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Film

Film history fades with the studios

By STEVE PERSALL
Published April 15, 2005

	[AP photo]
	Moviegoers didn’t cry over the death of the Wicked Witch of the East in the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz, and it’s doubtful they will shed tears over the demise of MGM and two other big Hollywood studios.

The saddest part of this job is saying goodbye to Hollywood legends. I've eulogized such greats as Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope, Katharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck, sometimes typing through tears.

This memoriam will be different. This time it's business, not personal. And it's a triple killing; three deaths by causes that are natural only to the greedy. There are still faint signs of life, but the end is inevitable.

Rest in peace, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists and Miramax Films.

Movie fans don't cry over the demise of movie studios, or leave flowers at their doorsteps, or even send sympathy cards. Services will be very private, in the tastefully decorated offices of attorneys and accountants awaiting their cuts of the inheritances. Wakes will be held at fashionable resorts around the world, financed by golden parachutes.

Nobody will openly grieve, but everyone will feel the losses of movie studios that redefined Hollywood in their respective eras. Their lives made every moviegoer's life a little better. Their deaths are evidence of a show business disease affecting us all.

Their histories are a timeline of American cinema. MGM was the shiniest example of Hollywood's first golden era, the home of movie moguls Louis B. Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn, spawning such classics as The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind and too many memorable musicals to mention.

That roaring lion logo also introduced 2001: A Space Odyssey and Network in the second great film period, when MGM's partner studio United Artists - founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith - was home to groundbreaking films such as Raging Bull, Midnight Cowboy, Annie Hall and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, not to mention the James Bond franchise.

The daring nature of that era provided an inspirational link to the independent film movement pioneered by Miramax in the 1990s with pickups from film festivals such as Sex, Lies and Videotape and The Crying Game, plus cagey production - and promotion - of Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, and The English Patient that earned Academy Awards.

Make your own list of the greatest films ever. If you're older than 30, it's a good bet that MGM, Miramax and United Artists brought you many of them.

Now they're gone, although in true Hollywood fashion their ghosts will be around. You might see their names on movie posters and DVD boxes, but that's just other companies assuming their identities like talented Mr. Ripleys. They have brand names that still have value, nostalgic as it may be. The conglomerates gobbling up the best years of our movie lives are smart enough to cash in.

Miramax sealed its fate in 1993 when Harvey and Bob Weinstein sold the studio named for their parents, Miriam and Max, to Disney's empire. It was a nice relationship for a while, with Disney financing the Weinsteins' pet projects, knowing they would offer the company awards credibility: a total of 220 Oscar nominations and 53 wins in 12 years.

However, one animated hit contracted out to Pixar could make more profits for Disney than an entire Miramax movie year. Expensive projects such as Gangs of New York and Cold Mountain didn't pay off well enough to suit the Mouse House.

Disney's refusal last year to release Fahrenheit 9/11, which the Weinsteins then bought back and sold to Lions Gate Films and IFC Films, was a bad sign during negotiations to continue the partnership. The split became official April 4, when the Weinsteins accepted a reported $125-million to leave. Disney keeps the Miramax name - which won't mean the same without the Weinsteins' instincts - and a library of more than 500 films to be peddled on home video and television. Don't expect any Kill Bill theme park rides.

MGM and United Artists are a $5-billion package deal sealed Monday for a consortium led by Sony, already owners of Columbia, Tri-Star, Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics. Their combined libraries of more than 4,000 films are a video and TV gold mine that Ted Turner previously owned to build his cable television stations.

The current owner, Kirk Kerkorian, is a better deal maker than the Weinsteins, but never shared their respect for cinema. He first bought MGM and United Artists at bargain prices in 1969, using the logo and history to decorate new hotels financed by stripping the studio's assets. You may remember him as the guy who auctioned Dorothy Gale's ruby slippers.

The formerly great studios declined into creative and financial bankruptcy, changing ownership several times. Kerkorian sold them for $1.4-billion in 1981 then bought them again in 1996 for $1.3-billion. That's right: he came out $100-million ahead and took back the studios. On Monday he sold them for $5-billion. The Sony consortium will easily make that back on DVD and television sales, possibly even remakes and sequels that likely make more money in homes than in theaters.

Video didn't exactly kill these three studio stars, but it provided a motive.

The MGM lion has a few last gasps in him, including the remake of The Amityville Horror, which opens today. There are hopeful rumors that the studio will occasionally produce new films with Sony's money. Don't count on it. United Artists has The Pink Panther remake starring Steve Martin coming in September, and first dibs on the announced Bond sequel Casino Royale. Neither will ever again be in a position to recapture the magic of their best days. They haven't been in a long time, but now it's official.

The Miramax logo will still appear, but with Disney pulling the purse strings it's easy to predict what will happen. There won't be a place for edgy new talent such as Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith, or poetic filmmakers (read: their films won't turn a profit) like Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Cold Mountain) and Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules, Chocolat).

To find those auteurs, we'll look to the Weinsteins' next project, either action-flavored Dimension Films that Disney allowed them to keep, or a new studio with the bland interim name, the Weinstein Co. The brothers already plan to release a four-hour NC-17 version of Tarantino's Kill Bill opus, Smith's sequel to Clerks, and the Australian horror flick Wolf Creek purchased at the Sundance Film Festival. A few collaborations with Disney, including Scary Movie 4, Derailed starring Jennifer Aniston and Minghella's Breaking and Entering, are contractually obligated.

But seeing the sparkling Miramax skyline, or Leo the lion, or even United Artists' comparably dull logo at the beginning of new movies won't thrill moviegoers as it once did. Watching classics condensed and edited for television or repackaged like day-old doughnuts will be sad. The chances of seeing something remarkable, memorable, for the ages, from MGM, United Artists or Miramax are lost forever. Gone with the wind, you might say.

- Steve Persall can be reached at 727 893-8365 and Persall@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 14, 2005, 10:05:03]