Alfred Hitchcock was so important to the success of Universal Studios that the studio erected a bust of the director just inside the gates of the theme park.
4
THE MAGIC CHANGES HANDS
Nepotism had always been a problem at Universal Pictures. It was so well known that Carl Laemmle liked to hire any and all family members who asked for a job that famed poet Ogden Nash quipped, “Uncle Carl Laemmle has such a very large faemmle.” It was this rampant nepotism, along with a few bad decisions by Carl Laemmle Jr., that put an end to the Laemmle era at the studio. When Carl Laemmle failed to meet the financial obligations of the loan he had taken out to keep the studio running, Standard Capital foreclosed, forcing Laemmle to sell his interest in the company for $4.1 million.
Under Standard, the studio became known as New Universal, and one of the first things it did was shut down all of the studio’s European holdings and operations. Carl Laemmle had already shut down the tours and public viewing of productions at the studio when it became clear that the talkies would not allow audiences. With too much noise and interference from the crowds, Laemmle had no choice but to stop the public spectacles. This was just fine with Standard, as it thought the public would have been an insurance liability anyway. These, along with other drastic cost-cutting measures, helped keep Universal from complete ruin. In an odd twist of fate, two films begun before the Laemmle ouster, My Man Godfrey and Three Smart Girls, were also credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy. The star of Three Smart Girls, fifteen-year-old Deanna Durbin, became one of the studio’s biggest stars. In her tenure at Universal Pictures, Durbin would star in no fewer than twenty-one movies. In 1938, Durbin received a special Oscar from the Academy of Motion Pictures for “bringing youthfulness to the silver screen.” There are many who claim that it was Durbin alone who should get the credit for saving Universal Pictures. Another irony is the fact that when Showboat, the film that led to the ouster of the Laemmles was finally released, it became a box office success and helped pull Universal back into the limelight. Because production had begun before Standard had taken control of the studio, the Laemmles’ names are both featured in the credits for production.
As two new executives came on board in the late 1930s, the company again cut costs. It was the leadership’s hope that the studio could still put out above-average feature films to sate the more discerning audiences while producing its standard low-budget westerns, serials, comedies and horror films. With the help of Durbin’s movies, a surprising return on the film Destry Rides Again—starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich—and the box office success of Showboat, Universal Pictures was able to go from the brink of bankruptcy in 1936 to a substantial profit of around $1.5 million.
When World War II erupted in Europe, it became clear that the United States and the rest of the world craved an escape. Since most of the world was on fire, motion pictures became the most obvious way for the public to affect this retreat from the reality of a world gone mad. Universal Pictures was more than happy to help facilitate this escape. The dynamic comedy duo of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello debuted in 1940 with One Night in the Tropics, and the two became one of the most popular draws for audiences throughout the war, as well as one of the greatest comedy teams of all time. Many will remember this film for its iconic “Who’s on First?” routine. Other popular films made during the war were thirteen war-themed musicals featuring the Andrews Sisters as well as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Inner Sanctum mysteries. Of course, monster movies were still a big draw for the studio, which produced more than thirty of these films during the war years.
Universal had always relied on low-budget films and, as such, was one of the last studios to use the new three-strip Technicolor process employed by all of the other movie studios. The new process was expensive but produced superb, vivid color, which gave the films that much more appeal to the moviegoing public. One of the first films in which Universal employed Technicolor was the 1942 release of Arabian Nights, starring Jon Hall and Maria Montez. The response Universal received from moviegoers prompted the studio to use the new process the following year for the remake of the classic Phantom of the Opera, starring Claude Rains, Nelson Eddy and Susanna Foster. This again proved to be very popular with the moviegoing public and prompted Universal to finally sign a contract with Technicolor and set a regular schedule of high-budget Technicolor films.
