 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Samuel Goldwyn Productions" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Company type | Independent |
|---|---|
| Industry | Film |
| Founded | 1923; 102 years ago (1923) |
| Founder | Samuel Goldwyn |
| Defunct | 1959; 66 years ago (1959) |
| Fate | Defunct |
| Successors | Company: The Samuel Goldwyn Company Library: Warner Bros. (United States only) Paramount Pictures (throughMiramax) (Internationally, Paramount also handles the U.S. rights toThe North Star only) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (U.S. rights toThe Hurricane only) Video-Cinema Films (Rights toStreet Scene only) Public domain (U.S. only, pre-1930) |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Products | Motion pictures |
| Services | Film production |
Samuel Goldwyn Productions was an American film production company founded bySamuel Goldwyn in 1923, and active through 1959. Personally controlled by Goldwyn and focused on production rather than distribution, the company developed into the most financially and critically successful independent production company in theGolden Age of Hollywood.
After the sale of his previous firmGoldwyn Pictures,Samuel Goldwyn organized his productions beginning in February 1923, initially in a partnership with directorGeorge Fitzmaurice (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, created by merger in April 1924, bears Goldwyn's name, but he did not produce films there). Goldwyn Production's first release,Potash and Perlmutter, successfully opened in Baltimore on September 6, 1923.[1]
Some of the early productions bear the name "Howard Productions", named for Goldwyn's wifeFrances Howard, who married Goldwyn in 1925. In the 1920s, Goldwyn released films throughAssociated First National. Throughout the 1930s, Goldwyn released most of his films throughUnited Artists. Beginning in 1941, Goldwyn released most of his films throughRKO Radio Pictures.
With consistently high production values and directors likeJohn Ford andHoward Hawks, Goldwyn consistently receivedAcademy Award for Best Picture nominations:Arrowsmith (1931),Dodsworth (1936),Dead End (1937),Wuthering Heights (1939), andThe Little Foxes (1941). In 1946, he won best picture forThe Best Years of Our Lives.
Through the 1940s and 1950s, many of Goldwyn's films starredDanny Kaye. Goldwyn's final production was the 1959 version ofPorgy and Bess.
Elements for many films produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions between 1929 and 1955 are held by theAcademy Film Archive as part of the Samuel Goldwyn Collection.[2]
_02.jpg)
In 2012, the distribution rights of Samuel Goldwyn films from the library were transferred toWarner Bros.,[4] withMiramax managing global licensing; the latter was handled byStudioCanal as part of a deal with Miramax until 2021, whenViacomCBS (nowParamount Skydance Corporation), under its flagship studioParamount Pictures, acquired a 49% stake in Miramax and worldwide distribution rights to its content library.[5] U.S. rights toThe Hurricane, which had since reverted back toUnited Artists, are currently owned by its parent company,Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, now part ofAmazon MGM Studios. Rights toThe North Star were not initially renewed due to its controversial subject matter, thus had fallen in to thepublic domain.[citation needed] Currently, U.S. rights to the film are handled byParamount as a successor toNational Telefilm Associates, which distributed a re-cut version in 1957 asArmored Attack, one of the few Goldwyn titles not included in the Warner–Miramax arrangement. Studio Distribution Services, LLC., a joint venture betweenWarner Bros. Home Entertainment andUniversal Pictures Home Entertainment, distributes the entire Samuel Goldwyn catalog on home video, includingThe Hurricane, via a distribution deal withMGM Home Entertainment. Rights toStreet Scene were retained by the estate of its authorElmer Rice, which would transfer ownership to Video-Cinema Films in 2004.[6]