The History of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer dates back to 1924 through the merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures by businessman Marcus Loew. Though it was the last studio to convert to making sound films, MGM emerged as the dominant motion picture studio from the end of the silent era until the late 1950s, and was among the first to experiment with Technicolor. MGM's early successes throughout the 1930s included The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, while the 1940s saw its expansion into the cartoon business, where it found success with Tom and Jerry. The 1950s saw the end of the studio's heyday, though films such as Gigi and a remake of Ben-Hur still performed well and were widely acclaimed.
By the 1960s, MGM became increasingly unprofitable, and the studio was bought by businessman Kirk Kerkorian in 1969, who drastically pared budgets and production costs, sold off studio real estate and auctioned off historic props, costumes and other memorabilia. The studio ceased distributing its own films in 1973 after making a ten-year distribution deal with United Artists. The studio's 1969 casino venture would eventually be split from the studio into MGM Resorts International by 1980. A series of ownership changes throughout the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s left the studio with a significant amount of debt, and it declared bankruptcy in 2010. In 2022, MGM was acquired by Amazon Studios.
Throughout its existence, MGM has had a substantial impact on the history of cinema in the United States. MGM films have continued to receive numerous accolades; its first Academy Award was issued in 1930 for The Broadway Melody, and American Fiction is the most recent MGM-distributed film to win, doing so in 2024. The 1959 remake of Ben-Hur set the record for the most Academy Award wins of any film. The studio's mascot Leo the Lion and motto Ars Gratia Artis have gone to become widely recognized symbols of the company. Numerous MGM films are now preserved by the National Film Registry due to being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Founding and early years
In 1924, movie-theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem. He had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for $3 million to provide a steady supply of films for his large Loew's Theatres chain. However, he found that his new property only provided a lackluster assortment of films. Seeking to solve this problem, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 for $5 million to improve the quality of the films shown in his theaters. Loew acquired the Goldwyn studio, including its Culver City studio lot, its Leo the Lion "Ars Gratia Artis" slogan and its contracted stars and projects, after negotiations with its president, Frank Joseph Godsol, as Samuel Goldwyn had lost control of the company bearing his name that he had formed in 1922. Goldwyn reluctantly sold his remaining interest in Goldwyn Pictures to Loew for $1 million.
However, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed at New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. A solution came with Louis B. Mayer, head of Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Loew bought the Mayer studio for $75,000. Loews Incorporated completed the merger of its theater chain and the three studios on April 17, 1924, celebrated with a fete on April 26, 1924. Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with 24-year-old Irving Thalberg as head of production. Final approval over budgets and contracts rested with New York City-based Loews Inc., while production decisions rested with the production headquarters in Culver City.
MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years. In 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Also in 1925, MGM, Paramount Pictures and UFA formed a joint German distributor, Parufamet. Translation
Marcus Loew died in 1927 and control of Loew's passed to Nicholas Schenck. In 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew family's holdings with Schenck's assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision. Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds. In the summer of 1929, Fox was seriously injured in an automobile accident. By the time that he recovered, the stock-market crash in the fall of 1929 had nearly bankrupted Fox and ended any chance of the Loew's merger. Schenck and Mayer had an acrimonious relationship (Mayer reportedly referred to Schenck as "Mr. Skunk"), and the abortive Fox merger increased the animosity.
1920s
From the outset, MGM capitalized on filmgoers' desire for glamor and sophistication. Having inherited few big names from their predecessor companies, Mayer and Thalberg began at once to create and publicize a host of new stars, among them Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, William Haines and Norma Shearer (who followed Thalberg from Universal and eventually married him). Established names such as Wallace Beery, Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, and William Powell were hired from other studios. They also hired top directors such as Clarence Brown, Tod Browning, Victor Seastrom, King Vidor and Erich von Stroheim. The arrival of talking pictures in 1928–29 afforded opportunities to other new stars, many of whom would carry MGM through the 1930s, such as Clark Gable, Nelson Eddy, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald (often paired with Eddy), Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor and Spencer Tracy.
MGM was among the first studios to experiment with filming in Technicolor. Using the two-color Technicolor process, MGM filmed portions of The Uninvited Guest (1924), The Big Parade (1925) and Ben-Hur (1925) in the process. MGM released The Viking (1928), the first complete Technicolor feature with a synchronized score and sound effects, but with no spoken dialogue.
