Producers Distributing Corporation


Producers Distributing Corporation was a short-lived Hollywood film distribution company, organized in 1924 and dissolved in 1927. In its brief heyday, film director Cecil B. DeMille was its primary talent and owner of its Culver City–located production facility.

Corporate history

PDC's beginnings lay with film pioneer William Wadsworth Hodkinson, founder of Paramount Pictures in 1912. In late 1924 Hodkinson sold one of his struggling distribution companies to Jeremiah Millbank, a "wealthy, extremely religious, and politically conservative financier." Millbank partnered with DeMille and renamed the company Producers Distributing Corporation. Part of Millbank's investment went to purchase the former Thomas H. Ince Culver Studios, the property whose main building is a replica of Mount Vernon.
In March 1927, the small Pathé Exchange studio and Producers Distributing Corporation merged under the control of the Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain of theaters. In early 1928, Joseph P. Kennedy, owner of the Film Booking Offices of America studio, took control of KAO. Later in the year, RCA, in an effort led by general manager David Sarnoff to promote the new RCA Photophone sound-on-film system, acquired and merged KAO and FBO, creating RKO Radio Pictures. Kennedy retained control of Pathé, which had assumed PDC's assets, including the Culver City studio. In January 1931, he sold Pathé to RKO and left the film business.
PDC is unrelated to the company of the same name organized by Ben Judell in 1939, and which produced four films then evolved into the Poverty Row studio Producers Releasing Corporation. PDC is also unconnected to the Producers Distribution Agency founded in 2010 by John Sloss and Bart Walker.

Filmography

The Hoosier Schoolmaster 1 reel missingTry and Get It Hold Your Breath Another Scandal lostHer Own Free Will lostLegend of Hollywood The Wise Virgin Welcome Stranger lostAnother Man's Wife Trouping with Ellen lostThe House of Youth Reckless Romance The Chorus Lady lostThe Flaming Forties lostRoaring Rails The Siren of Seville Ramshackle House lostA Cafe in Cairo lostBarbara Frietchie The Mirage lostChalk Marks lostLet Women Alone The Million Dollar Handicap On the Threshold The Crimson Runner Friendly Enemies lostBeauty and the Bad Man lostStop Flirting Hell's Highroad Steel Preferred lostOff the Highway Seven Days The Girl on the Stairs Silent Sanderson lostThe Bad Lands The Texas Trail lostBeyond the Border Without Mercy The Coming of Amos The Prairie Pirate The People vs. Nancy Preston Simon the Jester Private Affairs lostHer Market Value The Man from Red Gulch The Girl of Gold Soft Shoes The Wedding Song Braveheart The Awful Truth Madame Behave incompleteThe Road to Yesterday The Flame of the Yukon Red Dice trailer survivesJim, the Conqueror Eve's Leaves The Danger Girl lostCruise of the Jasper B Pals in Paradise lostFifth Avenue lostThe Clinging Vine The Speeding Venus Her Man o' War West of Broadway lostGigolo Paris at Midnight Wild Oats Lane lostFor Alimony Only Silence The Dice Woman lostFor Wives Only Corporal Kate The Sea Wolf lostForbidden Waters The Nervous Wreck The Last Frontier Whispering Smith Rocking Moon lostShipwrecked lostThree Faces East The Unknown Soldier Up in Mabel's Room The Volga Boatman Young April Meet the Prince lostBachelor Brides Risky Business Made for Love The Prince of Pilsen lostAlmost a Lady Sunny Side Up The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary lostRubber Tires Nobody's Widow lostFighting Love Jewels of Desire Vanity The Little Adventuress Man Bait lostNo Control lostThe King of Kings The Heart Thief White Gold Getting Gertie's Garter The Night Bride The Yankee Clipper