Silent Wierdness: Born Today August 17: Samuel Goldwyn

Monday, August 17, 2020

Born Today August 17: Samuel Goldwyn

1879-1974

For fans of film history and those who even casually watch silent films, Samuel Goldwyn needs no introduction! Goldwyn is the G in MGM. Born Shmuel (Schmuel) Gelfisz on this day in Warsaw, Poland when it was still a part of the Russian Empire (the year of his birth has been a matter up for question for decades--but for our purposes, 1879 will do). He grew up in a Hasidic household; he was the eldest child and his father was a struggling furniture dealer (mostly of second hand goods). After his father's untimely death--and the weight of the family fell to his young shoulders, he fled to Hamburg, Germany. The greater family had relatives living in the UK (England) and Shumel had plans to make his way to them. In the meantime, he trained as an apprentice to a local glove maker. Eventually saving up enough funds to make his way to his relatives in Birmingham, England--it was his relations there who changed his name to "Samuel Goldfish"--in part to disguise his origins. He didn't remain with them for long, before getting money (reportedly by any means necessary) to sail to the North American continent. He sailed out of Liverpool either for Canada or the east coast of the U.S. (probably the former) on the 4 of January 1899 (accounts of Goldwyn's time with his relatives in England vary--some having him in the country as early as 1895--though the later date of 1898 appears correct). Goldwyn (Goldfish) arrived either in Canada or the US a couple of weeks later and was in Philadelphia by the 19th of the month. He then made his way into the upstate New York garment industry located around Glovesville (it was called that for a good reason, as it was the "capital" of glove-making in the U.S. at the time). It turned out that Samuel had prodigious talents has a salesman and marketer. It did not take him long to rise in the company. He eventually was named vice-president of the Elite Glove Company, and after spending nearly five years in that position in upstate, his money allowed him to relocate to New York City. There is NO mystery as to how Goldfish made it into motion pictures. In 1910, he had wed one Blanche Lasky, who was the sister of...you guessed it....Jesse Lasky. Lasky had long been involved in performance, he had gone from being a popular vaudeville performer to successful Broadway producer, meeting the DeMille's along the way--it was only natural for Lasky and Cecil B. De Mille to want to venture into films....but they needed a capital investment--hence the involvement of his brother-in-law--the newly rich Samuel Goldfish (mind you, there are plenty of stories that have Samuel pressuring the two stage producers into films--either way, the rest is history). The new company that was set up was The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. Goldfish was involved in the film business years before any official credit came to his name. The ground breaking and history making film The Squaw Man, which lays serious claim to being the first feature length film made in Hollywood was the company's out of the gate picture--it was co-directed by De Mille and Oscar Apfel (another founder at Lasky Feature Play).

Promotional put together by Samuel, bearing his original Anglicizied name and his titles at Lasky.

Way, way back in the day, the company that we now know as "Paramount" was in it's earliest days a fledgling distribution company--it was initially a exhibition house involved in nickelodeons, that got into film exchanges (or brokering) between companies. Ever the businessman and from rags to riches European immigrant himself, Adolph Zukor, had been in a film distribution deal with the company for some time. In June of 1914 Lasky also penned an agreement with with Paramount. As essentially the only production houses providing films to Paramount, it was only a matter time before the two companies merged. This occurred two years later in June, thus creating one the biggest actual film studios to thus far exist (it was more than likely this merger that put the nail in the coffin of the Edison film production house, which closed it's film making facilities for good in 1918). The company was Famous Players-Lasky, but Zukor, in a basically dirty tricks move had also been secretly purchasing stock in Paramount--he pulled a coup just before the merger of Player and Lasky. Ousting everyone at Paramount and replacing them with his own people, and putting the Lasky people in charge of the newly merged entity, it was also only a matter of time before tensions flared. Cutting a very long story a little short, this lead to Goldfish forming his own company and producing his own films. Again returning to Broadway to find capable producers and directors, he convinced the famous Selwyn brothers to come in with him forming Goldwyn Pictures. It was not long thereafter that Goldfish legally changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn (stuff of legends now, I suppose). Absolutely the most famous thing that Goldwyn Pictures introduced was is logo/marketing mascot "Leo the Lion." One the production houses first films as Polly of the Circus in 1917; a Mae Marsh film, of which the newly "minted" Goldwyn was the executive producer.