With the arrival of sound film, MGM moved slowly and reluctantly into the new era, releasing features such as White Shadows in the South Seas (1928) with music and sound effects and Alias Jimmy Valentine (1928) with limited dialogue sequences. The studio's first full-fledged talkie, the musical The Broadway Melody (1929), was a box-office success and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
1930s MGM was the last major studio to convert to sound. The studio's first all-color, "all-talking" sound feature with dialogue was the musical The Rogue Song in 1930. MGM included a sequence shot in Technicolor's superior new three-color process, a musical number in the otherwise black-and-white The Cat and the Fiddle (1934), starring Jeanette MacDonald and Ramon Novarro. The studio then produced a number of three-color short subjects, including the musical La Fiesta de Santa Barbara (1935). Its first complete Technicolor feature was Sweethearts (1938) with MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, the earlier of the popular singing team's two films in color. After that point, MGM regularly produced several Technicolor films per year, with Northwest Passage (1939) perhaps one of the most notable of the era.
In addition to a large short-subjects program of its own, MGM also distributed the shorts and features produced by Hal Roach Studios, including comedy shorts starring Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, and Charley Chase. The studio's distribution deal with Roach lasted from 1927 to 1938, and MGM benefited in particular from the success of the popular Laurel and Hardy films. In 1938, MGM purchased the rights to the Our Gang series from Roach and production of the successful series moved to the MGM studios, where it continued until 1944. From 1929 to 1931, MGM produced a series of comedy shorts titled All Barkie Dogville Comedies in which trained dogs were dressed in clothing to parody contemporary films, with voices supplied by actors. One of the shorts, The Dogway Melody (1930), spoofed MGM's hit 1929 musical The Broadway Melody.
MGM entered the music industry by purchasing the "Big Three" starting with Miller Music Publishing Co. in 1934, then Robbins Music Corporation. In 1935, MGM acquired a controlling interest in the capital stock of Leo Feist, Inc., the last of the Big Three. In the 1934 California gubernatorial election, Democratic nominee Upton Sinclair ran against Republican incumbent Frank Merriam, whom MGM supported. MGM and other film studios deducted a day's pay from each of their employees to raise an anti-Sinclair fund that amounted to $500,000. Thalberg led the anti-Sinclair campaign and the studio recruited Carey Wilson to create a series of propaganda films directed by Felix E. Feist. The films included fake newsreels of Sinclair supporters who were portrayed as bums and criminals. They were shown in California cinemas, with one episode featuring hired actors as Sinclair supporters speaking with foreign accents.
During the 1930s, MGM produced approximately 50 pictures per year, although it never met its goal of releasing a new film every week (it was only able to release one film every nine days). Loew's 153 theaters were mostly located in New York, the Northeast and Deep South. Gone with the Wind (1939)'s world premiere was held at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta. A fine reputation was gained for lavish productions that were sophisticated and polished to cater to an urban audience. Still, as the Great Depression deepened, MGM began to economize by recycling existing sets, costumes and furnishings from previous projects, a practice that did not subside. In addition, MGM saved money because it was the only of the big five studios that did not own an off-site movie ranch. Until the mid-1950s, MGM could make a claim that its rivals could not: the studio never lost money, although it did produce an occasional disaster such as Parnell (1937), Clark Gable's biggest flop. MGM was the only Hollywood studio that continued to pay dividends during the 1930s.
MGM stars dominated the box office during the 1930s, and the studio was credited for inventing the Hollywood stable-of-stars system as well. MGM contracted with the American Musical Academy of Arts Association to handle all of their press and artist development. The AMAAA's main function was to develop the budding stars and to make them appealing to the public. Stars such as Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald and Norma Shearer, reigned as the top-paid figures at the studio. Another MGM actress of the era, Jean Harlow, who had previously appeared in the Howard Hughes film Hell's Angels (1930), now had a big break and became a Hollywood sex symbol and one of MGM's most admired stars. Despite Harlow's gain, Garbo arguably remained the biggest star at MGM. Shearer was still a money maker despite her screen appearances becoming scarce, and Crawford continued her box-office popularity until 1937. MGM also received a boost through the man who would become known as "King of Hollywood", Clark Gable. Gable's career took off to new heights after he won an Oscar for the Columbia film It Happened One Night (1934).
Mayer and Irving Thalberg's association began warmly, but eventually relations between the two became strained; Thalberg preferred literary works and expensive costume pictures over the lower-budget, family-oriented crowd pleasers Mayer wanted. Thalberg, always physically frail, was removed as head of production in 1932. Mayer encouraged other staff producers, among them his son-in-law David O. Selznick, but no one seemed to have the sure touch of Thalberg. As Thalberg's health deteriorated in 1936, Mayer could now serve as his temporary replacement. Rumors had begun circulating for some time that Thalberg was leaving MGM to set up his own independent company; his premature death at age 37 in September 1936 cost MGM dearly.