MGM Documentary: Silents to Sony

[@aviduser1961]

In the 1980's, working in Hollywood, I used to park my car on the very block that Metro Pictures stood. The studio was demolished and at some point the entire block became a black asphalt parking lot. At the time we had no idea of it's history. The parking lot is the same today except that they added a parking structure. This block is bordered by Cahuenga and Cole, Romaine and Willoughby. The amount of Hollywood history in this immediate area is overwhelming. Chaplin, Keaton, Valentino in the early days. Later on in the 60's TV exploded and the studio that once stood on Metro's backlot is now known as Red Studios. An incomplete list of shows filmed or taped there includes I Love Lucy (2-6), The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, That Girl, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, Beauty and the Beast, Weeds, commercials and music videos.

[@moc7323]

Very well put together.. take a bow lad ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@williamsnyder5616]

The irony of this documentary is that the old MGM lot is now home to Columbia Pictures, which Louis B. Mayer often made fun of when it was a Poverty Row studio on Gower St. Mayer must have been chagrined when he lent Gable for "It Happened One Night." But it wasn't just that film. Columbia boss Harry Cohn sneaked in and purchased the rights to the Oscar-winning "You Can't Take It With You" with two MGM contract players Lionel Barrymore and Jimmy Stewart and finally, made a star of Gene Kelly (on a loan-out)in the 1944 musical, "Cover Girl." Kelly was allowed to choreograph the dance sequences when Mayer didn't know what to do with him.

[@RoseMarieJamesJr]

Nice added insight!

[@richardmcleod1930]

When Louis B. Mayer left MGM, the once grand movie studio that gave the public "More Stars than there are in the Heavens" continued its' downhill trend in the movie capital of the World and such continued on until the demise of the studio. Never will the public have a Garbo, Barrymore, Gable, Shearer, Dressler, Crawford, Tracy, Hepburn, Williams, Turner, Rooney, Garland and all the other stars that made 'More Stars than there are in the Heaven's"

[@bingo1232]

Ricky2400 -- Thanks so much... this documentary "hit the spot"; it was well-paced and highly informative; great use of visual images. Wish you would do the other 5 of the "Big Six".

[@williamsnyder5616]

In the Golden Era of Hollywood, theree was "The Big Five" studios and "The Little Three." The Big 5 were studios which owned theater chains (MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., Fox and RKO) and the Little Three (Columbia, Universal and United Artists) did not own chains.

[@bingo1232]

@@williamsnyder5616 Thank you!

[@longgrayline8055]

All I have to say is 1939...The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. What a year for MGM.

[@johnjdevlin2610]

MGM didn't make Gone With the Wind. It was a Selznick Picture. MGM merely distributed it.

[@thomase13]

Arguably the pinnacle of motion picture history!

[@Gos1234567]

Good doc,well done!!

[@johnjdevlin2610]

Gary Cooper was with Paramount during the 20s and 30s. I don't think he ever made an MGM picture.

[@jamesklatt]

Should be now be silents to Amazon

[@thehernandezmediacorporation]

5:55 or somewhere around there, you got a lot of stuff wrong with regards to MGM's animation department. Yes MGM opened up a new animation studio in 1937, but the Tom and Jerry series didn't take off until 1940. Also, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were not the only cartoon directors at the studio. At the time MGM Animation opened up shop in 1937, most of the crew came from a variety of studios, including Friz Freleng from Warner Bros. Then, in 1939, Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising came back to MGM, and in 1942, animation history changed forever when Tex Avery joined the cartoon department and created some of the wackiest, fastest, and edgiest cartoons ever made. You are right, however, in that both Hanna and Barbera would later form their own cartoon studio after MGM ended animation production in 1957.

[@hansemist]

@( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Yeah, I think Time Warner should sell of it's pre-1990 Hanna-Barbera Library to MGM.

[@thehernandezmediacorporation]

@@hansemist Why would Time Warner (now Warner Media) sell Hanna-Barbera if characters such as Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, Jetsons, and Yogi Bear are making them quite a lot of money?

[@chriswright4677]

Ironic the sound quality is so poor on this. What a shame.

[@williamsnyder5616]

The author's description of Columbia Pictures was mis-leading. In both Bob Thomas' book on Harry Cohn ("King Cohn") and Bernard F. Dick's book about Cohn ("The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row"), it was pointed out that Columbia never lost money in a fiscal year until 1959, the year after Cohn died. Yes, Columbia never had the reputation of MGM, but the little Poverty Row studio frequently got the better of Metro. It wasn't just "It Happened One Night," but also Cohn slipped in under cover to buy rights to "You Can't Take It With You" and "Pal Joey." Also, not only did Clark Gable get his only Oscar in a Columbia film (after a loan-out), but Jimmy Stewart became a star on loan-outs to Columbia for "You Can't Take It With You" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and Gene Kelly for a loan-out for "Cover Girl."

[@davidgibson7615]

17:56 WRONG! Lew Wasserman was the President of Music Corporation of America (MCA), A talent agency firm, NOT United Artists.

[@DoubleMrE]

What was wrong was that he said United Artists rather than Universal. MCA did start as a talent agency (originally in Chicago), but under Lou Wasserman, MCA bought Universal Studios and became MCA Universal (a lot of old movies have that logo). Later (I believe because of anti-trust issues with the government), MCA (the talent agency part) separated from Universal. Wasserman left MCA at that point and stayed with Universal (which he had been running).

[@davidgibson7615]

​@@DoubleMrEMCA bought the Studios lot from Universal Pictures in 1958 for their television production subsidiary Revue Studios. The long awaited takeover of Universal by MCA didn't come till 1962 when it bought The production company and its then parent Decca Records (now Universal Music Group) under one condition: they have to get rid of its talent agency.

