Great Films of the Golden Age Part 8: United Artists

For the eighth and final look at the film studios of Hollywood's so-called "Golden Age" we have what wasn't really a studio - United Artists. Assembled by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin. United Artists certainly made films, but not in the style of the other studios; it was primarily a distributer of films.

United Artists still exists today, but only as a shadow of its former itself, a mere franchise owned by MGM (itself owned by Sony). Regardless, in its prime UA was the home of independent filmmaking and was initially successful, what with having been founded by four of the most popular entertainers of the day.

My favorite United Artists pictures of the Golden Age in chronological order are:

• The Gold Rush (1926)
• The General (1927)
• City Lights (1931)
• Scarface (1932)
• Modern Times (1936)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
• Foreign Correspondent (1940)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• To Be or Not to Be (1942)
• Spellbound (1945)

6 comedies, 1 gangster picture, 1 adventure film and 2 thrillers. Appropriately, 4 of Chaplin's films make my list. 2 films are by Hitchcock and 2 of them satirize the Nazis.

And with this the final in my "Great Films of the Golden Age" series, I bid you adieu; adieu.