wouldbestar Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 On Encore last week, I saw clips of a luncheon to commemorate 75 years of Republic Pictures with many of their stars sharing stories of their time there. Is there some sort of DVD coming out as there was with the M-G-M and Warner anniversaries about the studio? I would like to see it if there is; if not there should be. The Last Command, The Quiet Man, and Johnny Guitar were all made by them and John Wayne became a star there. Like RKO, they might not have been considered top drawer picture makers but they kept actors working and every now and then a real gem appeared. Both filled a niche that others didn't. Where would we be without them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyFavoriteFilms Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 Yes, Republic does have its fans...and like you said, they had their own stars that became very famous. What I have noticed about some of these studios on the periphery is that they tend to hire actors, producers and directors on the way up and on the way down. As a result, they go through rather interesting production cycles and do indeed turn out some real gems from time to time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cody1949 Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 There was a videotape about 20 years ago called THE REPUBLIC PICTURES STORY. They also did one on the Republic Pictures cliffhangers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValentineXavier Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 Republic released my favorite film noir western, *Pursued*, directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Robert Mitchum. Yes, they made some gems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cody1949 Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 Pursued was made by United States Pictures, a division of Warner Bros. Years later it came into the inventory of Republic Pictures Home Video through producer Milton Sperling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValentineXavier Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 Thanks for the correction. I was just going by what was on my copy. I did know the production company, but did not know of it's association with WB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fedya Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 Technically, didn't John Wayne become a star thanks to producer Walter Wanger's *Stagecoach* ? Edited by: Fedya on Nov 7, 2010 11:00 PM, because the forum's wonky formatting doesn't like bold next to a question mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cody1949 Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 What has Stagecoach got to do with Republic Pictures? There is absolutely no connection whatsoever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottman1932 Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 > {quote:title=cody1949 wrote:}{quote} > What has Stagecoach got to do with Republic Pictures? There is absolutely no connection whatsoever. I believe that the OP gave Republic the credit for making John Wayne a star, which is not completely correct. Yes, he was a star of B westerns for Republic, but it wasn't until the success of STAGECOACH that the other Major studios in 1940 like Paramount, give Wayne a second look. There are two really good books that deal with the Republic story; Republic Studios: Between Poverty Row and The Majors by Richard Maurice Hurst and Jon Tuska's The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures 1927-1935. The last chapter of Tuska's fascinating book talks about when Mascot merged with Herbert Yates' Consolidated Film Laboratories and Trem Carr and W. Ray Johnson of Monogram in 1935. They are both well worth searching for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrinceSaliano Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 Let's get THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST and VALLEY OF THE ZOMBIES on TCM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryLong Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 There's also a fairly good new book on the Lydecker brothers, whose scale model work did so much to make the Republic films look costlier than they were. http://www.amazon.com/Legendary-Lydecker-Brothers-Alan-Henderson/dp/1453735372/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289228738&sr=1-1 There are copies of THE REPUBLIC PICTURES story (which I saw on & taped from AMC) at Amazon at very attractive prices. Republic fascinates me, as do most studios whose bread and butter is genre product, and who operate on thrifty budgets. (Hammer is another.) With Republic, of course, it was the serials, and they made all, the best ones. But in the mid top late 1940s they made the deliberate attempt to upgrade to Major status by luring in directors with the promise of funding their put projects that other studios had rejected, so long as the directors could make the film on a tight budget. Thanks to Republic we have THE RED PONY, THE QUIET MAN, MACBETH and many others.The only studio that successfully transitioned from Poverty Row to Major was Columbia... but Republic came so close... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Faiola Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 Actually, the trajectory (our new favorite word at CBS) of PURSUED and the United States Pictures package was that Milton Sperling sold the group to Richard Feiner, who released them under the Jayark banner. In the 1980's, Feiner sold the group to Republic Pictures, retaining all ancillary rights including music publishing, soundtrack rights and remake rights. Feiner tried to remake MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR with Al Pacino but it went nowhere. My soundtrack company produced several United States Pictures soundtrack albums, including PURSUED, licensed through Feiner. http://chelsearialtostudios.com/projects/pursued.mp3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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