As World War II ended and the world tried to get back to normal, or as normal as possible, the population again turned to the movies for entertainment. The escape from the realities of war turned into a need for reassurance and a glimpse to the fun times that lay ahead in the wake of the new nuclear future. The moviegoing public demanded high-quality films if they were going to part with their hard-earned money. As a way to help facilitate this new demand, Universal merged with International Pictures in 1946 and renamed the studio Universal-International Pictures. International brought the experience of one of the two studios’ chief rivals, as two of its heads, William Goetz and Leo Spitz, were both former executives of 20th Century Fox. One of the first things Goetz did was eliminate all serials, Arabian Nights sequels, B movie productions and, worst of all, Universal’s horror movies from the production lineup. He felt that this would help bring prestige to the floundering company. Universal-International once again expanded into the European markets when it became responsible for American distribution of Rank’s British productions and expanded farther when it aligned itself with Castle Films, a dealer in home movie distribution. In another cost-cutting move, Universal dropped several stars. This has always been a decision mired in controversy, as Universal had always had a problem getting stars into its stable of performers, so letting any of them go was a gamble. It did retain the contracts for Abbot and Costello, Durbin and Donald O’Connor.
Goetz had believed that producing higher-budget films with more lavish and elaborate sets would translate into higher box office takes. There were some films produced under Goetz’s watch that became hits, such as The Killers or the 1948 classic The Naked City and, of course, the top-grossing film of 1947, The Egg and I, which brought in close to $6 million. But as the 1940s came to a close, it became clear that Universal-International was again operating at a loss. The model that Goetz had set for the studio was clearly not working, and he was promptly fired. Around the same time, the studio got some good news from the Supreme Court when it ruled in favor of independent theaters over the studios in a landmark antitrust case. Universal never built or owned proprietary theater chains and had always dealt with local, independent theater owners. Now that the court ruled that studios could no longer own their own theaters and had to distribute their movies to other chains, Universal knew it would take time for the other studios to set up their distribution apparatus. Universal-Independent, having been set up this way all along, was now set to take advantage of the confusion that would ensue. Its revenue stream was safe.
Once Goetz was gone from the front office, the studio once again began producing its standard low-budget movies to complement the extravagant feature films. Low-cost films like the Ma and Pa Kettle series became popular, and the ten movies in the lineup were lucrative, as were the Francis the Talking Mule films starring Donald O’Connor, and these all helped Universal out of the slump. The 1950s saw the return of the Arabian Nights films, and many of these star Tony Curtis. Universal’s monster and horror movies were making a comeback, complemented now by the new science fiction genre, which was becoming popular with American movie audiences. Universal-International was now sporting a stable of new talent that included Tony Curtis, Audie Murphy, Rock Hudson and Jeff Chandler, to name just a few. In a landmark deal that was to change the way contracts were designed in the movie industry, James Stewart’s agent cut a deal with Universal-International in 1950 that gave Stewart a smaller salary but granted him a share in the profits. When the film Winchester ’73 became a big hit and its profits soared, this new contract arrangement became the norm not only for Universal but the other studios as well. Again, Universal led the way for modernization in Hollywood.
The 1952 acquisition of Universal-International by Decca Records brought another change to the philosophy and the name of Universal Pictures. With Milton Rackmil as president of the company, gross receipts increased $7 million by 1954, and lesser known independent producers were brought in to make movies at the studio. This new idea succeeded when the films The Incredible Shrinking Man, Touch of Evil and The Glenn Miller Story, along with Operation Petticoat, became big hits for the studio. Other movies that came out at this time that were highly successful and produced by independents were Imitation of Life, starring Lana Turner, and Pillow Talk, with Rock Hudson and Doris Day.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, it had become clear that audiences were changing. With the breakup of the theater/studio chain monopoly, people were able to go to any theater they chose for movies, which reduced the overall size of the crowd at any given movie house. The gains that Universal had seen in its revenue stream due to the court order had slowly dwindled, as the other studios gained back their market share and with the advent of television, many of those who once made the Saturday night pilgrimage to the movie theater were now staying home. From a profit of $4 million in 1956 and 1957, Universal lost $2 million in 1958 alone. As a whole, the combined loss to the movie industry was a 12 percent decline in ticket sales at the box office. Beginning in 1957, Universal leased 550 of its earlier movies, all made before 1948, to Screen Gems for the television market. Even with this new revenue stream, Universal was struggling to keep afloat. In an effort to keep the creditors at bay, Universal sold its studio lot to the Music Corporation of America (MCA) for $11.25 million; it did not, however, sell Universal Pictures. MCA was the world’s largest talent agency and the company that had negotiated James Stewart’s profit sharing contract; it was becoming one of the largest television producers in the world with its Revue Television Productions arm, which produced the hit show Leave It to Beaver. MCA merged with Decca Records in 1962, and the studio changed its name once again, this time to MCA Universal.