Between 1917 and 1924, he racked up the vast majority of his direct production credits, with roughly the other 1/4 or 1/3 coming with his new independent company established in 1924. During the company's existence, a sampling of directors who worked for them include George Fitzmaurice, Tod Browning, George Loane Tucker, Wallace Worsley, Albert Parker, Allan Dwan and western specialist Clarence G. Badger. In 1924, Goldwyn Pictures was acquired Marcus Loew's company Metro in April--his company having already acquired a small production company out in California called "Mayer"--thus creating the famous MGM that we know today, despite his name in the company logo, Goldwyn himself never had any position with the famous company. Goldwyn, though, was never out of pictures however, not even for a day. He established Samuel Goldwyn Production in 1923, it would become the premiere independent film production house in Hollywood's golden age.

The company actually came "online" in 1923, before the finalized sale of Goldwyn Pictures to Metro. The first film produced was Potash and Perlmutter, directed by Badger, who had come with Goldwyn to his new company. While the company had most of it's biggest successes out of the silent era, it did have at least a couple of notable titles to it's name in the 1920's. Biggest among them was most certainly Stella Dallas in 1925 (in 1925 Goldwyn himself [not his company] was involved personally with the production of Ben Hur). The company was also responsible for the reboot of Bulldog Drummond character, bringing the hard boiled literary character to sounded film for the first time in 1929 (Ronald Colman as Bulldog). By 1926, a full studio facility had been built in Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd. and films like the comedy Partners Again (1926) were filmed completely on site there. Among the directors working for this new Goldwyn company were Fred Niblo, Henry King, Victor Fleming and Herbert Brenon. In fact it was a Fred Niblo film that first contained sound produced at the studio: Two Lovers, a historical romantic drama that contained sound effects and a musical score by Western Electric, the film starred Vílma Banky and Ronald Colman (in a funny bit of trivia--Colman's character uses an alias...."Leatherface" 😆). The Herbert Brenon directed adventure romance (also starring Coleman) The Rescue was the first full talkie for the studio--released in January 1929. The company's last release in the 1920's was a full on talking melodrama, filmed partially on location on the Santa Catalina Island and starring....yes...Ronald Colman. Condemned! was released on the 3rd of November.

There first release of the brand new decade (the company's most successful 10 years!) was the cat burglar "crime romance" Raffles, released in July of 1930 and starring....yes...Ronald Colman again. The studio also quickly got into the musical business starting with Whoopee! (October 1930) starring funny man Eddie Cantor; and added King Vidor to their list of directors who made pictures with them with Street Scene starring new-comer Sylvia Sidney being his first. But it was with Arrowsmith in 1931 that the studio hit pay-dirt, the film was directed by John Ford was nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture (and...it starred, you guessed it! Ronald Colman). It was the first of several films to be nominated thusly during the 1930's. The studio's best investment was in the hiring of director William Wyler, though he was replaced by Howard Hawks on Barbury Coast, his Dodsworth was not only nominated for 7 Oscars, it won for Best Art Direction. Other Goldwyn produced Wyler films that garnered Oscar nominations include Dead End (1937) again with Sylvia Sidney, Wuthering Heights (1938) with Merle Oberon (which won for Best Cinematography) & Little Foxes (1941) with Bette Davis. The production company also remade it's Stella Dallas in 1937, directed by Vidor--it too was nominated for Academy Awards. Goldwyn himself would go to be honored by the Academy in 1946 with the Irving B. Thalberg Memorial Award, an irony given that Thalberg was famous as head of production for MGM. Goldwyn was the 8th recipient of the award. His last production credit came in 1959 with Porgy And Bess starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Danridge, Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis Jr.--nominated for 4 Academy Awards, it won for Best Score. Goldwyn's next-to-last producer credit came on his only foray into television on the made-for television science fiction film The Unexplained based on a Ray Bradbury story (teleplay by Raphael Hayes)--it aired on the 10th of July in 1956. He then retired to his home on Laurel Lane. He died in the home on New Year's Eve in 1974 at the age of 94. He was buried in a sort-of unmarked grave (in Hasidic tradition) in a special private garden with no public access at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. Goldwyn's second marriage was to actress Frances Howard, who had a very short career. Their son followed his father into the business, as hae several grandchildren have gotten into the business in various capacities. Unfortunately, a number of his family members left behind in Poland died at the hands of the Nazi's during the Holocaust, despite the family's best efforts to get them out of Europe.