Republic Pictures was an American independent film production and distribution company with studio facilities, operating from 1935 until 1959, mainly specialising in westerns,  serials and B films usually combining mystery and action.

I rather like the above colour logo that Republic used – it is sort of classy in an old fashioned way – but I expect that if they ceased to exist as long ago as 1959 then it would look a little dated !!

The studio was also responsible for financing and distributing  several of the films of John Ford during the 1940s and early 1950s. It was also notable for developing the careers of John Wayne, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

In 1991 there was a documentary film made about Republic  as follows :-

There is a terrific TV documentary on the History of REPUBLIC PICTURES which was clearly lovingly crafted and well edited with dozens of clips from every genre of feature film made at the studio from 1936 to the mid 50s. The serial chapters and the musical chapters are possibly the most interesting. This film is a must for any collectors of B movie magic.

The way the studio was formed and why it collapsed in 1958 is told here.  Anyone who watches this film  will find it fascinating.

Above – An aerial view of the Republic Studios – Looks like one of the sets for a John Wayne film.

As the demand and market for B-pictures declined, Republic began to cut back,
slowing production from 40 main films annually in the early 1950s to 18 in 1957.
A tearful Herbert Yates informed shareholders at the 1958 annual meeting that
feature-film production was ending; the distribution offices were shut down
the following year. In the early 1960s, Republic sold its library of films to Television.
CBS bought Republic’s studio lot but they had in fact been using these facilities for some years.
Republic Pictures is one of the first major independent movie studios best known for creating B-movies. Founded in 1935 by Herbert Yates as a merger of several smaller “poverty row” studios, Republic produced memorable feature films and launched the careers of John Wayne, Gene Autry, Rex Allen, and Roy Rogers.

Republic Pictures earned its greatest reputation for its numerous serials, which were generally considered the best in the business. The company introduced choreographed fight scenes, and excelled in the special effects of model work, explosions, and simulating superheroes’ ability to fly.

Republic exploded into national prominence with its focus in westerns, movie serials and B-films emphasising mystery and action, the staples of Saturday afternoon matinees. The studio rocketed serials like The Adventures of Captain Marvel and Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe into the public imagination throughout its fabled 24-year history. Notable Republic Pictures include Under Western Stars (1938), Flying Tigers (1942), Macbeth (1948), Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), The Red Pony (1949), The Quiet Man (1952), and Johnny Guitar (1954).

Out of interest Under Western Stars (1938), was the first film for Roy Rogers.  He had been in a number of films before this – under his own name Leonard Sly and the last two as Dick Weston but Republic decided that for his first starring role he would be Roy Rogers – and that was how he remained.

Above:  Roy Rogers – Under Western Stars.

The original Republic Pictures as a feature-film production unit closed down in 1959. NTA (National Telefilm Associates) acquired the Republic library for television. In 1967, the Republic studio facilities were sold to CBS, and their location today is part of CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California

Billy Fury was auditioned during one of Larry Parnes touring stage shows in the late fifties, and he was then, quite incredibly, pushed out onto the stage and performed his own song – and one of my own favourites – Maybe Tomorrow.

The rest is history. He joined that show and for a number of years was one of Britains finest Rock n Roll artists – equally well known on  record, TV and film – and this was his very first film and was directed by Michael Winner who always spoke very highly of Billy Fury.

This is not quite a Film of the Fifties but Billy was discovered and released records towards the end of that decade so I am cheating a bit but it seems a good idea to include someone of his stature.

This is a film I have to admit – from the fifties – that I do not remember at all.

It does however have some quite big stars in it so maybe I should take a look. I have in the meantime been helped by this synopsis :-

WOMANS’S WORLD  has everything a Fox film of the 50’s had. CinemaScope, colour, stereo sound, all star cast, New York settings and a sensational musical score. The seven stars really shine here. Clifton Webb, Cornel Wilde; Fred MacMurray and Van Heflin couldn’t be better. The women are even better. Lauren Bacall is her usual sophisticated self and is at her best, even better than in HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE. June Allyson is a delight as the not-so-in with it wife, and Arlene Dahl steals the show with her red hair and ample figure. Although I think Marilyn Monroe might have really excelled in the role.  The plot line is fun and quite exciting as to who will be the new general manager of a car company. Who gets the job and why is a nice twist to the story

Jon Hall made 52 episodes of this a very popular TV series.

 Even had a Ramar of the Jungle comic in those days.

With the coming of television, the smaller Hollywood studios, which had specialised in low-budget B  movies and serials, were pushed out of Cinemas, but found a new market ideally suited for the disciplines of their ‘assembly-line’ productions (short shooting schedules for each episode, reliance on standing sets and stock footage, simple action-oriented plots) in the new media, and many series appeared. “Ramar of the Jungle” was one example, and while it didn’t enjoy the success of “The Adventures of Superman” or “The Lone Ranger”, it was still a fast-paced, exotic-looking adventure show which captivated younger viewers.

Jon Hall, best-known for his RKO ‘Arabian Nights’ swashbucklers during WWII, starred, as Dr. Tom Reynolds, a man dedicated to healing (‘Ramar’ was a native term for ‘Medicine Man’), who seemed to spend most of his life working out of his tent in the middle of the jungle. His partner, Prof. Howard Ogden (played by happy-go-lucky Ray Montgomery, another film veteran), had a habit of getting the pair into hot water, but also had the scientific skills to get them out trouble. There were evil hunters and thieves who would come to the jungle to plunder, Reynolds would always arrive in the nick of time to defend the African natives, and save the day.

It wasn’t a particularly intellectual show, but it was fun, and Hall and Montgomery had an easy-going chemistry together (and they looked very cool, dressed in khakis!)

