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 minor studios in the golden age of Hollywood, generally referred to collectively as Poverty Row. Of the 11 permanent studios in Hollywood at the time, ranked in order of size, MGM was #1 -- and Monogram was #10.
The Monogram trademark is now owned by Allied Artists International. The original sprawling brick complex which functioned as home to both Monogram and Allied Artists remains at 4376 W Sunset Blvd, as part of the Church of Scientology Media Center.
Early years
Monogram's antecedent was W. Ray Johnston's Rayart Pictures, specializing in silent western and action features. In 1929 Johnston entered the new field of sound pictures, with Rayart releasing the first feature-length talking western Overland Bound, featuring silent stars Leo Maloney and Allene Ray. Johnston renamed his company Raytone, then Continental Pictures, then Syndicate Pictures, and finally Monogram Pictures. Johnston was president, with his Rayart colleague Trem Carr as vice president.Johnston made an honest effort to compete with the larger companies in the early 1930s. When movie programs consisted of a single feature film plus short subjects, Monogram's features could and did compete with major-studio productions on America's screens. Under Johnston, Monogram offered a variety of reasonably priced features for the Depression-era exhibitors, including adaptations of famous books and plays; gangster stories; jungle thrillers; topical comedies; romances; and westerns. During its first few years Monogram could seldom afford big-name movie stars and would employ either former silent-film actors who were idle or young featured players. By 1934 the studio attracted bigger names: Colin Clive, Virginia Bruce, Mary Brian, Robert Armstrong, Mary Carlisle, Marian Marsh, and Frank Craven.
In 1935, Johnston and Carr were wooed by Herbert Yates of Consolidated Film Industries. Yates planned to merge Monogram with several other smaller independent companies to form Republic Pictures. After a brief period under this new venture, Johnston and Carr clashed with Yates and left. Carr moved to Universal Pictures, while Johnston reactivated Monogram in 1937.
New direction
By 1937, double features had become popular and the major studios were supplying their own low-cost fare. Monogram and Johnston now concentrated on producing films for independent theaters and smaller neighborhood moviehouses that couldn't afford big-studio rental rates. Monogram became a reliable "budget brand" for cost-conscious exhibitors. There was a corresponding decrease in prestige, but Johnston had made many friends in the industry and was content to serve his own customer base.Film series
In 1938, Monogram began a long and profitable policy of making series and hiring familiar players to star in them. Frankie Darro, Hollywood's foremost tough-kid actor of the 1930s, joined Monogram and stayed with the company until 1950. Comedian Mantan Moreland co-starred in many of the Darro films and continued to be a valuable asset to Monogram through 1949. Juvenile actors Marcia Mae Jones and Jackie Moran co-starred in series of homespun romances, and then joined the Frankie Darro series.Boris Karloff contributed to the Monogram release schedule with his Mr. Wong mysteries. This prompted producer Sam Katzman to engage Bela Lugosi for a follow-up series of Monogram thrillers.
Katzman's street-gang series The East Side Kids was an imitation of the then-popular Dead End Kids features. The first film cast six juveniles who had no connection with the Dead End series, but Katzman signed Dead End Kids Bobby Jordan and Leo Gorcey, and soon added Huntz Hall and Gabriel Dell from the original gang. The East Side Kids series ran from 1940 to 1945. East Side star Gorcey then took the reins himself and transformed the series into The Bowery Boys, which became the longest-running feature-film comedy series in movie history.
Monogram continued to experiment with film series with mixed results. Definite box-office hits were Charlie Chan, The Cisco Kid, and Joe Palooka, all proven movie properties abandoned by other studios and revived by Monogram. Less successful were the comic-strip exploits of Snuffy Smith and Sam Katzman's comedy series teaming Billy Gilbert, Shemp Howard, and Maxie Rosenbloom.
Many of Monogram's series were westerns. The backbone of the studio's early days was a father-son partnership: writer/director Robert N. Bradbury and cowboy actor Bob Steele. Bradbury wrote almost all of the early Monogram and Lone Star westerns and directed many of them himself. Independent producer Paul Malvern produced 16 Lone Star western productions starring John Wayne, releasing through Monogram. The studio also released sagebrush sagas with Bill Cody, Tom Keene, Tim McCoy, Tex Ritter, and Jack Randall before hitting on the "trio" format teaming veteran saddle pals. Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, and Raymond Hatton became The Rough Riders; Ray Corrigan, John "Dusty" King, and Max Terhune were The Range Busters, and Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, and Bob Steele teamed as The Trail Blazers. When Universal Pictures allowed Johnny Mack Brown's contract to lapse, Monogram grabbed him and kept him busy through 1952.
