1.
Culver City, California
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Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California. The city was named after its founder, Harry Culver, as of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, over the years, it has annexed more than 40 pieces of adjoining land and now comprises about five square miles. Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a center for motion picture and later television production, from 1932 to 1985, it was the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment have headquarters in the city, the NFL Network studio is also based in Culver City. Archaeological evidence suggests a human presence in the area of present-day Culver City since at least 8,000 BC, the region was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieliño Native Americans, who held a presence in the region for over 8,000 years. The city was founded primarily on the lands of the former Rancho La Ballona, Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes, and Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. In 1861, during the American Civil War, Camp Latham was established by the 1st California Infantry under Col. James H. Carleton and the 1st California Cavalry under Lt. Col. Benjamin F. Davis. Named for California Senator Milton S. Latham, the camp was the first staging area for the training of Union troops and their operations in Southern California. It was located on land of the Rancho La Ballona, on the South side of Ballona Creek, near what is now the intersection of Jefferson, the post was later moved to Camp Drum, which became the Drum Barracks. Harry Culver first attempted to establish Culver City in 1913, the city was incorporated on September 20,1917, the city was one of many all-white planned communities started in the Los Angeles area around this time. The first film studio in Culver City was built by Thomas Ince in 1918, in 1919, silent film comedy producer Hal Roach built his studios there, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer in the 20s. During Prohibition, speakeasies and nightclubs such as the Cotton Club lined Washington Boulevard, Culver Center, one of Southern Californias first shopping malls, was completed in 1950 on Venice Boulevard near the Overland Avenue intersection. Today, it has retail stores, a supermarket, a Rite Aid department store, Best Buy. Hughes Aircraft opened its Culver City plant in July 1941, there the company built the H-4 Hercules transport. Hughes was also a subcontractor in World War II. It developed and patented a flexible feed chute for faster loading of machine guns on B-17 bombers, Hughes produced more ammunition belts than any other American manufacturer, and built 5,576 wings and 6,370 rear fuselage sections for Vultee BT-13 trainers. Hughes grew after the war, and in 1953 Howard Hughes donated all of his stock in the company to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, after he died in 1976, the institute sold the company, which made it the second-best-endowed medical research foundation in the world
2.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California and it is one of the worlds oldest film studios. In 1971, it was announced that MGM would merge with 20th Century Fox, over the next thirty-nine years, the studio was bought and sold at various points in its history until, on November 3,2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM Resorts International, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MGM, is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios, the studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were released through other studios, mostly United Artists. Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and a film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up production, as well as keeping production going at UA. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production, the studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt, MGM was bought by Pathé Communications in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais, the major creditor. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso, and Australias Seven Network in 1996, the debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGMs ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem and he had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for a steady supply of films for his large Loews Theatres chain. With Loews lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 to improve the quality, however, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. Mayer, Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17,1924, Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Irving Thalberg as head of production. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years, in 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loews passed to Nicholas Schenck, in 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew familys holdings with Schencks assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision, Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds
3.
Triangle Film Corporation
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Triangle Film Corporation was a major American motion-picture studio, founded in July 1915 in Culver City, California. The studio was founded in July 1915 by Harry and Roy Aitken, Harry was also D. W. Griffiths partner at Reliance-Majestic Studios, both parted with the Mutual Film Corporation in the wake of The Birth of a Nations unexpected success that year. Triangle was envisioned as a studio based on the producing abilities of filmmakers D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince. On November 23,1915, the Triangle Film Corporation opened a state-of-the-art motion picture theater in Massillon, the Lincoln Theater is still an operational movie theater owned and operated by the Massillon Lions Club. The theater has been restored and is host to a film festival dedicated to the films of Dorothy. Eventually, the studio suffered from bloat, by 1917, producer Adolph Zukor had taken control of all of the studios assets. In June 1917, Thomas H. Ince and Mack Sennett left the company, Triangle continued to produce films until 1919 when it ceased operations. Films using the Triangle name were released to the general public until 1923. With the exception of Oh, Mabel Behave, all of Triangles films were released between 1915 and 1919, most films were made on the West Coast, but some of Triangles production took place in Fort Lee, New Jersey. La Triangle - Cinéma, Archives, research and history at the Cinémathèque française Strategic failure of the Triangle - Marc Vernet
4.
