Samuel Goldwyn Productions

Samuel Goldwyn Productions
Company type	Independent
Industry	Film
Founded	1923;101 years ago
Founder	Samuel Goldwyn
Defunct	1959;65 years ago
Fate	Defunct
Successors	Company:; The Samuel Goldwyn Company ; Library:; Warner Bros. ; (United States only); Paramount Pictures ; (through Miramax); (Internationally, Paramount also handles the U.S. rights to The North Star only); Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ; (U.S. rights to The Hurricane only); Video-Cinema Films; (Rights to Street Scene only); Public domain (U.S. only, pre-1929)
Headquarters	United States
Products	Motion pictures
Services	Film production

Last updated October 31, 2024

Samuel Goldwyn Productions was an American film production company founded by Samuel Goldwyn in 1923, and active through 1959. Personally controlled by Goldwyn and focused on production rather than distribution, the company developed into the most financially and critically successful independent production company in Hollywood's Golden Age.

History

After the sale of his previous firm Goldwyn Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn organized his productions beginning in February 1923, initially in a partnership with director George Fitzmaurice (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, created by merger in April 1924, bears Goldwyn's name, but he did not produce films there). Goldwyn Production's first release, Potash and Perlmutter , successfully opened in Baltimore on September 6, 1923.^[1]

Some of the early productions bear the name "Howard Productions", named for Goldwyn's wife Frances Howard, who married Goldwyn in 1925. In the 1920s, Goldwyn released films through Associated First National. Throughout the 1930s, Goldwyn released most of his films through United Artists. Beginning in 1941, Goldwyn released most of his films through RKO Radio Pictures.

With consistently high production values and directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks, Goldwyn consistently received Academy Award for Best Picture nominations: Arrowsmith (1931), Dodsworth (1936), Dead End (1937), Wuthering Heights (1939), and The Little Foxes (1941). In 1946, he won best picture for The Best Years of Our Lives .

Through the 1940s and 1950s, many of Goldwyn's films starred Danny Kaye. Goldwyn's final production was the 1959 version of Porgy and Bess .

Elements for many films produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions between 1929 and 1955 are held by the Academy Film Archive as part of the Samuel Goldwyn Collection.^[2]

Filmography

Poster for The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926)

Lobby card for Roman Scandals (1933)

Poster for Nana (1934)

Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights (1939)

Lobby card for The Little Foxes (1941)

Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (1941)

Poster for Spitfire (1943)

