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Mascot Pictures

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Mascot Pictures Corporation
IndustryFilm studio
Founded1927;97 years ago(1927)
Defunct1935;89 years ago(1935)
FateMerged
SuccessorRepublic Pictures
HeadquartersFirst:Santa Monica Boulevard,Los Angeles,United States
Later:Studio City, Los Angeles, California,United States
Key people
Nat Levine
ProductsThe King of the Kongo(1929)
The Shadow of the Eagle(1932)
In Old Santa Fe(1934)
The Phantom Empire(1935)

Mascot Pictures Corporationwas an American film company of the 1920s and 1930s, best known for producing and distributingfilm serialsandB-westerns.Mascot was formed in 1927 byfilm producerNat Levine.In 1935, it merged with several other companies to formRepublic Pictures.

Mascot's serialThe King of the Kongo(1929) was the first serial to includesound,beatingUniversal Studiosby several months.

The company's logo featured a roaringtigerresting on top of a model of the planetEarth.

Early years

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Mascot was created in 1927 byNat Levine,a former personal secretary toMarcus Loew,after the success of his independent serialThe Silent Flyer(1926).

In the beginning the company operated out of the upstairs offices of a contractor's business onSanta Monica Boulevard.It rented all of its equipment and facilities.

In 1929 the studio made serial history with the production ofThe King of the Kongo.This was the first serial, from any production company, to be made withsound.Mascot's first all-talking production wasThe Phantom of the West(1931)

Sennett Studios

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It was from small Mascot Pictures, butLadies Crave Excitement(1935) still packed "Bursting Action, Deep Drama...And Up To Date Romance" into its 73 minutes.Supervising editorJoseph H. Lewiswould soon become a prolific director of B westerns. His laterfilm noirs,including the independently producedGun Crazy(1949), would become renowned.

By 1933 Mascot was successful enough to rent, and later buy, Sennett Studios, after the original owner, silent-film comedy producer-directorMack Sennett,went bankrupt because of theGreat Depression.This made the company a truefilm studio.That studio lot is nowCBS Studio Center.

Mascot was responsible for the popularity of the concept of the "singing cowboy"and the" musical western ". In1935the studio producedThe Phantom Empirewith the then untriedGene Autryas the lead.

Republic Pictures

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Main article:Republic Pictures

Mascot's film laboratory wasConsolidated Film Industries.In 1935, under pressure from that company's owner,Herbert Yates,Mascot was merged by CFI withMonogram Pictures,Liberty Pictures,Chesterfield Picturesand Invincible Pictures to formRepublic Pictures,a production-distribution company designed by Yates. Levine was designated head of the serial and B-Western arm of the company, and the Mascot studio facilities and contract personnel became Republic assets as part of the merger. Within two years, however, along with most of his colleagues at Republic who had owned other companies, Levine found himself in a disagreeable situation and left Republic. With only the Mascot name and film library remaining in his possession, Levine found employment elsewhere in the motion picture industry and Mascot Pictures survived only through reissues of its sound serials and a single, new feature film edited from the "Phantom Empire" serial, released in 1940.

Legacy

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Several careers began at Mascot Pictures.

Actors

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Production crew

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Filmography

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Additionally,

  • The Silent Flyer(1926) was created by Nat Levine but was not in the strict sense of the word a Mascot production.

See also

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Further reading

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  • The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures 1927–1935;Tuska, Jon; 1999 (McFarland Classics);ISBN978-0-7864-0749-1
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