There are occasional independent hits today, and there was a time in the silent era when studios in Florida and elsewhere got lucrative distribution, but were any movies that would be considered classics from “The Golden Era” (which I’ll interpret broadly as 1930-1960) independently produced?
Did any of the small producers outside of the big studios (MGM, Fox, Paramount, etc.) produce anything of quality that got wide release or box office success?
Was it even possible for an independent picture to get wide distribution in the Golden Era? I thought most theaters were either owned by one of the studios, or locked into an exclusive distribution contract. So an independent movie would have few venues to be shown.
I could be wrong, but it seems like the Edgar G. Ulmer operated mostly outside of the Hollywood system, but did have at least a couple of ‘classics’ (Detour being the most important, I think).
I know Howard Hawks was one of the few directors who released movies under pretty much every major studio, but I don’t know if they were independent productions or what.
There were some well-known films that were independently produced, though a studio to distributed them.
It’s a Wonderful Life was produced independently by Liberty Films (run by Frank Capra). RKO did the distribution, and the failure of the film put Liberty out of business. Capra also founded Frank Capra Productions in 1939 and produced Meet John Doe.
The African Queen also was independent, though the studio system was dying at that point.
And of course, Gone With The Wind and other David Selznick films were done by the Selznick studio, which was independent (though distributed through MGM).
Production on these were all were similar to a small independent film today; the “studios” did not have contract players and produced a limited number of films a year (or one every several years). They did not own theaters, and they used the old fashioned Hollywood production values and talent, but the studio was the creation of one or two men who oversaw their one production.
“Louisiana Story”, 1948, commissioned by the Standard Oil Company.
The Blob. I bet a bunch of genre movies that somehow transcended their genres and were just great films fit the category. Unless you don’t want those.
Preston Sturges formed an independent film company after he left Paramount. Howard Hughes gave financial backing, but the venture wasn’t affiliated with RKO. Unfortunately, the films from California Pictures were not Sturges’ best work.
Orson Welles self-financed a version of Othello, but almost all of his other work was actually produced for the studio system.
If I’m not mistaken, every United Artists film has been independently produced. Pickford, Fairbanks, Chaplin, and Griffith founded the company both to have more control over their movies and to cut out the distribution middle-men.