Alfred Hitchcock was so important to the success of Universal Studios that the studio erected a bust of the director just inside the gates of the theme park.
One of the first things MCA did once it had complete control was to completely upgrade and modernize the studio and back lot. MCA also signed some of its biggest clients to film contracts. Names like Cary Grant, Lana Turner and Doris Day became regulars at the commissary, and director Alfred Hitchcock had his own office on the lot. Even after Hitchcock died, he hung around, giving Steven Spielberg directing tips. In 1964, MCA completely removed itself from its talent agency commitments and signed as many of its clients to contracts with Universal as was feasible. This was also the year that the company reinstated the tours of Universal City. Some of the movies released during this time were the blockbuster To Kill a Mockingbird and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller The Birds. To Kill a Mockingbird won three Academy Awards, including the Best Actor nod for Gregory Peck.
The 1960s ended with a bang for MCA Universal with the hit movie Thoroughly Modern Millie in 1968 and started the 1970s off right with the starstudded Airport, which grossed just over $45 million. The success of these movies set the trend for Universal Pictures for the next decade, with 1973 as the stand-out year. It was this year that The Sting was released, grossed $79 million at the box office and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. American Graffiti received four nominations and grossed $57 million, and The Day of the Jackal and Clint Eastwood’s haunting portrayal of the no-name gunslinger in High Plains Drifter were highly acclaimed movies from that same year. Another film that was highly successful but not that well received by the Academy was the disaster flick Earthquake. This was another of those star-heavy movies in the Airport tradition of the 1970s that became known as the disaster film genre.
In 1975, Universal released the movie Jaws, and it became the highest grossing film of all time, with fans flocking to the theaters and many seeing the movie multiple times. Jaws would go on to make a whopping $133 million. Other fan favorites from the 1970s were Smoky and the Bandit, starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers. These last two films, although not huge box office successes, became cult favorites with large followings and made Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi household names. Steven Spielberg would go on to make some of the most well received and highly acclaimed movies to come out of Universal Pictures, such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the Back to the Future films with Robert Zemeckis.
“Amity Island.” The fictional hunting ground of the great white shark from the movie Jaws.
Moving into the 1980s, Universal again took on the task of expanding its facilities. With the addition of 220 acres, Universal City again became the largest studio lot in Hollywood. Among the new accompaniments were a fourteen-story administration building, thirty-six new sound stages, a Technicolor film laboratory and a 200,000-square-foot complex to accommodate independent producers. After Steven Spielberg started his Amblin Entertainment production company, he moved out of Hitchcock’s old office and into one of these bungalows.
Even though Universal was putting out numerous blockbusters and fan-favorite movies, it was fully involved with television productions as well; as a matter of fact, TV still made up much of the studio’s output. Hit shows such as The Jeffersons, Silver Spoons, One Day at a Time and the highly popular Diff’rent Strokes were some of the biggest moneymakers for the studio. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was Universal’s biggest client; the studio provided half of the network’s prime-time lineup. One of the new things happening in television at this time was the made-for-television movie. Universal dove headfirst into this new media and helped produce many classic television films.
Anxious to break into the new cable medium growing around the country and wanting to expand its broadcast presence, MCA head Lew Wasserman approached Japanese electronics giant Matsushita Electronics—known by its Panasonic brand name in the United States—and the company agreed to acquire MCA for $6 billion in 1990. The reason Wasserman needed the buyout was to bring in a large infusion of capital to expand into the new cable market. Unfortunately, the Japanese were not prepared to deal with the culture of Hollywood and sold the majority share in Universal (80 percent) to the Canadian Seagram Company. This merger didn’t last long. After Seagram was purchased by PolyGram, the newest owners found that profits just weren’t what they thought they would be, so Seagram was then sold to the French company Vivendi. Within four years, Vivendi also found itself in trouble and sold 80 percent of its Universal holdings to General Electric, parent company of NBC. By 2011, Comcast had acquired NBC and become the current NBCUniversal trademark that we know today. Even with the turmoil of the 1990s and early 2000s, Universal seems poised to remain the premier studio in Hollywood and maintain its dominance as one of the top tourist draws and theme parks in all of California.