Hoagy Carmichael, Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews and Teresa Wright in a publicity photo for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Release date	Title	Distributor	Notes
September 6, 1923	Potash and Perlmutter	First National
January 24, 1924	The Eternal City
April 3, 1924	Cytherea
September 29, 1924	In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter
May 3, 1925	His Supreme Moment
June 18, 1925	A Thief in Paradise
September 27, 1925	The Dark Angel
November 16, 1925	Stella Dallas	United Artists
February 15, 1926	Partners Again
October 14, 1926	The Winning of Barbara Worth
January 27, 1927	The Night of Love
September 18, 1927	The Magic Flame
November 3, 1927	The Devil Dancer
March 23, 1928	Two Lovers
November 17, 1928	The Awakening
January 12, 1929	The Rescue
May 2, 1929	Bulldog Drummond
June 22, 1929	This Is Heaven
November 3, 1929	Condemned
July 24, 1930	Raffles
October 5, 1930	Whoopee!
December 20, 1930	The Devil to Pay!
January 14, 1931	One Heavenly Night
September 5, 1931	Street Scene
October 3, 1931	Palmy Days
October 28, 1931	The Unholy Garden
December 17, 1931	Tonight or Never
December 26, 1931	Arrowsmith
February 13, 1932	The Greeks Had a Word for Them
November 17, 1932	The Kid from Spain
December 24, 1932	Cynara
September 3, 1933	The Masquerader
December 29, 1933	Roman Scandals
February 1, 1934	Nana
November 1, 1934	We Live Again
November 10, 1934	Kid Millions
March 8, 1935	The Wedding Night
September 8, 1935	The Dark Angel
October 13, 1935	Barbary Coast
November 22, 1935	Splendor
January 24, 1936	Strike Me Pink
March 18, 1936	These Three
September 23, 1936	Dodsworth
November 6, 1936	Come and Get It
December 25, 1936	Beloved Enemy
May 7, 1937	Woman Chases Man
August 6, 1937	Stella Dallas
August 27, 1937	Dead End
November 9, 1937	The Hurricane
February 4, 1938	The Goldwyn Follies
April 15, 1938	The Adventures of Marco Polo
November 17, 1938	The Cowboy and the Lady
April 7, 1939	Wuthering Heights
August 18, 1939	They Shall Have Music
September 29, 1939	The Real Glory
December 29, 1939	Raffles
September 20, 1940	The Westerner
August 29, 1941	The Little Foxes	RKO Radio Pictures
December 2, 1941	Ball of Fire
July 14, 1942	The Pride of the Yankees
January 27, 1943	They Got Me Covered
June 12, 1943	Spitfire		^[3]
November 4, 1943	The North Star
February 17, 1944	Up in Arms
November 17, 1944	The Princess and the Pirate
June 8, 1945	Wonder Man
March 21, 1946	The Kid from Brooklyn
November 21, 1946	The Best Years of Our Lives
August 4, 1947	The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
December 9, 1947	The Bishop's Wife
October 19, 1948	A Song Is Born
December 11, 1948	Enchantment
August 18, 1949	Roseanna McCoy
December 25, 1949	My Foolish Heart
July 27, 1950	Our Very Own
August 2, 1950	Edge of Doom
December 22, 1951	I Want You
November 25, 1952	Hans Christian Andersen
November 3, 1955	Guys and Dolls	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
June 24, 1959	Porgy and Bess	Columbia Pictures

Distribution

In 2012, the distribution rights of Samuel Goldwyn films from the library were transferred to Warner Bros.,^[4] with Miramax managing global licensing; the latter was handled by StudioCanal as part of a deal with Miramax until 2021, when Paramount Global (then ViacomCBS), under its flagship studio Paramount Pictures, acquired a 49% stake in Miramax and worldwide distribution rights to its content library.^[5] U.S. rights to The Hurricane , which had since reverted back to United Artists, are currently owned by its parent company, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, now part of Amazon MGM Studios. Rights to The North Star were not initially renewed due to its controversial subject matter, thus had fallen in to the public domain. Currently, U.S. rights to the film are handled by Paramount as a successor to National Telefilm Associates, which distributed a re-cut version in 1957 as Armored Attack, one of the few Goldwyn titles not included in the Warner–Miramax arrangement. Studio Distribution Services, LLC., a joint venture between Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, distributes the entire Samuel Goldwyn catalog on home video, including The Hurricane, via a distribution deal with MGM Home Entertainment. Rights to Street Scene were retained by the estate of its author Elmer Rice, which would transfer ownership to Video-Cinema Films in 2004.^[6]

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References

↑ Goldwyn: A Biography, A. Scott Berg
↑ "Samuel Goldwyn Collection". Academy Film Archive. 5 September 2014. Archived from the original on 5 April 2020. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
↑ "Of Local Origin". The New York Times. June 9, 1943. Archived from the original on 2023-11-18. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
↑ "Warner Brothers Acquires Rights to Films from the Samuel Goldwyn Library".
↑ "Miramax to Manage Films from Samuel Goldwyn's Library". 2 April 2012. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 18 February 2020.

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[1] Goldwyn: A Biography, A. Scott Berg

[2] "Samuel Goldwyn Collection". Academy Film Archive. 5 September 2014. Archived from the original on 5 April 2020. Retrieved 9 April 2020.

[3] "Of Local Origin". The New York Times. June 9, 1943. Archived from the original on 2023-11-18. Retrieved 2015-12-14.

[4] "Warner Brothers Acquires Rights to Films from the Samuel Goldwyn Library".

[5] "Miramax to Manage Films from Samuel Goldwyn's Library". 2 April 2012. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 18 February 2020.

[6] US Copyright Office Document No. V3511D054 / 2004-06-01

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