By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
In like a lion: teaching MGM at UCLA
The history of MGM and United Artists are the subject of a new course starting in January at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; the subject area follows, which, sadly, does not seem to include an inside look at the remarkable, almost four-decade run of deals that financier Kirk Kerkorian has parlayed to keep the entity in various states of play. 
“Taught by veteran film historian and archivist Dr. Jan- Christopher Horak, this multi-faceted, multi-year program will be available as a touring course for universities around the country after its initial run at UCLA,” pr’s MGM. “The course will consider both the creative achievements and contributions to American culture of this definitive Golden Age movie studio, whose existence spans the entire history of American film.” Horak says, “The history of MGM is paradigmatic for the history of Hollywood, from the halcyon days of the giant studios to the present system of distributor-financed independent production. Through MGM, students will begin to understand that historical trajectory.” MGM touts their twenty films to come in 2007 after a “storied history” in the press release, curiously omitting mention of titles or even current diadems like Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj.
More press: “The ranks of MGM film classics include all time popular favorites starring Laurel and Hardy (1934-1943) and the Marx Brothers (1935-1947); the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series (1932-1948); “Gone With the Wind” (1939) and “The Wizard of Oz” (1939); a long string of classic musicals, including “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944), “The Pirate”(1948) and “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952); the Oscar-winning epics “Ben Hur” (1926 & 1959) and “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968); and such trend-setting pop culture landmarks as “Jailhouse Rock” (1957), “Shaft” (1970) and “Thelma and Louise (1991).”
Last year, Robert Rosen, dean of the School of Theater, Film and Television, presented the idea for a class focusing on the studio to MGM chairman and chief executive officer Harry E. Sloan, a 1971 graduate of UCLA and a member of its Executive Board. Sloan enthusiastically embraced the concept.
The course offers “a priceless opportunity for the young to learn about America’s film heritage and for filmmakers to learn from the past masters of the craft,” Rosen says.
The ground for what would become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was broken in 1915, when producer-director Thomas Ince, a prolific creator of silent Westerns, moved his studio from a beachfront location to Culver City. Film mogul Samuel Goldwyn took over the lot in 1918 and partnered with Louis B. Mayer in 1924. It was under Mayer and his brilliant head of production, Irving Thalberg, that MGM achieved greatness, adopting its world famous Leo the Lion logo and accompanying Latin motto “Ars Gratia Artis” (“Art for Arts Sake”), and expanding its physical plant to the size of a small city, with 28 sound stages and hundreds of acres of standing sets. Now based in the MGM Corporate Tower in Century City, MGM remains a major force in Hollywood filmmaking, maintaining the James Bond, Rocky and Pink Panther franchises.
Jan-Christopher Horak’s long career as a film archivist and curator has taken him from George Eastman House, where he was senior curator of the Film Department to the directorship of the Munich Filmmuseum (Germany). In 1998 he became founding director of Archives & Collections at Universal Studios, then moved to the Hollywood Entertainment Museum, where he was curator until 2006. He has taught at the University of Rochester, the Munich Film Academy, the University of Salzburg, and Wayne State University and has been a visiting professor at UCLA since 1999, teaching in the Critical Studies and Moving Image Archive Studies programs. Horak has published numerous books, including “The Dream Merchants: Making and Selling Films in Hollywood’s Golden Age” (1989). “
