M G M Filming of Leo the Lion Production Logo 1917 to 1928

by Douglas MooreZart

Title

M G M Filming of Leo the Lion Production Logo 1917 to 1928

Artist

Douglas MooreZart

Medium

Painting - Painting And Digital

Description

Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures, featured in the studio's production logo, which was created by the Paramount Studios art director Lionel S. Reiss.

Since 1924 (when the studio was formed by the merger of Samuel Goldwyn's studio with Marcus Loew's Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer's company), there have been around seven different lions used for the MGM logo; these lions include Tanner and Leo, the current (and seventh) lion. Tanner was used on all Technicolor films and MGM cartoons (including the Tom and Jerry series), and in use on the studio logo for 22 years (Leo has been in use since 1957, a total of 56 years and counting). However, when the MGM animation department, which had closed in 1958, reopened with the Chuck Jones-directed Tom and Jerry shorts in 1963, these shorts used Tanner in the opening sequence rather than Leo, who had already been adapted onto the studio logo and the Gene Deitch-directed Tom and Jerry cartoons from 1960-62.

Slats was the first lion used for the newly-formed studio. Born at the Dublin Zo] in 1919 and originally named Cairbre, Slats was used on all black-and-white MGM films between 1924 and 1928. The original logo was designed by Howard Dietz and used by the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation studio from 1917 to 1924 (see left). The first Goldwyn Pictures film to feature Slats the Lion was Polly of the Circus (1917). Goldwyn Pictures was ultimately absorbed into the partnership that formed MGM, and the first MGM film that used the logo was He Who Gets Slapped (1924). Unlike his successors, Slats did not do anything but look around in the logo (as did the Goldwyn Pictures lion), and was therefore the only MGM lion not to roar. Slats died in 1936; his hide is currently on display at the McPherson Museum in McPherson, Kansas.

This image is re-imaged from the public domain image.

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September 12th, 2013

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