Hal Roach Studios Badge - 315 - Rare Collectible
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:52292035 | Country/Region of Manufacture: United States |
This auction is for a old Hal Roach Studios brass Employee pin. "Hal Roach Studios, INC." and is numbered "315" C clasp pin closure. Marked at clasp "L.A. PUB STP. CO." Sold as you see it with some black paint loss. Hal Roach Studios was an American motion picture and television production studio. Known as The Laugh Factory to the World, it was founded by producer Hal Roach and business partners Dan ...Linthicum and I.H. Nance as the Rolin Film Company on July 23, 1914. The studio lot, at 8822 Washington Boulevard in Culver City, California, United States, was built in 1920, at which time Rolin was renamed to Hal E. Roach Studios. Roach saw significant success in the 1920s with series of short comedy films featuring stars such as Harold Lloyd, Snub Pollard, and the Our Gang kids. The studio produced both short films and features for distribution through Pathé Exchange until 1927, when it signed a new distribution deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. By the early 1930s, the studio had entered a golden age, with a line-up of many of film's most popular comedians, including Laurel and Hardy, Charley Chase, Our Gang, Thelma Todd, and Zasu Pitts. As movie theaters began to favor double features over single-feature programs with added short films—Roach's specialty—the studio's focus shifted from shorts to features, such as Topper and Laurel and Hardy's Way Out West (both 1937). In 1938, the studios began distributing its titles through United Artists, selling the Our Gang short film unit to MGM. In the early 1940s, Roach began producing "streamliner" features—shorter films running 40–50 minutes, intended for exhibition as B movies. From 1942–1945, the studio was leased to the First Motion Picture Unit for the production of training and propaganda films, primarily for the Army Air Forces.With the television boom of the 1950s, Hal Roach Studios shifted to all-TV production and produced Amos 'n' Andy and The Stu Erwin Show. It also housed other independent TV production companies, including The Abbott and Costello Show and Wild Bill Hickock.In April 1959, the studio was closed due to bankruptcy under the management of Roach’s son Hal Roach, Jr. Hal, Sr. returned to try to resurrect it; but by December 1962, the lot was permanently closed. One of the very last screen productions made there was "Two", the Season 3 premiere episode of The Twilight Zone. Filmed on the Roach backlot in the latter half of 1961, the post-apocalyptic tale (which featured rising stars Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery) made full creative use of the derelict state of the backlot's city building sets, which had by then fallen into serious disrepair, and thus required little extra preparation by the crew. In August 1963, the lot was demolished after several auctions and sales of the company’s assets. Thanks and make this yours.