Thomas H. Ince
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Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film producer, director, screenwriter, and actor. Ince was known as the Father of the Western and was responsible for making over 800 films and he revolutionized the motion picture industry by creating the first major Hollywood studio facility and invented movie production by introducing the assembly line system of filmmaking. He was the first mogul to build his own film studio dubbed Inceville in Palisades Highlands, Ince was also instrumental in developing the role of the producer in motion pictures. Two of his films, The Italian, for which he wrote the screenplay, and Civilization and he later partnered with D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett to form the Triangle Motion Picture Company whose studios are the present-day site of Sony Pictures. He then built a new studio about a mile from Triangle which is now the site of Culver Studios. Thomas Harper Ince was born on November 16,1880 in Newport, Rhode Island and his father was born in Wigan, Lancashire, England, in 1841, and was the youngest of nine boys who enlisted in the British Navy as a powder monkey. He later disembarked at San Francisco, and found work as a reporter, around 1887, when Ince was about seven, the family moved to Manhattan to pursue theater work. Inces father worked as both an actor and musical agent and his mother, Ince himself, sister Bertha and brothers, John, Ince made his Broadway debut at 15 in a small role of a revival 1893 play, Shore Acres by James A. Herne. He appeared with several companies as a child and was later an office boy for theatrical manager Daniel Frohman. Later he would form an unsuccessful Vaudeville company known as Thomas H. Ince and His Comedians in Atlantic Highlands, in 1907, Ince met actress Elinor Kershaw and they were married on October 19 of that year. They had three children, William T, richard Kershaw and Thomas H. Jr. Inces directing career began in 1910 through a chance encounter in New York City with an employee from his old acting troupe, William S. Hart. Ince found his first film work as an actor for the Biograph Company, directed by his future partner, Griffith was impressed enough with Ince to hire him as a Production coordinator at Biograph. This led to work coordinating productions at Carl Laemmles Independent Motion Pictures Co. And, although he tackled many different subjects, he was drawn to Westerns. Clashes between the trust and independent films became exacerbated, so Ince moved to California to escape these pressures and he hoped to achieve the effects accomplished with minimal facilities like Griffith, which he believed, could only be accomplished in Hollywood. After only a year with IMP, Ince quit, the offer came as a distinct shock, but I kept cool and concealed my excitement. I tried to convey the impression that he would have to raise the ante a trifle if he wanted me and that also worked, and I signed a contract for three months at $150 a week. Very soon after that, with Mrs. Ince, my cameraman, property man and Ethel Grandin, my leading woman, together with his young wife and a small entourage, Ince moved to Bison Studios to begin work immediately
5.
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles
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The area currently has about 27,000 residents. It is primarily an area, with a mixture of large private homes, small houses, condominiums. The district also includes some large parklands and many hiking trails, in 1911, film director Thomas Ince created his Western film factory, Inceville, which at its peak employed nearly 600 people. Believers snapped up choice lots and lived in tents during construction, by 1925, the Palisades had 100 homes. In one subdivision, streets were named for Methodist missionaries, the tents eventually were replaced by cabins, then by bungalows, and ultimately by multimillion-dollar homes. The climate of the area was a big selling point, temperatures are much cooler than inland Los Angeles during summer, but usually sunnier and less foggy than areas south along the coast. Adorno, Vicki Baum, Oskar Homolka and Emil Ludwig, Villa Aurora on Paseo Miramar, the Spanish colonial home of Feuchtwanger and his wife, Marta, became the focal point of the expatriate community, which was nicknamed Weimar by the Sea. For many decades there was a ban on drinking alcohol in the district. The Methodist Church created a Chautauqua Conference Grounds in Temescal Canyon, the Village is the Pacific Palisades central business district, centered at Sunset Boulevard and Via de la Paz. The Via Mesa and The Huntington Palisades are the neighborhoods that border the village proper to the south of Sunset Boulevard, both of these neighborhoods are easy walking distance to The Village and sit upon high bluffs that look out over the Pacific Ocean. Many of the homes in neighborhoods are accordingly afforded beautiful ocean views. The El Medio Mesa is located south of Sunset Boulevard beginning about a mile west of The Village. The El Medio Mesa extends for a distance from Temescal Canyon all the way to where Sunset Boulevard meets the Pacific Coast Highway. Castellammare is located along the Pacific Coast Highway on small bluffs much closer to sea-level and this is the home of the Getty Villa and the narrow, winding streets in this neighborhood have Italian names and ocean breezes. Palisades Highlands is a community near the end of Sunset Blvd, bordering Topanga, about five minutes away from the center of Pacific Palisades. The Highlands could almost be considered its own separate community high up the hill overlooking the ocean, Rustic Canyon is the neighborhood east of Chautauqua Boulevard that dips into Santa Monica Canyon and includes the Will Rogers State Historic Park. The neighborhood features post-war homes located on the polo field of The Uplifters, the original site of The Uplifters clubhouse. This area is known as Uplifters Ranch
6.
