The development history of MGM at United Artists

1. Building a Film Industry Empire

In 1924, New York’s exhibition industry tycoon Marcus Loy decided to acquire two well-run Hollywood production companies, Metropolis. Film Company and Goldwyn Film Company, so that hundreds of movie theaters under his Loy's Company would have a stable source of films, and he also got Goldwyn Company's mascot, Leon the lion. However, this created a new problem, that is, there was no one to take care of the Hollywood business for him. His assistant Nicholas Schink was a good candidate, but the New York theater chain could not do without him.

On April 16 of this year, Marcus Roy solved this problem once and for all. He bought the company of the famous independent producer Louis Meyer, and the new company MGM (an abbreviation of the three companies Metro, Godwin, and Meyer). The production and distribution responsibility on the West Coast was handed over to Louis Meyer, and Marcus Loy was happy to sit in New York and continue to expand his Cinema chain.

Louis Meyer first found himself an assistant, Irving Salberg, known as the Wonder Boy, and then canceled many shooting plans and moved them all to the company's Carver City location. In the big studio. At this time, the company's biggest filming project was "Ben-Hur". The film had been filming in Rome for several months and seemed endless. It had become the most expensive film in Hollywood history, but Louis Meyer turned bad things into good things. This film established MGM's reputation for producing high-quality films.

In just one year, Louis Meyer made MGM surpass Universal and become the number one studio in Hollywood. For the next quarter of a century, MGM held on to its position. In 1927, Marcus Loy passed away. William Fox, the founder of Fox Company, believed that the time had come to build a film empire and was ready to acquire MGM.

In 1929, with the consent of Marcus Loy’s successor Nicholas Schenke, William Fox bought the Loy family’s shares in MGM, which was For Louis Meyer and Irving Salberg, this was a slap in the face because they had no equity in the company and could be kicked out at any time. Louis Meyer decided to fight back, and through his old connections at the Justice Department, he sued William Fox's acquisition for antitrust violations. Ultimately, the acquisition failed and Louis Meyer retained his position. Nicholas Schenke was extremely angry about this, and for the next 30 years, the relationship between MGM's two major divisions, New York and Hollywood, was tense.

In Hollywood, Louis Meyer and Irving Thalberg showed their talents. They understood the psychology of the audience and were committed to making large-scale films. Originally, the company already had stars such as Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, and they also poached stars such as Ron Channing and Buster Keaton from other companies . After entering the talkies era, they discovered a number of stars such as Clark Gable, Robert Montgomery and Jane Harlow.

Because most of Marcus Loy's theaters are in New York and Northeastern cities, MGM's moviegoers live in cities, so the films they shoot are sophisticated and sophisticated. . Even during the Great Depression, MGM did not suffer losses, something its competitors could not do. Throughout the 1930s, MGM was the only company in Hollywood to pay dividends to shareholders.

In the 1940s, MGM changed its business strategy and reduced the number of films produced from 50 to 25, but placed more emphasis on film quality. During this period, the company discovered stars such as Jim Carrey, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, and filmed a large number of blockbuster musicals.

In August 1951, Louis Meyer was fired. Despite the fact that he has produced hit films such as "A Parisian in New York", "Singin' in the Rain" and "Parade" with excellent reputations. During this period, MGM's most successful film was the musical "Kiki," which won MGM the Oscar for Best Picture.

In 1959, MGM remade the epic film "Ben-Hur". This four-hour blockbuster starring Charles Heston was also a great success. MGM has retained this large-scale film production style since then, spending the company's main energy on super-large productions, including later "The King of Kings", "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and "Mutiny" all inherited it The epic production style of Ben-Hur.

2. The road to diversified development

In 1969, Kirk Kerkorian, an investor from Nevada, fully acquired MGM. But Kirkorian seemed more interested in the real estate owned by MGM. He even closed MGM's distribution department in 1973 and handed over the distribution affairs to United Artists. In 1979, Kirk Kerkorian announced that MGM had become a hotel company.

All MGM hotels (including MGM Macau and MGM Grand in Las Vegas) are casino hotels under MGM Resorts International. Its founder, Kirk Kerkorian, once Both are owners of MGM.

MGM Grand, the largest hotel group in Las Vegas, formerly known as MGM Grand, is acquiring Mandalay Resort Group ), Mirage Resorts later changed its name to MGM Resorts. Its hotels include The Sword in the Stone Hotel, Treasure Island Hotel, Mandalay Bay Hotel, Bellagio Hotel, MGM Grand and New York Hotel.

MGM (MGM) Hotel MGM Hotel is the hotel with the largest guest rooms in Las Vegas. The show in the hotel alone costs nearly 200 million US dollars. The lion is the symbol of the hotel. It is said that when the hotel was first built, the lion's mouth was wide open to show its majesty, but business was not good. Some people suggested that the lion's wide mouth must have given people a bad feeling and avoided it. Therefore, the owner of the hotel changed the lion's mouth to a slightly open one, and a lot of money came from this. In order to highlight the theme of lions, a corner of the hotel lobby has been specially opened to build a lion park, where lion trainers can play with lions for tourists to watch. The Tropical Rainforest Restaurant is also a major feature of this hotel. Although the taste is not very good, the consumption is not low and there is a constant flow of people, mainly to experience the unique environment here. In order to win a place in the casino city full of hotels, each store must try its best to create their own unique skills. Only by being surprising can they win.

3. The two major film giants joined forces

In 1919, United Artists was founded by C. Chaplin (the comedy superstar), D. Fairbanks, and M. Bick. Founded by Li and D.W. Griffith. The purpose is to get rid of the constraints and exploitation of big film companies and strive for more creative freedom and greater profits. The original idea was just to film and distribute the works of the four founders. Later, due to Griffith's withdrawal, the number of works by Chaplin, Fairbanks and others was limited, so the company focused on funding independent filmmakers to make films and distribute their films. United Artists was different from other film companies at the time. It did not have its own studio and had to rent venues when filming. It did not hire its own movie stars and directors, so it invested in independent producers to make films. It did not have its own movie theaters and distributed films. Films sign contracts with distributors on a film-by-film basis. United Artists was the first major company to adopt the production and distribution methods that were popular in the United States in the 1960s. This business method and the director's relative independence allowed United Artists to shoot and distribute some films with certain influence and artistic achievements in addition to entertainment films. Such as C. Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" (1925), "Modern Times" (1936), "The Great Dictator" (1940), "Stage Career" (1952), D.W. Griffith's "The Destroyed" Flowers" (1919), "Go East" (1920) and "Scarface" (1932), "The Apartment" (1960), "West Side Story" (1961), etc. United Artists was just a small company when it was founded in New York. From the 1920s to the mid-1930s, it gradually developed into one of the eight major companies in the American film industry. In the 1950s, the American film industry entered a period of depression and recession. Chaplin and Brickley successively sold their stocks to financial capitalists. After that, United Artists changed hands several times, and was finally purchased by MGM boss K. Kerkorian in 1981, merged into MGM, and was renamed MGM-United Artists Entertainment.