[@searchthewind99]

Gary Cooper got his big break with Samuel Goldwyn and shortly after signed by Paramount but was not with MGM.

[@RoseMarieJamesJr]

Movies are so new in the scope of entertainment: Writing itself has evolved for around 5,000 years Plays have been created for 2,500 years Movies have only been produced around 100 years. It’s a shame that L.B. Mayor was stuck on halting the steam engine of human evolution. Humanity won. Leaders haven’t changed much. The leaders of the generation who invented hieroglyphics likely protested the education of writing. Yet here we are.

[@michelleeditor]

You should re-record this without the static. Sound quality is very important.

[@Ricky2400]

Yeah I had a sucky mic at the time. Sorry about the static!

[@buckolsen6470]

Funny that the movie studios didn't jump into building their own radio & TV networks when those technologies were first beginning

[@williamsnyder5616]

Two studios did get into early TV. Columbia formed Screen Gems for TV shows and Universal did the same with Revue Productions.

[@RoseMarieJamesJr]

Interesting.

[@jasonstegallco.960]

Not so much. Mayer and Jack Warner DETESTED television.

[@jasonstegallco.960]

​@@williamsnyder5616 -- Makes sense that the two studios considered by Mayer to be 'el-cheapo' in terms of quality would be the first to explore television's possibilities. Eventually (if reluctantly) Paramount and Warner Brothers would go there, but I don't think MGM went to TV until around the time of Mayer's death.

[@williamsnyder5616]

@@jasonstegallco.960 MGM developed an anthoogy show around 1955, but it's TV development was always limited.

[@staubach1979rt]

Outside of loaning out Clark Gable, MGM had nothing to do with Gone With The Wind.

[@alexvaliansky7707]

You didn’t include the loss of Marie Dressler in 1934.

[@michaelwest8536]

There's an error in the story, which is persistent in a number of documentaries. MGM did not own the theaters, Loews Theaters owned MGM. It was the theaters that had to divest the studio. The studios were established by theater owners to supply films to the theaters. The history of all the studios mentioned this. There are other factual errors regarding Lew Wasserman and James Aubrey.

[@nhmooytis7058]

Nicely done, short but full of information! PS isn't it SHENK not Skenk?

[@nhmooytis7058]

Jimz yes, I looked it up, it is indeed Skenk. I wouldn't call myself something that close to skunk but nobody asked me :D

[@williamsnyder5616]

@@nhmooytis7058 Mayer hated Schenck and often referred to him as "Skunk." lol

[@nhmooytis7058]

William Snyder haha!

[@CTro-v2m]

Thank you Ricky i love you

[@Kevin-xv9pm]

I wonder what happen to Louis B. Mayer after he left MGM in 1951.

[@Ricky2400]

He tried to get back in the film industry but too many changes. His health also began to decline.

[@Kevin-xv9pm]

​@@Ricky2400 I see what your saying. But I'm glad Mayer knew the right thing on making MGM films more profitable from the studio's beginning. I also wonder where did Dore Schary move to after being ousted from MGM in 1956.

[@Kevin-xv9pm]

@Jimz Yeah, I knew that. But I was just asking what happened to Dore Schary after being let go at MGM in 1956.

[@bernieschiff5919]

Louis B. Mayer was spending too much time at the racetrack, and was humiliated at being fired, it being shown that he was just an employee of the company, not an owner, as everyone had thought. The former King of Hollywood waged a brutal proxy battle against Loew's to get his old job back. In the end he lost, and new management took over. Under Vogel, the new studio head, there were many successes, Gigi, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Ben Hur, in 1960. Louis Nizer represented Loew's in it's proxy fight against Mayer in 1957. Read his book, "My Life in Court", you will be motivated to apply to Law School.

[@bernieschiff5919]

I believe Dore Shary succeeded Louis B. Mayer at the studio. His intent was to produce prestige, or message films of high purpose, with mixed box office results.

[@rkomgm3932]

Gary Cooper was not with MGM!!!!! Paramount was his studio !

[@williamsnyder5616]

Also, James Aubrey came from CBS, not ABC.

[@richardbartolo2890]

The governments decision to force the Movie studios to to sell off their movie theaters was the beginning of the end for the studios.

[@elchoya8770]

3:01,gary cooper?,he was never an M.G.M star, should have said ramon novarro.coop was mostly at paramount in the silent era about 1926-29 did a couple at M.G.M when in the early 1930s.

[@donnie2832]

Lew Wasserman was the head of MCA, and eventually Universal.

[@hellsapoppin2048]

Sound is bad.

[@davidgibson7615]

Let's be real The only thing MGM was connected to Sony was the studios itself which they purchased from newly formed Time Warner for The new headquarters of Columbia Pictures now known as Sony Pictures Entertainment

[@jeremiahwoodsi4202]

You start with this guy but he even bought it from someone else

[@Ricky2400]

Right. He inherited the studio but remember I mentioned how it got started. L.B. Mayer came in after.

[@skipsassy1]

too bad that fool did not buy the stock instead of the dress.

[@amyclarke41]

Aww

[@classiclife7204]

A pity they didn't make more interesting movies. The biggest, and the dullest. It's no accident they were the last to adopt sound. Still making those old-fashioned musicals all through the 50s and 60s to the very end. Beyond "Wizard", it's hard to think of an MGM film unless you're a musical aficionado. At least Mayer had the intelligence to ignore Hearst back in the early 30s, LMAO.

[@eblackadder3]

I can recall literally dozens of non musical MGM films. The studio's reputation for musical films is well deserved. Most of the other Hollywood studios produced just as many musicals as MGM did. It only seems like MGM made more musicals simply because they were the best at it and those are the films that audiences remember.