Commonwealth Pictures was a motion picture company that primarily dealt with reissues of old features and shorts. The company was formed by Samuel Goldstein and Mortimer Sackett in 1937 as division of Guaranteed Pictures Company, Inc. In 1941, they purchased shorts and features from the

Van Beuren Studios The Van Beuren Corporation was a New York City-based animation studio that produced theatrical cartoons as well as live-action short-subjects from the 1920s to 1936. History In 1920, the Keith-Albee organization formed Fables Pictures for the ...

, which used to handle short subjects in the 1930s for

RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...

. Some of these films from Van Beuren were reissued silent films purchased by Van Beuren. ''

Rainbow Parade ''Rainbow Parade'' was a series of 26 animated shorts produced by Van Beuren Studios and distributed to theaters by RKO between 1934 and 1936. This was the all-color series and final series produced by Van Beuren. History Many of the ''Rainbow Pa ...

'' cartoons were part of this package as well. Commonwealth retitled the cartoons, removing the Van Beuren openings, and just going with a plain title card. Also, the

Ub Iwerks Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks ( ), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentious ...

cartoon library was purchased by Commonwealth. In the 1950s, Commonwealth released the Van Beuren and Iwerks material for television syndication. They, like Gutlohn Films, Inc., cut the opening titles so that only the last 5 seconds or so plays. Their standard title card was a blue background with yellow or orange lettering. In 1969, the Commonwealth library was sold to the

TelePrompTer Corporation __notoc__ TelePrompTer Corporation was an American media company that existed from approximately 1950 until 1981. The company was named for its eponymous primary product, a display device invented by Hubert Schlafly which scrolls text to people on ...

. In 1975, Blackhawk Films purchased the Teleprompter library, and today the Commonwealth library is in the hands of Film Preservation Associates. Guaranteed Pictures Company, Inc. ceased operations all together in 1974.

References

External links

IMDb - Commonwealth Pictures Corporation filmography
Film distributors of the United States Film production companies of the United States Mass media companies established in 1937 {{US-film-company-stub