Universal Studios Essay Research Paper The story — страница 2

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musical Broadway (1929), directed by Paul Fejos, and the classic anti-war film All Quiet On The Western Front (1930), directed by Lewis Milestone. The studio also struck gold when it launched its horror cycle with two classic 1931 films: Dracula, directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi, and Frankenstein, directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff. A series of genre classics ensued in the next few years, most notably Whale's The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), and The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935); The Murders In The Rue Morgue (1932) with Lugosi; The Mummy (1932) with Karloff; and The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935) with Karloff and Lugosi. The studio also had hits in the early '30s with romantic dramas directed by John M. Stahl: Back

Street (1932), Imitation Of Life (1934), and Magnificent Obsession (1935). Nevertheless, the Depression brought a severe cash shortage for the studio, and in 1936 Universal was bought out by Wall Street investor J. Cheever Cowdin. The Laemmles were ushered out, Cowdin became chairman of the board, and former RKO executive Charles R. Rogers became the studio's head of production. After finishing up such lavish 1936 efforts as the musical Show Boat, directed by James Whale, and the comedy My Man Godfrey, directed by Gregory La Cava, the studio returned to making low-budget programmers. Producer Joe Pasternak made a series of musicals starring Deanna Durbin, starting with Three Smart Girls (1936), which saved Universal from bankruptcy. Actor Buster Crabbe also sold a lot of tickets

starring in such popular serials as Flash Gordon's Trip To Mars (1938) and Buck Rogers (1939). Nate J. Blumberg became president of the company in 1938, and by 1939, Universal could flex its muscles again with such notable releases as The Son Of Frankenstein with Karloff and Lugosi; You Can't Cheat An Honest Man with W.C. Fields and Edgar Bergen; and the comic Western Destry Rides Again with James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. Fields made his final classic comedies at Universal in the early 1940s: My Little Chickadee (1940) with Mae West, The Bank Dick (1940), and Never Give A Sucker An Even Break (1941). Even more lucrative for the studio were the comedies of Abbott & Costello, starting in 1941 with Buck Privates and In The Navy; by 1942, they were the industry's top

box-office stars. Popular comedies also came from the team of Olsen & Johnson: Hellzapoppin (1941), Crazy House (1943), and Ghost Catchers (1944). In 1942 producer Walter Wanger teamed Maria Montez and Jon Hall and had a hit with Arabian Nights, Universal's first Technicolor film. More colorful and exotic costumers followed starring Montez and Hall, including White Savage (1943), Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves (1944), and Cobra Woman (1944). Lon Chaney Jr. also became a star at Universal in such memorable horror films as The Wolf Man (1941), The Ghost Of Frankenstein (1942), and Son Of Dracula (1943). Among the studio's more prestigious wartime releases were two classic thrillers from director Alfred Hitchcock, Saboteur (1942) and Shadow Of A Doubt (1943); a lavish remake of

The Phantom Of The Opera (1943), starring Claude Rains; and the psychological drama Scarlet Street (1945), produced and directed by Fritz Lang. In 1946 Universal merged with the International Pictures Corp. of Leo Spitz and William Goetz; they became the new production heads and the studio changed its name to Universal-International. That same year, the studio concluded a deal with England's J. Arthur Rank organization, becoming the American distributor of their films; Universal also launched its subsidiary United World Pictures, which produced and distributed non-theatrical films — including the huge libraries of Bell & Howell Filmsound and Castle Films. Universal's committment to B-pictures waned during these years, with the studio investing in fewer and more expensive

films. Its noteworthy releases of the late '40s include the noirs The Killers (1946) and Ride The Pink Horse (1947); the psychological drama A Double Life (1947), starring Ronald Colman and directed by George Cukor; the comedy The Egg And I (1947), which in turn launched Universal's lucrative 1950s series of low-budget "Ma & Pa Kettle" comedies starring Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride; the semi-documentary crime film The Naked City (1948); Fritz Lang's thriller The Secret Beyond The Door (1948); and the Abbott & Costello comedies Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and Africa Screams (1949). Through Rank, Universal handled such classics as director David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946); The Seventh Veil (1945) and Odd Man