The history of cinema is impossible to tell without Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM was established in 1924 by the consolidation of three silent-era motion picture production companies: Metro Pictures Corporation, co-founded by Louis B. Mayer; Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, co-founded and headed by Samuel Goldwyn; and Mayer’s own Louis B. Mayer Pictures, which he founded after leaving Metro. By the early 1920s, all three companies were acquired by Marcus Loew, owner of the theater chain Loew’s Theatres. Goldwyn went on to form Samuel Goldwyn Productions, while Mayer was named head of MGM. Former Universal Studios president, 24-year-old Irving G. Thalberg, was named MGM’s vice president in charge of production. The company’s leadership changed hands multiple times throughout its lifespan, but MGM’s legacy as a dream factory of the greatest films of all time continues to this day.
Every Monday throughout April beginning at 6am ET, our TCM Spotlight will feature 24 hours of films produced by the biggest, richest and most glamorous film factory of the studio era, coinciding with MGM’s 100th anniversary. TCM will explore the studio’s history through nine decades of unforgettable classics.
Monday, April 1 kicks off the festivities with a day of silent films into early talkies and MGM’s pre-Code era. First up is the Biblical epic Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925). Silent actor Ramon Novarro plays Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince whose path crosses with Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Directed by Fred Niblo, Ben-Hur’s production, including its unforgettable chariot race sequence, cost the studio almost $4 million ($65 million today), making it the most expensive silent film ever made. MGM’s first major success also earned the studio a place in the history books for its innovative techniques. It features an early use of two-color Technicolor during the resurrection of Christ.
Director King Vidor enjoyed career heights with MGM, represented in two films: the epic World War I drama The Big Parade (1925) and the touching, socially minded drama The Crowd (1928). Vidor had worked in Hollywood’s early silent years since the 1910s, but his time at MGM catapulted his status. He embarked on a series of fruitful collaborations with actor John Gilbert, star of The Big Parade. The WWI drama about an upper-class American who finds love while experiencing the horrors of The Great War became one of the highest-grossing films of the silent era and is considered by many as Vidor’s magnum opus. Vidor went on to direct several high-profile successful pictures with MGM and its silent stars, including Marion Davies, Lillian Gish and Gloria Swanson. By the end of the decade, Vidor would produce and direct one of the first all-Black studio musicals, Hallelujah (1929).
Gilbert proved to be MGM’s most bankable leading man of the 1920s but by the end of the decade, his career was all but finished. The actor had originally been a romantic lead and matinee idol at the Fox Film Corporation before producer Thalberg brought him to MGM. Gilbert’s work is further represented in the 1926 romance Flesh and the Devil, the film that introduced Greta Garbo to audiences worldwide. Mayer brought the Swedish-born actress to America and MGM transformed her into a star. Garbo and Gilbert fell in love while filming, leading to strong onscreen chemistry and a highly publicized romance. The couple would make three more films together before the end of the decade.
By 1927, sound film sent Hollywood spiraling with the premiere of the “talkie” The Jazz Singer (1927). MGM’s response was Hollywood’s first all-talkie musical The Broadway Melody (1929), starring Anita Page, Charles King and Bessie Love. As the roaring 20s ended, it set the scene for Hollywood’s pre-Will Hays code-era, represented by The Divorcee (1930), starring Norma Shearer, one of MGM’s brightest starlets, who won that year’s Oscar for Best Actress. Although Shearer had married Thalberg in 1927, she felt stiff competition in MGM’s growing talent pool. Grand Hotel (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1933) showcase the emerging stable of stars that included Joan Crawford, Billie Burke, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John and Lionel Barrymore, Lee Tracy, Jean Hersholt and Lewis Stone. Other films airing in our kickoff night are The Unholy Three (1925), The Cameraman (1928), Bombshell (1933), The Thin Man (1934), and part one of the Emmy-award winning docuseries MGM: When the Lion Roars - Part 1: The Lion Roars (1992), which traces the studio’s history.
Monday, April 8, we move into the Hays Code era, where a set of self-imposed censorship guidelines from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America were implemented in 1934. MGM held strong as the top Hollywood studio with the release of Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). The Frank Lloyd directed ship-bound drama starring Clarke Gable and Charles Laughton became a massive hit and the highest-grossing film of the year. Tragically, on the heels of Mutiny’s success, MGM’s chief executive Thalberg died prematurely at 37. Mayer became studio chief and sole head of production responsible for maintaining MGM’s success. Gable made it easy by dominating the 1930s as the “King of Hollywood.”
Meanwhile, MGM gave newcomer theater actor James Stewart a seven-year contract in 1935. He stars in his first and only musical alongside tap dancer extraordinaire Eleanor Powell in Born to Dance (1936). Child star Mickey Rooney became a box-office draw as the lovable teenaged Andy Hardy, who traverses milestones from boyhood to manhood throughout 16 films. The Andy Hardy series proved to be lucrative for MGM and served as a training ground for the studio’s up-and-coming starlets, including Judy Garland, who starred opposite Rooney in Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). Garland went on to claim her own success as the star of The Wizard of Oz (1939). WWII broke out just as Hollywood had a banner year of great films in 1939.
