages. They just don't have independent showmanship like that anymore!! |
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thehorrorboy |
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(07/14/08 2:47 PM) |
I once saw an ad where he appeared to be wearing Lewis Wilson's Batman costume! More likely, they just pasted his face over a shot of Wilson. |
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Cadaverino |
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(07/28/08 6:25 PM) |
Allied Artists Productions was created as a unit of Monogram Pictures in 1946. Its first release was It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947), which cost more
than $1.2 million, and was originally a Frank Capra project. Allied had some definitely "A" releases in the 1950s, including William Wyler's
Friendly Persuasion and Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon.
Wikipedia article on Monogram/Allied Artists (I was one of its editors). |
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