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Introduction (Dis)united Artists Founded in 1919, United Artists was a unique Hollywood company. Throughout its history, it functioned exclusively as a distribution company for independent producers. It never operated a studio nor owned theaters. United Artists was unique for another reason: it was founded by four of the greatest stars of the silent era—Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks , Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. In writing this history of the company, I wanted to know how the founders functioned in the boardroom . Much had been written about them as filmmakers, but little was known about them as entrepreneurs. Any account of the company usually begins by quoting Richard Rowland’s famous wisecrack, “So the lunatics have taken charge of the asylum,” which he made when the original contracts were signed. This is also usually followed by Arthur Mayer’s later assessment: “The founders of United Artists displayed the same brand of lunacy as Rockefeller, Morgan, and Du Pont.” With the help of the United Artists Collection that was donated to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research in 1969, I offered a more nuanced assessment. At the conclusion of United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars, I write, “UA’s founders were pioneers in every sense of the term. Their enormous popularity as stars had stimulated the growth of an infant industry and helped establish film as an art form of consequence. They were strong willed, temperamental, idiosyncratic, but eminently gifted artists who possessed the fortitude to buck a system that was beginning to pride itself more on efficiency and standardization than on individuality and craftsmanship. The formation of United Artists was not only an economic move on their part but also an idealistic one.” This introduction begins with a critique of UA’s original organization plan and explains how the company differentiated itself from standard industry practice. I then describe United Artists’ brand of independent production , as typified by Sam Goldwyn in the 1930s, and how the company became a member of the Little Three and joined the industry establishment . The insights offered here resulted from the research I did for Grand [ xvii ] xviii ] Introduction Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise: 1930–1939, which was published in 1995 as part of the Scribner’s History of the American Cinema Series. In forming United Artists, the four founders decided to take control of a key element of the film business—distribution. This was quite a leap from the security of being connected to Famous Players-Lasky and First National, the largest companies in the business. But we know that rumors of a merger between the two giants for the purpose of reining in talent placed the stars on the defensive. They would have to secure their own financing in the future, but the risk was worth taking because they could control the distribution of their films. An intermediary between production and exhibition, distribution involves (1) sales—the securing of rental contracts from exhibitors for specific play dates, (2) advertising directed to exhibitors through trade publications and to filmgoers through the news media, and (3) the physical delivery of prints to theaters. United Artists started from scratch. To set up shop, the founders purchased preferred stock in the company, which enabled it to establish a home office at 729 Seventh Avenue in New York City. There, at the distribution headquarters of the film industry, the purpose was to hire sales and marketing personnel and to open film exchanges in the key cities around the country. This initial investment by the founders created the infrastructure of the company. The founders also acquired equal shares of common stock in the company, which gave them ownership. Should UA ever turn a profit, the stock would pay dividends, but initially UA was not set up to earn profits. In its operations, United Artists departed from standard industry practice in at least three ways. First, the company denounced block booking and adopted the policy of selling its films individually. Block booking became institutionalized during the 1920s as a selling method. From the public’s perspective, block booking was a controversial practice that denied exhibitors the right to select the most suitable films for their audiences . Block booking required exhibitors to contract for a studio’s entire line of films sight unseen, a season in advance of production. Exhibitors had to take everything a studio offered or nothing. From the industry’s perspective, block booking was just a form of wholesaling that provided...

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