By the 1940s, MGM struggled with its output. The strain of both the War and Mayer running the company solo resulted in production getting cut in half and an end to contracts for the studio’s highest-paid actresses: Garbo, Crawford, Myrna Loy, Shearer and Jeanette MacDonald. MGM also took fewer risks, falling back on musicals. In 1943, one of those risks included the all-Black musical Cabin in the Sky starring Ethel Waters, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and newly contracted singer and actress Lena Horne. Swimmer Esther Williams was set to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics but could not because of war. She instead became a star in a colorful series of films that combined big-budget spectacle with synchronized swimming, like in Bathing Beauty (1944). Other films and stars featured in our lineup include Robert Donat and Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939); Stewart, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story (1940); Joan Crawford in A Woman’s Face (1941); Lassie Come Home (1943); MGM: When the Lion Roars - Part 2: The Lion Reigns Supreme (1992); and Some of the Best (1944).
Monday, April 15, we revisit the post-War years at MGM. New York actor John Garfield embodied the world-weary era just as crime thrillers known as film noir began sweeping the cinematic landscape. He stars as a hapless drifter whose affair with a beautiful waitress, played by Lana Turner, ropes him into a plot to kill her husband in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Garfield’s career would be short-lived as he fell victim to the Hollywood Blacklist. The government-backed hunt for communists ruined the careers and lives of many in Hollywood and their families. Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity (2015) documents the starlet’s persecution at the hands of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly close out the 1940s as navy soldiers looking for love while on 24-hour shore leave in the Leonard Bernstein musical On the Town (1949).
MGM moved into the 1950s with its top film of the year directed by Vincente Minnelli, Father of the Bride (1950), starring its stalwart star Spencer Tracy and its rising, maturing child star Elizabeth Taylor. In 1951, MGM’s East Coast executives fired Mayer, replacing him with former RKO producer and writer Dore Schary as studio executive. Arthur Freed also joined MGM as their musical unit director. Schary and Freed’s efforts led to substantial success for MGM musicals, particularly Kelly’s smash hit Singin’ in the Rain (1952). Dancer Fred Astaire had retired in 1946 but returned to Hollywood to replace an injured Kelly in Easter Parade (1948) alongside Judy Garland. He retired from dancing in pictures again, and for good, after starring in Silk Stockings (1957) alongside Cyd Charisse. MGM scored a spectacularly massive hit in 1959 with the remake of Ben-Hur, casting Charlton Heston in the spotlight and securing their status as a leading studio. Other films featured are Bataan (1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), and MGM: When the Lion Roars - Part 3: The Lion in Winter (1992).
Monday, April 22, we close out the 1950s with MGM’s pioneering sci-fi Forbidden Planet (1956). It was one of the studio’s first sci-fi pictures and introduced Robby the Robot and Leslie Nielsen to film audiences. Despite the film’s success, MGM was on shaky ground. Television had been affecting Hollywood’s profits since the late 1940s, so to compete with the new medium, MGM moved into television in the 1950s. Dore Schary left in 1957, and after the unprecedented success of Ben-Hur, the studio struggled to maintain its footing throughout the 1960s. They began producing big-budget cinematic wonders to bring audiences back to the theaters. The star-studded ensemble film How the West Was Won (1962) helped turn a profit for the studio. It was filmed in three-lens Cinerama, a rare technique meant to be projected on a large, curved screen. Ice Station Zebra (1968), starring Rock Hudson and Ernest Borgnine, was filmed in Panavision 70mm but failed to make an impact. Another large-scale cinematic experience, the historical romance Doctor Zhivago (1965), brought British director David Lean and Egyptian actor Omar Sharif international acclaim and a hit for MGM. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) followed as the sci-fi epic of epics. The film broke ground for its special effects and scientifically accurate, awe-inspiring visuals.
MGM was down on its luck until Gordon Parks’ Shaft (1971) was released. Starring Richard Roundtree, the action film about a detective taking down street crime was one of three profitable MGM pictures that year, virtually saving MGM from bankruptcy. Hollywood studios soon realized they had an overlooked audience to sell to, resulting in a series of cheaply produced films set in urban areas and starring Black talent. This era and genre of film is known as Blaxploitation. Other films showcased on this day include Cimarron (1960), Viva Las Vegas (1964), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and Network (1976).
Monday, April 29 marks the final night wrapping up the 1970s and extending into the 1980s. In 1981, MGM purchased legacy film studio United Artists and picked up studio and film distributor The Cannon Group in 1982. The sword and sandal fantasy Clash of the Titans (1981), starring Harry Hamlin, Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith was a huge success for MGM/UA becoming one of the year’s biggest films. It was the final film featuring stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen. Steve Martin’s Pennies from Heaven (1981) harkened back to the early musical talkies that MGM helped originate, while Victor/Victoria (1982) saw star Julie Andrews work with MGM for the first time, though MGM distributed The Americanization of Emily in 1964. The romantic comedy Moonstruck (1987) scored another success for MGM/UA, earning six Oscar nominations with three wins including Best Actress for Cher. Other films in the lineup’s finale include, Westworld (1973), The Sunshine Boys (1975), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), My Favorite Year (1982), That’s Entertainment! (1974), Fame (1980), Diner (1982) and Hollywood: The Dream Factory (1972).
