Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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.

Following Thalberg's death, Mayer assumed the roles of head of production and studio chief, becoming the first executive in American history to earn a million-dollar salary. The company remained profitable, and an increase in MGM's "series" pictures (Andy Hardy starring Mickey Rooney, Maisie starring Ann Sothern, The Thin Man starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, and Dr. Kildare/Dr. Gillespie with Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore) is cited as evidence of Mayer's restored influence. Also playing a huge role was Ida Koverman, Mayer's secretary and right hand.

In animation, MGM purchased the rights in 1930 to distribute a series of cartoons that starred a character named Flip the Frog, produced by Ub Iwerks. The first cartoon in this series (titled Fiddlesticks) was the first sound cartoon to be produced in two-color Technicolor. In 1933, Ub Iwerks canceled the unsuccessful Flip the Frog series and MGM began to distribute its second series of cartoons, starring a character named Willie Whopper, that was also produced by Iwerks. In 1934, after Iwerks' distribution contract expired, MGM contracted Iwerks' former colleagues Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising to produce a new series of color cartoons, after they had broken ties with Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. Pictures and brought with them their popular Looney Tunes character, Bosko. The resulting series, Happy Harmonies, and in many ways resembled the Looney Tunes' sister series, Merrie Melodies. The Happy Harmonies regularly ran over budget, and MGM dismissed Harman and Ising in 1937 to start its own animation studio. After initial struggles with a series of The Captain and the Kids cartoons, producer Fred Quimby was forced to rehire Harman and Ising in 1939, and Ising created the studio's first successful animated character, Barney Bear.

In 1937, Mayer hired Mervyn LeRoy, a former Warner Bros. producer/director as MGM's top producer and Thalberg's replacement. LeRoy convinced Mayer to acquire the film rights to the popular children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; MGM purchased the rights from Samuel Goldwyn for $75,000 in 1938.

MGM's hits in 1939 included The Wizard of Oz; Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo; The Women, starring Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer; and Gone with the Wind, starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. Although Gone With the Wind was produced by Selznick International Pictures, the film was distributed by MGM as part of a deal for producer David O. Selznick, Mayer's son-in-law, to obtain the services of Gable as well as financial assistance necessary for Selznick to complete the film. After Selznick International foundered in 1944, MGM acquired the full rights to Gone With the Wind. While The Wizard of Oz was a critical hit, the production costs for the film were so expensive it took 20 years before it turned a profit.

1940s

Within one year, beginning in 1942, Mayer released his five highest-paid actresses from their MGM contracts: Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald and Norma Shearer. After being labeled "box office poison", Crawford's MGM contract was terminated and she moved to Warner Bros., where her career took a dramatic upturn. Garbo and Shearer never made another film after leaving the lot. Of the five stars, Loy and MacDonald were the only two whom Mayer later rehired, in 1947 and 1948 respectively; Crawford returned to MGM after Mayer's departure for the musical drama Torch Song in 1953.

Increasingly, before and during World War II, Mayer came to rely on his "College of Cardinals"—senior producers who controlled the studio's output. This management-by-committee resulted in MGM losing its momentum, developing few new stars, and relying on the safety of sequels and bland material. (Dorothy Parker memorably referred to the studio as "Metro-Goldwyn-Merde".) Production values remained high, and even "B" pictures carried a polish and gloss that made them expensive to mount. After 1940, production was cut from 50 pictures a year to a more manageable 25 features per year. During this period, MGM released several very successful musicals with stars such as Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and Frank Sinatra.

MGM's biggest cartoon stars would come in the form of the cat-and-mouse duo Tom and Jerry, created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1940. The Tom and Jerry cartoons won seven Academy Awards between 1943 and 1953. In 1941, Tex Avery, another Schlesinger alumnus, joined the animation department. Avery gave the unit its image, with successes such as Red Hot Riding Hood, Swing Shift Cinderella, and the Droopy series.

1950s

Audiences began drifting to television in the late 1940s, and MGM and the other studios were finding it increasingly difficult to attract them to theaters. With its high overhead expenses, MGM's profit margins continued to decrease. Word came from Nicholas Schenck in New York to find "a new Thalberg" who could improve quality while paring costs. Mayer thought he had found this savior in Dore Schary, a writer and producer who had found success at running RKO Pictures. Lavish musicals were Schary's focus, and hits like Easter Parade (1948), Annie Get Your Gun (1950) and the popular musical films of tenor Mario Lanza, including That Midnight Kiss (1949) and The Great Caruso (1951), helped to keep MGM profitable during this period.

In August 1951, Louis B. Mayer was fired by MGM's East Coast executives and he was replaced by Schary. Gradually cutting loose expensive contract players (including $6,000-a-week Judy Garland in 1950 and "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable in 1954), saving money by recycling existing movie sets instead of building costly new scenery, and reworking expensive old costumes, Schary managed to keep the studio running much as it had through the early 1940s, although his preference for hard-edged, message movies over costume dramas and lighter, family friendly pictures, would never bear much fruit. One bright spot continued to be MGM's musical pictures, under the aegis of producer Arthur Freed, who was operating what amounted to an independent unit within the studio. During the 1950s, MGM produced some well-regarded and profitable musicals that would later be acknowledged as classics, among them An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). However, Brigadoon (1954), Deep in My Heart (1954), It's Always Fair Weather (1955), Invitation to the Dance (1956), and Les Girls (1957) were extravagant song and dance flops, and even The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957), two musicals that are now considered classics and among the studio's best, lost money upon their initial releases.

In 1952, as a settlement of the government's restraint-of-trade action, United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. 334 US 131 (1948), Loews, Inc. gave up control of MGM. It would take another five years before the interlocking arrangements were completely undone, by which time both Loews and MGM were losing money. In 1956, Schary was ousted from MGM in another power struggle against the New York-based executives. Cost overruns and the failure of the big-budget epic Raintree County (1957) prompted the studio to terminate Schary's contract.

Schary's reign at MGM had been marked with few legitimate hits, but his departure (along with the retirement of Schenck in 1955) left a power vacuum that would prove difficult to fill. Initially Joseph Vogel became president and Sol Siegel head of production. In 1957 (by coincidence, the year Mayer died), the studio lost money for the first time in its 34-year history. After Spencer Tracy left MGM in 1955, the only major star remaining under contract from MGM's heyday was Robert Taylor; by 1960, MGM had released Taylor and the last of its contract players, with many either retiring or moving on to television.

In 1958, MGM released what is generally considered its last great musical, Arthur Freed's Cinemascope color production of Gigi, starring Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, and Louis Jourdan. It was 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 box-office and critical success which won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. 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). The last musical film produced by the "Freed Unit" was an adaptation of the Broadway musical Bells Are Ringing (1960) with Judy Holliday and Dean Martin. However, MGM did release later musical films, including an adaptation of Meredith Willson's The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) with Debbie Reynolds and Harve Presnell.

MGM's first television program, The MGM Parade, was produced by MGM's trailer department as one of the anthology series that imitated Walt Disney's series Disneyland which was also on ABC. Parade was canceled by ABC in the second quarter of 1956. MGM took bids for its movie library in 1956 from Lou Chesler and others, but decided on entering the television market itself. Chesler had offered $50 million for the film library. MGM Television was started with the hiring of Bud Barry to head up the operation in June 1956. MGM Television was to distribute its films to television (starting with the networks), television production and purchasing television stations. Television production was expected to start with the 1957–58 season and was to include half-hour remakes of, or series based on, its pictures. Initial feature film sales focused on selling to the networks.