Samuel Bronston Productions was an independent American film production company, established by Samuel Bronston in 1943. The studio became known for producing several historical epics, including King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961), 55 Days at Peking (1963), and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964).
In 1940, Bronston partnered with James Roosevelt, the son of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but their collaboration produced no films. Bronston next joined Columbia Pictures and worked as an associate producer on The Adventures of Martin Eden (1942). In 1943, Bronston founded his namesake studio, and produced Jack London (1943) for United Artists. He next collaborated with Lewis Milestone on the war film A Walk in the Sun (1945) and René Clair on the mystery film And Then There Were None (1945); however, Bronston went uncredited as he struggled to raise financing.
Bronston left Hollywood and produced a documentary with the Vatican. In 1955, he returned to Hollywood to produce John Paul Jones (1959). He relocated Bronston Productions in Madrid, and raised financial capital by pre-selling his film projects to private investors, including financier Pierre S. du Pont III. In Madrid, Bronston spearheaded several productions of historical epics, including King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961), 55 Days at Peking (1963), and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964).
In June 1964, Bronston declared bankruptcy due to the box office failures of The Fall of the Roman Empire and Circus World (1964). From there, Bronston entered a years-long financial litigation with du Pont III, in which he was ordered to pay $3 million.
History 1943–1945: Origins
On February 16, 1943, Samuel Bronston announced the formation of his namesake production company, having secured the financial support of three banking institutions. Those included were Lazard, Guaranty Trust Co. of New York, and the Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles (SFNB). Bronston appointed Joe Nadel as production manager and Bernard Herzbrun as art director. The studio was headquartered at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio. Furthermore, he announced a five-year plan to release 15 feature films, each to be distributed by United Artists (UA). The first inaugural production was the 1943 film Jack London.
By April 1943, Bronston had signed Alfred Santell and Ernest Pascal to direct and write the screenplay, respectively, for Jack London. The film was intended to start production on May 28, 1943, but was postponed until July 1943 when Bronston selected Michael O'Shea for the title role, on loan from Hunt Stromberg. The New York Times reported Bronston's next project was a biographical film of General Billy Mitchell by Isaac Don Levine, for which he acquired the screen rights for $100,000. Bronston had planned to film The Life of Billy Mitchell in 1945, but the project did not reach fruition.
Lewis Milestone had a chance encounter with Bronston, who encouraged him to work independently for his production company. Milestone explained, "I was taking a walk one night when I met Sam Bronston and he asked me to do a film for him which United Artists would release. That suited me fine. I didn't want to go back to a major studio which would have meant having to wrestle continuously with a whole army of executives." By August 1944, Milestone signed a contract with Bronston Productions to direct independent film projects. After considering a number of best-selling novels, Milestone announced he would direct Borrowed Night, a film adaptation of the Oscar Ray novel. The story concerned two boys and one girl who are forced into the Wehrmacht and escape through goldbricking. Meanwhile, Bronston also had contracted two French directors René Clair and Julien Duvivier, with the intention they would adapt Jack London's other novels, which included The Valley of the Moon, The Star Rover, and The Little Lady of the Big House.
However, by the fall of 1944, Clair instead decided to direct a film adaptation of Agatha Christie's 1943 play And Then There Were None (which was also performed under the title Ten Little Indians). Dudley Nichols was hired to write the screenplay, while the principal cast included Louis Hayward, Barry Fitzgerald, and ZaSu Pitts. Principal photography was scheduled to begin on November 15, 1944. Meanwhile, Duvivier had been set to direct Edward Chodorov's 1944 play Decision. The project centered on a returning U.S. war veteran who discovers fascism rampant at home, but United Artists dropped the production when it was met with opposition from the United States Office of War Information (OWI). Between 1942 to 1945, the OWI reviewed Hollywood film scripts, and urged revisions or discarded material which portrayed the United States in a negative light, including anti-war sentiment.
In 1944, the Zeppo Marx Agency sent Milestone a copy of Harry Brown's war novel A Walk in the Sun. Milestone read the novel and prompted Bronston to buy the screen rights. Bronston purchased the rights from the Alfred A. Knopf publishing company. In November 1944, filming for A Walk in the Sun began at the Agoura Ranch in San Fernando Valley, as a stand-in for Italy. Financing for the film was primarily handled by the bank creditor Walter E. Heller & Co. of Chicago which loaned $850,000, while Ideal Factoring Corp. contributed secondary financing for $300,000. However, the loan from Ideal Factoring (headed by Martin Hersh) was secured at the start of the production. Back in New York, Bronston phoned Milestone to report Walter E. Heller had withdrawn their loan agreement. Bronston tried to arrange a more lucrative arrangement, in which they offered $200,000 at 6 percent interest, plus a bonus of 15 percent and 40 percent of the picture's profits (for a sum total of $300,000). Alarmed at the figure, the Chicago banks withdrew their offer. Bankrupt, Bronston withdrew from the project altogether.