Colonnade
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In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curved, the space enclosed may be covered or open. In St. Peters Square in Rome, Berninis great colonnade encloses a vast open elliptical space, when in front of a building, screening the door, it is called a portico, when enclosing an open court, a peristyle. A portico may be more than one rank of columns deep, colonnades have been built since ancient times and interpretations of the classical model have continued through to modern times, and Neoclassical styles remained popular for centuries. At the British Museum, for example, porticos are continued along the front as a colonnade, the porch of columns that surrounds the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. can be termed a colonnade. The longest colonnade in the United States, with 36 Corinthian columns, is the New York State Education Building in Albany, New York
7.
D. W. Griffith
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David Wark D. W. Griffith was an American director, writer, and producer who pioneered modern filmmaking techniques. Griffith is best remembered for The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, the Birth of a Nation made use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film in the United States. Today, it is noted for its radical technique and condemned for its inherently racist philosophy. The film was subject to boycotts by the NAACP and, after screenings of the film had caused riots at several theaters, Intolerance, his next film, was, in part, an answer to his critics. By the time of his feature, The Struggle, he had made roughly 500 films. Griffith is one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and he is credited with popularizing the use of the close-up shot. Griffith was born on a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, Jacob was a Confederate Army colonel in the American Civil War and was elected as a Kentucky state legislator. He attended a one-room schoolhouse where he was taught by his older sister, after his father died when he was ten, the family struggled with poverty. When Griffith was 14, his mother abandoned the farm and moved the family to Louisville, Griffith then left high school to help support the family, taking a job in a dry goods store and later in a bookstore. Griffith began his career as an actor in touring companies. Meanwhile, he was learning how to become a playwright, but had little success—only one of his plays was accepted for a performance, Griffith then decided to become an actor, and appeared in many films as an extra. Griffith began making films in 1908, and released his first feature film, Judith of Bethulia. A few years earlier, in 1907, Griffith, still struggling as a playwright, Porter rejected Griffiths script, but gave him an acting part in Rescued from an Eagles Nest instead. Finding this attractive, Griffith began to explore a career as an actor in the picture business. At Biograph, Griffiths career in the industry would change forever. In 1908, Biographs main director Wallace McCutcheon grew ill, and his son, Wallace McCutcheon, McCutcheon, Jr. however, was not able to bring the studio any success. As a result, Biograph co-founder, Henry Harry Marvin, decided to give Griffith the position, Griffith would end up directing forty-eight shorts for the company that year. His short In Old California was the first film shot in Hollywood, four years later he produced and directed his first feature film Judith of Bethulia, one of the earliest to be produced in the United States
8.
