Tiffany Pictures

Tiffany Pictures (known for a period as Tiffany-Stahl Productions) was a Hollywood motion picture studio in operation from 1921^[1] until 1932.

The Death Kiss (1932) produced by Tiffany Pictures, released by Sono Art-World Wide Pictures, and starring Bela Lugosi

History

Tiffany Productions was a movie-making venture founded in 1921 by star Mae Murray, her then-husband, director Robert Z. Leonard, and Maurice H. Hoffman, who made eight films, all released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Murray and Leonard divorced in 1925 and almost simultaneously the downward spiral of Tiffany began.

Starting in 1925 with Souls for Sables, co-starring Claire Windsor and Eugene O'Brien, Tiffany released 70 features, both silent and sound, twenty of which were Westerns.^[2] At one point, Tiffany was booking its films into nearly 2,500 theatres.^[3]

To produce their films, Tiffany acquired the former Reliance-Majestic Studios lot at 4516 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles in 1927.

From 1927 to 1930, John M. Stahl was the director of Tiffany and renamed the company Tiffany-Stahl Productions. Head of Tiffany was Phil Goldstone with his vice president Maurice H. Hoffman,^[4] who later was president of Liberty Films that merged into Republic Pictures. Leonard A. Young who simultaneously ran the L. A. Young Spring and Wire Company bought into Tiffany from Hoffman in 1929.^[5]

Title card for Mamba (1930)

Partial list of Tiffany films

Some of Tiffany's later movies, such as The Death Kiss (1932), were released by Sono Art-World Wide Pictures. Among the films produced by Tiffany were:

• The Princess From Hoboken (1927)
• The Cavalier (1928), starring Richard Talmadge
• Clothes Make the Woman (1928), starring Eve Southern (under the Tiffany-Stahl banner)
• The Lost Zeppelin (1929), an early Antarctic disaster film
• Extravagance (1930), with June Collyer
• Journey's End (1930), the first film directed by James Whale
• Mamba (1930), claimed to be the first full-Technicolor drama
• The Medicine Man (1930), starring Jack Benny
• Near the Rainbow's End (1930), with Bob Steele and Louise Lorraine
• Salvation Nell (1931), directed by James Cruze
• X Marks the Spot (1931), starring Lew Cody and Sally Blane
• The Death Kiss (1932), starring Bela Lugosi, David Manners, and Edward Van Sloan, filmed on location at Tiffany Studios and one of the last films made at Tiffany
• The Man Called Back (1932)
• A series of eight films featuring and produced by movie star Mae Murray
• Eight singing cowboy Westerns starring Bob Steele
• Ten Westerns starring Ken Maynard
• A series of short subjects called The Voice of Hollywood
• A series of short subject comedies featuring voices dubbed over chimps chewing bubble gum, produced by Jack White

They were sued by Tiffany & Co. for trademark infringement, as they used slogans such as "Another Gem from Tiffany".

Closing of studio and legacy

• One reason for Tiffany's failure was that it lacked a profitable distribution network.^[6]
• The studio complex was later bought by Columbia Pictures and given to Sam Katzman and Irving Briskin as base of operations for their film units.^[7]
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased Tiffany's nitrate original film negative library and burned the collection during the burning of Atlanta sequence in Gone with the Wind.
• After Tiffany filed for bankruptcy in 1932, the copyrights on most (if not all) of their films weren't renewed, and are now in the public domain.
• In January 2012, the Vitaphone Project announced that the US premiere of a restored print of Mamba will be in March 2012 at Cinefest in Syracuse, New York.^[8]

References

1. Crafton, Donald The Talkies-American Cinema's Transition to Sound 1926-1931
2. Fernett, Gene Hollywood's Poverty Row 1930-1950 p.31 1973 Coral Reef Publications
3. p.215 Crafton, Donald The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound 1926-1931 University of California Press (1997)
4. Maas, Frederica Sagor The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: A Writer in Early Hollywood University Press of Kentucky, 1999
5. Interregnum in Hollywood, Time 15 Feb 1932
6. p.215 Crafton, Donald The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound 1926-1931 University of California Press (1997)
7. p.108 Weaver, Tom A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde: Interviews with 62 Filmmakers McFarland
8. Vitaphone Project Newsletter (Vol. 10, Nr. 4)

External links

• List of Tiffany-Stahl Productions at IMDB
• List of Tiffany Productions at IMDB
• Arne Andersen's: Lost Film Files : The lost films of Tiffany Studios 1925-1929