- Mascot Pictures
-
Mascot Pictures Corporation Industry Film studio Fate Merged Successor Republic Pictures Founded 1927 Defunct 1935 Headquarters First: Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, United States
Later: Studio City, Los Angeles, California, United StatesKey people Nat Levine Products The King of the Kongo (1929)
The Shadow of the Eagle (1932)
In Old Santa Fe (1934)
The Phantom Empire (1935)The Mascot Pictures Corporation was a minor film company of the 1920s and 1930s best known for producing film serials and B-westerns. Mascot's serial The King of the Kongo (1929) was the first serial to include sound, beating Universal Studios by several months.
Mascot was formed in 1927 by Film producer Nat Levine. In 1935 it merged with other companies to form Republic Pictures.
The company's logo featured a roaring tiger resting on top of a model of the planet Earth.
Contents
Early years
Mascot was created by Nat Levine, a former personal secretary to Marcus Loew, in 1927 after the success of his independent serial The Silent Flyer (1926).
In the beginning the production company operated out of the upstairs offices of a contractor's business on Santa Monica Boulevard. The company rented all of its equipment and facilities.
In 1929 the studio made serial history with the production of The King of the Kongo. This was the first serial, from any production company, to be made with sound. Mascot's first All-Talking production was The Phantom of the West (1931)
Sennett Studios
It was from small Mascot Pictures, but Ladies Crave Excitement (1935) still packed "Bursting Action, Deep Drama...And Up To Date Romance" into its 73 minutes. Supervising editor Joseph H. Lewis would soon become a prolific director of B Westerns. His later film noirs, including the independently produced Gun Crazy (1949), would become renowned.
By 1933, Mascot was successful enough to rent, and later buy, Sennett Studios after the original owner, famous producer-director Mack Sennett, went bankrupt because of the Great Depression. This made the company a true film studio. That studio lot is now CBS Studio Center.
Mascot was responsible for the popularity of the concept of the "singing cowboy" and the "musical Western". In 1935, the studio produced The Phantom Empire with the then untried Gene Autry as the lead.
Republic Pictures
Mascot's film developer was Consolidated Film Corporation. In 1935, under pressure from that company's owner, Herbert Yates, Mascot merged with Consolidated Film and Monogram Pictures to form the larger Republic Pictures. Mascot became the serial and B-Western elements of the company, along with their studio. Along with other things, Monogram provided their distribution network and technical and financial elements came from Consolidated Film.
Two other companies, Liberty Pictures and Majestic Pictures, rejected the offer and soon went out of business.
Legacy
Several careers began at Mascot Pictures.
Actors
Production crew
Filmography
Additionally,
- The Silent Flyer (1926) was created by Nat Levine but was not strictly a Mascot production
See also
- List of film serials by studio includes a list of serials produced by Mascot.
Further reading
- The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures 1927-1935; Tuska, Jon; 1999 (McFarland Classics); ISBN 978-0786407491
External links
- Mascot Pictures at the Internet Movie Database
- Mascot Pictures at (re)Search my Trash
- Nat Levine & Mascot Pictures at B-Westerns
Mascot serials Serials Silent Serials
(1926-1929)Part-Sound Serials
(1929)All-Sound Serials
(1930-1935)The Lone Defender • The Phantom of the West • King of the Wild • The Vanishing Legion • The Galloping Ghost • The Lightning Warrior • The Shadow of the Eagle • The Last of the Mohicans • The Hurricane Express • The Devil Horse • The Whispering Shadow • The Three Musketeers • Fighting with Kit Carson • The Wolf Dog • The Mystery Squadron • The Lost Jungle • Burn 'Em Up Barnes • The Law of the Wild • Mystery Mountain • The Phantom Empire • The Miracle Rider • The Adventures of Rex and Rinty • The Fighting MarinesSee also Categories:- Film distributors
- Defunct American movie studios
- Companies established in 1927
- Companies disestablished in 1935
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