Mack Sennett
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Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and actor and was known as an innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the King of Comedy and his short Wrestling Swordfish was awarded the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1932 and he earned an Academy Honorary Award in 1937. Born Michael Sinnott in Richmond Ste-Bibiane Parish, Quebec, Canada, he was the son of Irish Catholic John Sinnott and Catherine Foy, the newlyweds moved the same year to Richmond, where John Sinnott was hired as a laborer. By 1883, when Michaels brother George was born, John Sinnott was working in Richmond as an innkeeper, John Sinnott and Catherine Foy had all their children and raised their family in Richmond, then a small Eastern Townships village. At that time, Michaels grandparents were living in Danville, Québec, Michael Sinnott moved to Connecticut when he was 17 years old. He lived for a while in Northampton, Massachusetts, where, according to his autobiography and he claimed that the most respected lawyer in town, Northampton mayor Calvin Coolidge, as well as Sennetts own mother, tried to talk him out of his musical ambitions. In New York City, Sennett became an actor, singer, dancer, clown, set designer, a major distinction in his acting career, often overlooked, is the fact that Sennett played Sherlock Holmes eleven times, albeit as a parody, between 1911 and 1913. With financial backing from Adam Kessel and Charles O. Bauman of the New York Motion Picture Company, Michael Mack Sennett founded Keystone Studios in Edendale, the original main building which was the first totally enclosed film stage and studio ever constructed, is still there today. Mack Sennetts slapstick comedies were noted for their wild car chases, additionally, Sennetts first female comedian was Mabel Normand, who became a major star under his direction and with whom he embarked on a tumultuous romantic relationship. Sennett also developed the Kid Comedies, a forerunner of the Our Gang films, two of those often named as Bathing Beauties do not belong on the list, Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Mabel Normand was a player, and her 1912 8-minute film The Water Nymph may have been the direct inspiration for the Bathing Beauties. Although Gloria Swanson worked for Sennett in 1916 and was photographed in a suit, she was also a star. Not individually featured or named, many of young women ascended to significant careers of their own. They included Juanita Hansen, Claire Anderson, Marie Prevost, Phyllis Haver, in the 1920s Sennetts Bathing Beauties remained popular enough to provoke imitators like the Christie Studios Bathing Beauties and Fox Film Corporations Sunshine Girls. The Sennett Bathing Beauties would continue to appear through 1928, in 1917, Sennett gave up the Keystone trademark and organized his own company, Mack Sennett Comedies Corporation. Sennett went on to more ambitious comedy short films and a few feature-length films. During the 1920s, his subjects were in much demand, featuring stars like Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, Harry Gribbon, Vernon Dent, Alice Day, Ralph Graves, Charlie Murray. He produced several features with his brightest stars such as Ben Turpin, many of Sennetts films of the early 1920s were inherited by Warner Bros
9.
Loews Cineplex Entertainment
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From 1924 until 1959, it was also the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. The Loews name is used by AMC in many markets. Its slogan was Thank you for coming to Loews, sit back and relax, which was used in the chains theater policy ads from the 1980s through the 1990s, when Sony rebranded the chain. The company was originally called Loews, after the founder, Marcus Loew, in 1969, when the Tisch brothers acquired the company, it became known as Loews. Loews Theatres Incorporated was founded in 1904 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Loew founded a chain of nickelodeon theaters which showed short silent films in storefront locations. Soon the successful enterprise grew to include deluxe vaudeville houses and finally lavish movie palaces, Loews theaters were found in cities from coast-to-coast, but primarily in East Coast and Midwest states. To provide quality films for his theaters, Loew founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures in 1924, by merging the earlier firms Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Productions. Loews Incorporated served as distribution arm and parent company for the studio until the two were forced to separate by the 1948 U. S. Supreme Court ruling United States v. Paramount Pictures, the two companies officially split in 1959. Loews Corporation by this time was a company owned by brothers Robert. CBS left Tri-Star in 1985, and HBO left the venture and Tri-Star merged with Columbia Pictures in 1987, upon the full acquisition of Tri-Star by Columbia Pictures, and when Columbia was bought from Coca-Cola by Sony in 1989, Sony inherited the theaters as well. For a while, Loews operated under the Sony Theaters banner, in 1994, Sony partnered with Magic Johnson to form Magic Johnson Theaters, a mini-chain of theaters specifically geared toward the inner cities, particularly in Los Angeles. A year before, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound was installed in theaters since the parent company used it to promote Sonys cinema sound division. In 1998, Cineplex Odeon Corporation merged with Loews Theaters to form Loews Cineplex Entertainment, the combined company was one of the largest movie exhibitors in the world, with theaters in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and Spain. In 2001, though, the company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in 2002, Onex Corporation and Oaktree Capital Management acquired Loews Cineplex. In 2004, they sold Loews to a group of investors which included the Carlyle Group. Onex retained the Canadian Loews Cineplex to form Cineplex Galaxy LP, in 2005, AMC Theatres announced that it would merge with Loews Cineplex Entertainment and that the merged company would adopt the AMC name. The Loews name is used in many markets. At the time of the merger, Loews operated 198 theaters with 2,235 screens, Loews Wonder Theaters United States v. Loews Inc
