Industry Film studio Defunct 1935 Founder Nat Levine Successor Republic Pictures | Fate Merged Key people Nat Levine Founded 1927 Ceased operations 1935 | |
 | ||
Products The King of the Kongo (1929)
The Shadow of the Eagle (1932)
In Old Santa Fe (1934)
The Phantom Empire (1935) Headquarters Los Angeles, California, United States Films produced The Phantom Empire, In Old Santa Fe, Young and Beautiful, Ladies Crave Excitement, The Headline Woman | ||
Mascot pictures 1935
Mascot Pictures Corporation was an American film company of the 1920s and 1930s best known for producing and distributing film serials and B-westerns. Mascot was formed in 1927 by film producer Nat Levine. In 1936 it merged with several other companies to form Republic Pictures.
Contents
- Mascot pictures 1935
- Early years
- Sennett Studios
- Republic Pictures
- Legacy
- Actors
- Production crew
- Filmography
- References
Mascot's serial The King of the Kongo (1929) was the first serial to include sound, beating Universal Studios by several months.
The company's logo featured a roaring tiger resting on top of a model of the planet Earth.
Early years
Mascot was created by Nat Levine, a former personal secretary to Marcus Loew, in 1927 after the success of his independent serial The Silent Flyer (1926).
In the beginning the company operated out of the upstairs offices of a contractor's business on Santa Monica Boulevard. It rented all of its equipment and facilities.
In 1929 the studio made serial history with the production of The King of the Kongo. This was the first serial, from any production company, to be made with sound. Mascot's first all-talking production was The Phantom of the West (1931)
Sennett Studios
By 1933 Mascot was successful enough to rent, and later buy, Sennett Studios after the original owner, silent-film comedy producer-director Mack Sennett, went bankrupt because of the Great Depression. This made the company a true film studio. That studio lot is now CBS Studio Center.
Mascot was responsible for the popularity of the concept of the "singing cowboy" and the "musical western". In 1935 the studio produced The Phantom Empire with the then untried Gene Autry as the lead.
Republic Pictures
Mascot's film developer was Consolidated Film Industries, known as CFI. In 1935, under pressure from that company's owner, Herbert Yates, Mascot merged with CFI and Monogram Pictures, Liberty Pictures, Chesterfield Pictures and Invincible Pictures to form the larger Republic Pictures. Mascot became the serial and B-Western arm of the company, along with its studio. Along with other things, Monogram provided its distribution network, and technical and financial elements came from CFI.
Legacy
Several careers began at Mascot Pictures.
Actors
Production crew
Filmography
Additionally,