| Established in 1924, MGM is
tied for the fifth-oldest movie studio in history
with Columbia Pictures. From the end of the
silent film era through World War II, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
was the most prominent motion picture studio
in Hollywood, with the greatest output of all
of the studios and at its height was releasing
an average of one feature film a week. From
the outset, MGM tapped into the audience's need
for glamour and sophistication. Having inherited
few big names from their predecessor companies,
Louis B Mayer and Irving Thalberg began at once
to create and publicize a host of new stars,
among them Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, William
Haines, Norma Shearer, and Joan Crawford.. The
arrival of talking pictures in 1928–29
gave opportunities to other new stars, many
of whom would carry MGM through the 1930s: Clark
Gable, Jean Harlow, Robert Montgomery, Myrna
Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, and Nelson Eddy among
the most popular.
MGM was one of the first studios to experiment
with filming in Technicolor. MGM's first all-color,
"all-talking" sound feature with
dialogue was the 1930 musical The Rogue Song.
In 1934 MGM introduced the first live-action
film made in Technicolor's superior new three-color
process, a musical number in the otherwise
black and white The Cat and the Fiddle. The
studio then produced a number of three-color
short subjects including 1935's musical La
Fiesta de Santa Barbara, however MGM waited
until 1938 to film a complete feature in the
process, Sweethearts with Jeanette MacDonald.
From then on, MGM regularly produced several
films a year in Technicolor, The Wizard of
Oz being just one of the most notable. After
1940, production was cut from fifty pictures
a year to a more manageable twenty-five features
per year. It was during this time that MGM
released very successful musicals with newly-acquired
contract players such as Judy Garland, Fred
Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Frank Sinatra, to
name just a few.
MGM found it difficult to attract audiences
after the war. While other studios backed
away from the popular musicals of the war
years, MGM increased its output to as many
as five or six each year, roughly one-quarter
of its annual output. Such pictures were expensive
to produce, requiring a full staff of songwriters,
arrangers, musicians, dancers, and technical
support, and releasing so many each year affected
the company’s finances. MGM still produced
some well-regarded musicals, among them An
American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain and
The Band Wagon. However, it was a losing fight,
as the mass audience preferred to stay home
and watch television. (An American in Paris
and Singin' in the Rain, as well as the 1951
Technicolor remake of Show Boat, were box
office hits; The Band Wagon was not.)
In 1958, MGM released what is generally considered
their last great musical, Arthur Freed's widescreen,
color production of Gigi, starring Leslie
Caron, Maurice Chevalier, and Louis Jourdan.
Adapted from the novel by Colette, and written
by the team of Lerner and Loewe, who also
wrote My Fair Lady and Camelot, Gigi was a
boxoffice and critical smash, won nine Academy
Awards including Best Picture, and from it
came several hit songs, including Thank Heaven
For Little Girls, I Remember It Well, the
Waltz at Maxim's, and the Oscar-winning title
song. The film was the last MGM musical to
win a Best Picture Oscar, an honor that had
previously gone to The Broadway Melody (1929),
The Great Ziegfeld (1936), and An American
in Paris (1951).
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