Monogram's stars
The studio was a launching pad for new stars, Edmund Lowe in Klondike Fury, John Boles in Road to Happiness, Ricardo Cortez in I Killed That Man, Simone Simon in Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Kay Francis and Bruce Cabot in Divorce, Robert Lowery and Marjorie Weaver in Fashion Model, Jane Frazee in Incident.Monogram Pictures was regarded within the industry as a minor-league studio. Former character actor Bill Kennedy recalled, "If you were an actor on the way up, like Robert Mitchum or Alan Ladd, working at Monogram was okay -- no stigma. But -- if you were already a star at a big studio like Fox or Paramount and then went to Monogram, a la Edmund Lowe, it was the kiss of death."
Monogram did create and nurture its own stars. Gale Storm began her career at RKO Radio Pictures in 1940 but found a home at Monogram. Storm had been promoted from Monogram's Frankie Darro series and was showcased in crime dramas and a string of musicals to capitalize on her singing talents. Another of Monogram's finds during this time was British skating star Belita, who conversely starred in musical revues first and then graduated to dramatic roles, including Suspense, an A-budget King Brothers Productions picture released under the Monogram name. Monogram's final leading-lady discovery was Jane Nigh, who starred in several wholesome outdoor stories between 1950 and 1952; she returned to the studio in 1957 for a Bowery Boys comedy.
File:WifeWantedPoster.jpg|thumb|Poster for the movie Wife Wanted, featuring star Kay Francis and other cast members
Monogram was also a useful outlet for ambitious movie stars who wanted to produce their own films. Sidney Toler, Kay Francis, Leo Gorcey, and Arthur Lake all pursued independent production, releasing through Monogram.
Improved productions
, Monogram's vice president and general sales manager since 1940, had been taking on additional responsibility for the studio's production schedule, and he was named president of the company in 1945. Founder Ray Johnston became chairman of the board, a position he held until 1963.Under Broidy, Monogram very nearly hit the big time with Dillinger, a sensationalized crime drama that was a runaway success in 1945. Filmed by King Brothers Productions, it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Monogram tried to follow Dillinger with several "exploitation" melodramas cashing in on topical themes, like Black Market Babies and Allotment Wives. The studio did achieve some success -- its slogan in 1946 was "Make Way for Monogram" -- but Monogram never became a respectable "major" studio like former poverty-row denizen Columbia Pictures.
Monogram's fortunes continued to improve. With Hollywood's larger studios curtailing B-picture production in favor of more prestigious and more expensive pictures, there was now a greater need for low-priced pictures that theater owners could afford. Major first-run theater chains that had never played Monogram's budget movies -- as well as small, independent theaters that depended on bargain-rate films to turn a profit -- began using Monogram features on a regular basis. The Charlie Chan pictures were the first Monogram products to be programmed regularly by big-city chains, giving Monogram valuable exposure in the larger market. The casting in Monogram features improved tremendously after the war, because scores of actors found themselves unemployed or underemployed when their home studios now made fewer movies. Major-studio talent began accepting work at Monogram, which gave the studio's films more prestige and boxoffice value.
Monogram continued to launch new series. In 1946 The East Side Kids became The Bowery Boys under a new producer, Jan Grippo. The former producer, Sam Katzman, began a new musical-comedy series called "The Teen Agers" as a vehicle for singer Freddie Stewart. Other series included the Cisco Kid westerns ; the exploits of masked crimefighter The Shadow with Kane Richmond ; the Bringing Up Father comedies based on the George McManus comic strip, featuring Joe Yule and Renie Riano as "Jiggs and Maggie; the "Joe Palooka" prizefight comedies ; the Roddy McDowall series, with the juvenile lead forsaking child roles for dramatic and action vehicles; the "Henry" series of small-town comedies co-starring Raymond Walburn and Walter Catlett; and the "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" adventures starring Johnny Sheffield.
The studio's biggest drawing cards were The Bowery Boys, Charlie Chan, and the Monogram westerns. Monogram filmed some of its later features in Cinecolor, mostly outdoor subjects like County Fair, Blue Grass of Kentucky, and The Rose Bowl Story, as well as the science-fiction film, Flight to Mars.
The only Monogram release to win an Academy Award was Climbing the Matterhorn, a two-reel adventure that won the "Best Short Subject" Oscar in 1947. Other Monogram films to receive Oscar nominations were King of the Zombies for Academy Award for Best Music in 1941 and Flat Top for Best Film Editing in 1952.