The early days of Television.

The Last Command  is a 1955 Trucolor film about  the fall of the Alamo  in 1836. Filmed by Republic Pictures, it was an unusually expensive undertaking for the low-budget studio.

Pinewood is the Home of some of the Very Best of British Films – and today the studios produce globally targeted films as well as shows for TV.

This is a very interesting film clip on the Link below – a visit to Pinewood with Richard E. Grant :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGc7YLLsoeI&feature=player_detailpage.

The James Bond set at Pinewood Studios was destroyed in a fire  in 2006 during the making of Casino Royale.- See picture below.

Luckily no-one was hurt.

 This is an interesting picture of the fire at Pinewood from outside the Studios back in  2006.

John Ford’s Rio Grande (1950) is one of the major 50s Westerns.  This photograph shows John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara and the crew shooting a scene. John Ford’s not visible in this shot – but he must have been around and closely by.

I always like to see this sort of picture showing the camera track and camera and lighting – even in an outdoor scene – as this is

 The recent terrible floods along the North Sea coast on England and inland too, reminds me of this film and I will tell you why.  A man I know in the local pub is originally from a village near  Mablethorpe a seaside town in Lincolnshire, England and he told me the story of going to the local cinema in the town on a night in 1953 to see Hurricane Island with Jon Hall.  Mid way through the performance the film stopped and water began coming into the cinema so they all got out safely. He lived inland and on higher ground so was able to leave the town quite easily, but there was loss of life there that night sadly due to the sea flooding along the whole of that coast and down to Norfolk as well.

The film was showing at The Lyric – now no longer a cinema like so many more.  He did tell me that he has never seen the end of that film because  it has not been on television or shown  since.

Jon Hall had made a career our of this sort of film

Jon Hall –  athletic leading man who was once crowned “the King of Technicolor” (his queen was Maria Montez), Hall started in films as a bit player billed under his own name. The dark-haired, handsome actor worked his way up to substantial roles in Here’s to Romance, Charlie Chan in Shanghai (both 1935), The Lion Man and The Mysterious Avenger (both 1936), among others, before being cast as Dorothy Lamour’s sarong-clad native lover in John Ford’s The Hurricane (1937), a huge success. See picture below :-

He became a leading man, and freelanced for several studios, appearing in South of Pago Pago, Kit Carson (both 1940), Aloma of the South Seas (1941), and Eagle Squadron (1942), before being paired with exotic Maria Montez in a Technicolor spectacle for Universal, Arabian Nights (1942). Escape-hungry wartime audiences made it a big hit, and Universal kept the Hall-Montez team together in White Savage (1943), Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Cobra Woman, GypsyWildcat (all 1944), and Sudan (1945). When the formula finally petered out, Hall’s star began to wane.

He made several Westerns, among them The Vigilantes Return (1947), Deputy Marshal (1949, costarring then-wife Frances Langford), and When the Redskins Rode (1951), before starring as “Ramar of the Jungle” in a 1952-54 syndicated TV series, some episodes of which were cut together and released as feature films. Overweight and lethargic, he never regained his box-office standing, although he did stay in the movie business by renting out some expensive photographic equipment he’d collected over the years. He also directed one film, The Beachgirls and the Monster (1965, aka Monster from the Surf Hall married actress Raquel Torres in 1959, and shot himself  after spending several months in bed following an operation for bladder cancer.

Jon was an inventor and highly skilled aviator. He held patents on an underwater camera, optivision lenses and the design of the hulls of PT boats for the US Navy.

Jon Hall has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for Motion Pictures at 1724 Vine Street and for television at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard.

Walt Disney came to England in 1949 and made Treasure Island at Denham Film Studios  followed by The Story of Robin Hood 1952 again at Denham and starring Richard Todd in the title role with Joan Rice. These two were very good films indeed – in fact I would go so far as to say that Robin Hood was a great film – and they were quickly  quickly followed by  The Sword and the Rose  and then Rob Roy The Highland Rogue and these too also starred Richard Todd who made three major films for Disney – all in England  –  I reckon he was in these three films within the space of just under two years.

In fact  Treasure Island (1950) grossed $4 million, returning to the studio a profit of between $2.2 and $2.4 million and The Story of Robin Hood did even better.

However Rob Roy The Highland Rogue missed the mark at the Box Office and didn’t fare anywhere near as well, and in fact probably because of this, Walt Disney took his next Live Action films to Hollywood and did not return to England for a few years.

Here – above –  is an interesting item – a book of the film which would have been sold at the time.

This film was chosen for the Royal Film Premiere of the year in 1953 but it seems that later papers released in 2010 shows that The Queen was not happy with the choice.

Here is an extract from the Daily Mail article of 2010 :-

For nearly 50 years the Queen has graced the red carpet at Royal Film  Performances.

Ghastly ordeal: Queen Elizabeth II arriving for a Royal  Film Premier of Rob Roy in 1953. She was not impressed by the film

But newly discovered documents show that in the early years  of her reign she found the movies so dreadful she complained to then Prime  Minister Sir Winston Churchill during an audience at Buckingham Palace.

She may have once even considered boycotting the event.

The 1954 Royal Performance of the film Beau Brummell – starring Stewart  Granger and Elizabeth Taylor – was a particular cause of displeasure. The Queen  and her officials were also unimpressed by three previous films – Where No  Vultures Fly, Because You’re Mine and Rob Roy The Highland Rogue.

The Queen had told the Prime Minister Winston Churchill,  what a bad  film it was and he, on his own initiative, wanted to see what could be done  about it for the future.’