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 Goldfish, 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 became president of Goldwyn Pictures in 1922. As things went from bad to worse at Goldwyn, in 1924 Frank Joseph Godsol initiated conversations 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

Actors

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 from Kirk Kerkorian for $600 million.

Key

YearTitleStatus
1917Polly of the Circus
1917Baby Mine
1917Fighting Odds
1917The Spreading DawnFragment
1917Sunshine Alley
1917Nearly MarriedIncomplete
1917The Cinderella Man
1917Thais
1918Fields of Honor
1918Dodging a Million
1918Go West, Young Man
1918Our Little Wife
1918The Beloved Traitor
1918The Floor Below
1918The Splendid Sinner
1918The Face in the Dark
1918The Danger Game
1918Joan of Plattsburg
1918The Fair Pretender
1918All Woman
1918The Venus Model
1918The Service Star
1918The Glorious Adventure
1918Back to the Woods
1918The Border Legion
1918Friend Husband
1918Money Mad
1918The Turn of the Wheel
1918Peck's Bad Girl
1918Just for Tonight
1918The Kingdom of Youth
1918Hidden Fires
1918Thirty a Week
1918A Perfect 36
1918The Hell Cat
1918A Perfect LadyFragment
1918The Racing Strain
1919Day Dreams
1919The Bondage of Barbara
1919ShadowsFragment
1919The Woman on the Index
1919Sis Hopkins
1919Daughter of Mine
1919Spotlight Sadie
1919A Man and His Money
1919The Pest
1919The Eternal Magdalene
1919The Stronger Vow
1919One Week of Life
1919Leave It to Susan
1919When Doctors Disagree
1919One of the Finest
1919The Fear Woman
1919The Crimson GardeniaIncomplete
1919The City of Comrades
1919Through the Wrong Door
1919Upstairs
1919The Peace of Roaring River
1919Heartsease
1919Lord and Lady Algy
1919The World and Its Woman
1919Strictly ConfidentialFragment
1919Almost a Husband
1919Flame of the Desert
1919Bonds of Love
1919JubiloInducted into the National Film Registry in 2021
1919The Loves of Letty
1919Jinx
1919Toby's Bow
1919The Gay Lord Quex
1920Pinto
1920Water, Water, Everywhere
1920The Blooming Angel
1920The Paliser Case
1920Duds
1920The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
1920The Woman and the Puppet
1920The Strange Boarder
1920The Woman in Room 13
1920Jes' Call Me Jim
1920Dollars and Sense
1920A Double-Dyed Deceiver
1920The Great Accident
1920Cupid the Cowpuncher
1920The Penalty
1920The Slim Princess
1920Earthbound
1920The Truth
1920Stop Thief
1920Milestones
1920Honest Hutch
1920Madame X
1920Officer 666
1920The Man Who Had Everything
1920Just Out of College
1920The Great Lover
1920Guile of Women
1920What Happened to Rosa
1920Help Yourself
1921Bunty Pulls the Strings
1921The Girl with the Jazz Heart
1921Hold Your Horses
1921The Highest Bidder
1921The Concert
1921Boys Will Be Boys
1921For Those We Love
1921A Tale of Two Worlds
1921Roads of Destiny
1921The Cabinet of Dr. CaligariOriginally released in 1920 in Germany
1921An Unwilling Hero
1921Snowblind
1921Made in Heaven
1921A Voice in the Dark
1921The Old Nest
1921Don't Neglect Your Wife
1921Oh Mary Be Careful
1921The Ace of Hearts
1921All's Fair in Love
1921Beating the GameFragment
1921Dangerous Curve Ahead
1921Doubling for RomeoIncomplete
1921The Invisible Power
1921The Grim Comedian
1921The Man from Lost River
1921Pardon My French
1921The Poverty of Riches
1921From the Ground Up
1921A Poor Relation
1921Voices of the City
1922Grand Larceny
1922Man with Two Mothers
1922Watch Your Step
1922Sherlock Holmes
1922Come on Over
1922When Romance Rides
1922Head over Heels
1922Yellow Men and Gold
1922His Back Against the Wall
1922Mr. Barnes of New York
1922The Wall Flower
1922The Strangers' Banquet
1922Dust Flower
1922Remembrance
1922The Sin Flood
1922Brothers Under the SkinIncomplete
1922Hungry Hearts
1922A Blind Bargain
1922Broken Chains
1922The Glorious Fool
1923The Christian
1923Little Old New York
1923Gimme
1923Look Your Best
1923Unseeing Eyes
1923Under the Red Robe
1923The Love Piker
1923Lost and Found on a South Sea IslandIncomplete
1923Vanity Fair
1923Souls for Sale
1923Three Wise Fools
1923The Spoilers
1923Red Lights
1923Six Days
1923Dr. Sunshine
1923The Eternal Three
1923The Steadfast Heart
1923Slave of Desire
1923The Last Moment
1923The Day of Faith
1923The Green Goddess
1923In the Palace of the King
1923The Rendezvous
1923Reno
1923The Ragged Edge
1924Wild Oranges
1924Name the Man
1924Through the DarkIncomplete
1924Second Youth
1924Three Weeks
1924Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model
1924True as Steel
1924The Rejected Woman
1924The Recoil
1924Tarnish