Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) American film production company, the most prestigious of Hollywood studios during the Golden Age of American cinema. MGM was formed in 1924 through the mergers of the Metro Picture Corporation, the Goldwyn Picture Corporation, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Financial control rested with the New York banking firm of Loew’s Inc, which also controlled the Marcus Loew chain of cinemas.

From its formation until 1951 the studio was run by Louis B. Mayer. Under his autocratic rule MGM concentrated above all on glamour, building up a roster of stars that included Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, James Stewart, Mickey Rooney, the Barrymores (Lionel, Ethel, and John), Norma Shearer, Spencer Tracy, and Elizabeth Taylor—”More stars than there are in heaven” was the studio’s boast. The famous roaring-lion logo heralded elegant, polished productions, lavishly mounted, appealing to audiences’ emotions and sense of wonder, if rarely to their intellects.

Until 1936 production at MGM was entrusted to Mayer’s second-in-command, the “Boy Wonder” Irving Thalberg. Among the classic films produced during his tenure were Ben-Hur (1925, directed by Fred Niblo), The Crowd (1928, King Vidor), Grand Hotel (1932, Edmund Goulding), David Copperfield (1934, George Cukor), and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935, Frank Lloyd). After Thalberg’s death production continued in the same polished style with such films as The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming), Ninotchka (1939, Ernst Lubitsch), The Philadelphia Story (1940, Cukor), and Mrs Miniver (1942, William Wyler), though Mayer’s heart was always in more populist fare such as the Andy Hardy films (1937-1947) starring Mickey Rooney.

MGM’s second golden age was the era of the great Metro musicals produced by Arthur Freed, including Meet Me in St Louis (1944, Vincente Minnelli), Easter Parade (1948, Charles Walters), On the Town (1949, Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, based on the musical by Leonard Bernstein), An American in Paris (1951, Minnelli), Singin’ in the Rain (1952, Kelly and Donen), Brigadoon (1954, Minnelli), and Gigi (1958, Minnelli). Mayer was ousted, to his great indignation, in 1951 and the more cerebral Dore Schary took over. By the 1960s, with audiences turning to television, the company’s high point was past. After a series of mergers, it survived only as a name within a larger entertainment conglomerate until 2005, when MGM was acquired by the electronics giant Sony.