Selznick International Pictures
Selznick International Pictures was producer David O. Selznick's film studio . Between 1936 and 1948, the film studio published a total of 15 productions, including classics such as Gone With the Wind and Rebecca .
history
Beginnings
The producer David O. Selznick had numerous box office successes at MGM in the mid-1930s with films such as Escape from Paris and David Copperfield . Selznick, however, wanted greater power and freedom of choice in his films, which he could not get at MGM. That is why he founded Selznick International Pictures as his own small film studio together with investor John Hay Whitney in 1935. All in all, David Selznick had initially collected a capital of three million US dollars through donations and investments by various people without having to pay a dollar himself. His good reputation as a successful producer also came to his aid.
David O. Selznick rented a small plot of land in Culver City that once belonged to Thomas Harper Ince . A white villa was the headquarters of Selznick International and became the trademark of the studio: At the beginning of each film, the white villa can be seen briefly with a sign "Selznick International Pictures" in front of it.
Artistic aspects
When he founded his film studio, Selznick defined his artistic and commercial aspirations as follows: “There are only two types of merchandising that are successful in the film business: either you make very cheap films or you make very expensive films. For us there is no alternative, we have to measure ourselves against the very best. "
The production costs of Selznick's films were therefore mostly above average compared to films from other Hollywood studios. The tenth Selznick film Gone with the Wind was even the most expensive film of all time in 1939 at just under four million US dollars and drove the cost of making a film to new heights. At the same time, well-known directors were hired behind the camera, including Alfred Hitchcock , whom Selznick piloted from England to Hollywood in 1940 for the film Rebecca . Director John Cromwell shot four times with Selznick. The composer Max Steiner , the film editor Hal C. Kern and the film architect William Cameron Menzies also worked for Selznick several times .
Most of the films were cast with well-known actors down to the smallest supporting roles, but they did not shy away from starring completely unknown people like Vivien Leigh . In terms of the cast, there were also extensive marketing campaigns, for example 25,000 boys were allegedly tested for the lead role for the film Tom's Adventure , and Gone with the Wind was also looking for the actress Scarlett O'Hara across the country.
The studio had mainly specialized in literary adaptations, but also shot comedies or dramas without a template. Selznick International Pictures actually wanted to produce around six to eight films a year, but this never happened. David O. Selznick was a perfectionist who wanted to know every detail in his films correctly, wanted to have the power to make decisions, so that the production times of the films were usually long. But the finished films mostly received high praise from critics; Gone with the Wind and Rebecca even received the Oscar for best film of the year and only four of the fifteen films received no Oscar nominations.
The finished films were not distributed by Selznick Pictures, but by United Artists . The only exception is Gone With the Wind , published by MGM.
Task of the studio
In the first few years at Selznick International Pictures there were both commercial successes such as A Star Rises as well as failures, for example , nothing is sacred to those who lost 400,000 US dollars. Overall, however, the company turned out to be not very profitable. The greatest triumph for Selznick International Pictures was Gone with the Wind , which is still the most commercially successful film of all time, adjusted for inflation, at 3.8 billion US dollars. However, it was not Selznick that received the lion's share of the revenue, but the MGM film studio, which brought the film into distribution. In 1940 Selznick had another box office success with Rebecca .
But in the early 1940s, Selznick decided to give up the studio and resell the rights to his films. Reasons for this were that he needed money for future film projects and the studio was more of a losing business until Gone With the Wind . In addition, there was a lack of investors who could have ensured the company's long-term survival. Selznick sold the rights for most of the films to other film studios, only four films came under the public domain over the decades .
After Rebecca , four more films were released because Selznick's contract with United Artist required it. On December 25, 1948, the 15th and last film by Selznick International Pictures was released with Jenny .
Filmography
| German title | Original title | Publication (in the USA) | Director | Oscars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The little Lord | Little Lord Fauntleroy | April 2, 1936 | John Cromwell | / |
| The garden of Allah | The Garden of Allah | November 19, 1936 | Richard Boleslawski | 2 nominations |
| A star is rising | A star is born | April 27, 1937 | William A. Wellman | 1 Oscar, plus 6 nominations |
| The prisoner of Zenda | The Prisoner of Zenda | September 3, 1937 | John Cromwell | 2 nominations |
| Nothing is sacred to them | Nothing Sacred | November 25, 1937 | William A. Wellman | / |
| Tom's adventure | The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | February 11, 1938 | Norman Taurog | 1 nomination |
| A crook with a heart | The Young in Heart | November 3, 1938 | Richard Wallace | 3 nominations |
| An ideal couple | Made for Each Other | February 10, 1939 | John Cromwell | / |
| intermezzo | Intermezzo, a love story | September 22, 1939 | Gregory Ratoff | 2 nominations |
| Blown by the wind | Gone with the Wind | December 15, 1939 | Victor Fleming | 10 Oscars, plus 5 nominations |
| Rebecca | Rebecca | April 12, 1940 | Alfred Hitchcock | 2 Oscars, plus 9 nominations |
| When you said goodbye | Since You Went Away | July 20, 1944 | John Cromwell | 1 Oscar, plus 8 nominations |
| I will see you again | I'll be seeing you | January 5, 1945 | William Dieterle | / |
| I'm fighting for you | Spellbound | December 28, 1945 | Alfred Hitchcock | 1 Oscar, plus 5 nominations |
| Jenny | Portrait of Jenny | December 25, 1948 | William Dieterle | 1 Oscar, plus 1 nomination |
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/david-o-selznick_intro.htm
- ^ Schatz, Thomas (1996). The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. Owl Books. P. 178 ISBN 0-8050-4666-6 .
- ↑ http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/david-o-selznick_intro.htm