Milestone and other private creditors arranged a package deal with Charles K. Feldman to defer their salaries in exchange for a percentage of the box office gross. Milestone next flew out to Chicago to meet with David O'Hara, head of the Chicago financiers, and negotiated $750,000 to finish the production. Filming on A Walk in the Sun wrapped on January 5, 1945. United Artists however decided not to distribute the film as they had agreed to release The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), another war film. Milestone then screened for Darryl F. Zanuck, in which Twentieth Century-Fox agreed to distribute the film.
In January 1945, Bronston filed a $4 million lawsuit against Ideal Factoring Corp., Walter E. Heller and Co., David Hersh, and five others, charging them with seeking to defraud him of the profits and his financial interest in the film A Walk in the Sun. Bronston alleged in the suit the defendants had unlawfully sold his rights to the film to Ideal Factoring. Within a year, A Walk in the Sun had earned $1.6 million in domestic box office rentals. Twentieth Century-Fox took 30 percent of the earnings for their distribution fee. Since the budget had exceeded its original amount, Variety estimated that the bank creditors lost $200,000.
That same month, Bronston had lost the rights to Ten Little Indians due to copyright issues. A new production company Popular Pictures, Inc., headed by Harry Popkin and Edward J. Peskay, was formed to finish the project, retitled as And Then There Were None (1945). René Clair and Dudley Nichols remained with the project, along with the principal cast.
1946–1959: Return from dormancy In March 1946, Bronston announced plans to produce a biographical film of John Paul Jones. He stated he had wanted to commence filming during the same summer with the cooperation of the United States Navy. A month later, Bronston offered the project to Warner Bros. Pictures. However, the project was dropped due to the needed expenses and lengthy screen time necessary to cover the subject adequately.
In 1949, The New York Times reported that Bronston was developing a feature-length documentary in Rome based on The Vatican: Behind the Scenes in the Holy City, a book by Ann Carnahan. The documentary was intended to feature the daily life of Vatican citizens and views of holy places to be visited by pilgrims during the impending Holy Year. At the time, the documentary was the first color film production taken within the Vatican. Bronston was also involved in a lengthy project to document the Vatican's treasures in an extensive collection of 35 mm slides. According to Bronston's biographer Mel Martin, Bob Considine narrated the film.
A year later, in 1950, Variety reported Bronston had returned to the United States, having spent 15 months filming the Vatican. Bronston, who had been the production chief of All-Nations Television Corp., intended to release his documentary as a series of shorts for theatrical distribution. He also sought to publish pictures of the Vatican in Life magazine.
By 1955, Bronston returned to Hollywood and aimed to reactivate his long-dormant biopic of John Paul Jones. He formed Admiralty Pictures Corporation, an investment company with a group of New York investors. Bronston was the president, while R. Stuyvesant Pierrepont Jr. served as the chairman of the board of directors. Through this contact, Bronston recruited multiple limited partners, including Nelson and Laurence Rockefeller. The most influential partner of Bronston's partners was Pierre S. du Pont III, a member of the prominent family and senior executive in their business enterprises. The Du Ponts had financed patriotic radio and television series, and Bronston's project appealed to him. Du Pont personally invested nearly $1.5 million, over a quarter of the film's total cost. Several companies which invested included DuPont, General Motors, Eastman Kodak, and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.
Bronston had initially planned to film John Paul Jones (1959) in the United States and overseas, including in both Scotland and Italy. In 1957, Bronston met with José María de Areilza, then Spain's Ambassador to the United States, at a U.S. State Department dinner. Areilza encouraged him to shoot on location in Spain. Moreover, Bronston's pool of investors had investments frozen in place by local currency restrictions in Italy, France, and Spain. One day, he received a private investment of $500,000, which was tied up in Spanish pesetas. When Bronston arrived in Madrid, he selected Spain to film John Paul Jones because of the support of the government, the cheap, cost-efficient labor, and accommodable filming conditions.
Bronston hired John Farrow to direct John Paul Jones as part of his three-picture deal, and the cast included Robert Stack in the title role, Macdonald Carey, Charles Coburn, Marisa Pavan and Jean Pierre Aumont. He also hired retired Admiral Chester Nimitz as his personal advisor on the film. Nimitz immediately connected Bronston with assistance from the United States Navy, including Nimitz's successor, who pledged the Navy's full cooperation. Alan Brown was recruited as associate producer, having served as Nimitz's executive officer at the Pacific Fleet headquarters. The production was shot mostly on location in Spain, with permission from the Royal Palace of Madrid by the Francoist Spanish government. Minor filming was done on location in England and France.
Released by Warner Bros. in 1959, John Paul Jones received mixed reviews from film critics. The film earned $1 million in distributor rentals from the United States and Canada. In 1964, Warner Bros. sold their ownership of the film to Bronston, who planned to re-release the film later that same year.
1960–1964: Successful releases and bankruptcy