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Rayart Pictures
Company typeFilm production
IndustryEntertainment
Founded1924
Founder W. Ray Johnston
Defunct1933
Fatemerged with Sono Art-World Wide Pictures and acquired by Monogram Pictures

Rayart Pictures was one of the early film production and distribution companies operating independent of the major Hollywood studios in the United States during the later silent film era from the mid-to-late 1920s and into the early "talkies" era of early films with sound in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It established its own distribution network, [1] specializing in westerns. [2] It was started by W. Ray Johnston in 1924, after whom the company was named. It was originally created as a low budget release agent, [3] and like the other so-called Poverty Row studios, was based in a small plot off Sunset Strip, by Gower Street. [4] An early Poverty Row studio, [5] it was a forerunner of Monogram Pictures, which was also founded by W. Ray Johnston. [6]

In 1929, Rayart produced a series of musical pieces—featuring Tommy Christian and His Palisades Orchestra— as well as shorts and the feature-length film Howdy Broadway, a musical set in college with "an entirely predictable" script. [7]

Rayart was renamed Raytone with the advent of sound in films.[ citation needed] The company became part of Monogram Pictures in a merger with Sono Art-World Wide Pictures in 1933.

Filmography

The Temporary Sheriff Lobby Card
The Fighting Thorobreds lobby card

References

  1. ^ Michael Allen (25 September 2014). Contemporary US Cinema. Taylor & Francis. p. 40. ISBN  978-1-317-87418-8.
  2. ^ Wide Angle. Ohio University School of Film. 1991.
  3. ^ Michael R. Pitts (25 July 2005). Poverty Row Studios, 1929–1940: An Illustrated History of 55 Independent Film Companies, with a Filmography for Each. McFarland. p. 131. ISBN  978-1-4766-1036-8.
  4. ^ Michael G. Ankerich (1 May 1993). Broken silence: conversations with 23 silent film stars. McFarland & Co. ISBN  978-0-89950-835-1.
  5. ^ Wes D. Gehring (2003). Carole Lombard, the Hoosier Tornado. Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN  978-0-87195-167-0.
  6. ^ E.J. Stephens and Marc Wanamaker (2014). Early Poverty Row Studios. Arcadia Publishing. p. 41. ISBN  978-1-4671-3258-9.
  7. ^ Richard Koszarski (27 August 2008). Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff. Rutgers University Press. p. 238. ISBN  978-0-8135-4552-3.
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