Independent Production
In 1917 Sennett gave up the Keystone trademark and organized his own company, Mack Sennett Comedies Corporation. (Sennett's corporate bosses retained the Keystone trademark and produced a cheap series of comedy shorts that were "Keystones" in name only: they were unsuccessful, and Sennett had no connection with them.) Sennett went on to produce more ambitious comedy short films and a few feature-length films. During the 1920s his short subjects were in much demand, with stars like Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, Harry Gribbon, Vernon Dent, Alice Day, Ralph Graves, Charlie Murray, and Harry Langdon. He produced several features with his brightest stars, such as Ben Turpin and Mabel Normand.
Many of Sennett's films of the early 1920s were inherited by Warner Brothers when Warners merged with the original distributor, First National. Warner added music and commentary to several of these shorts, but eventually destroyed the original elements for storage space. As a result, many Sennett films, especially those from his most productive and creative period, no longer exist.
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Famous quotes containing the words independent and/or production:
“When the object is perceived as particular and unique and not merely the member of a family, when it appears independent of any general notion and detached from the sanity of a cause, isolated and inexplicable in the light of ignorance, then and only then may it be a source of enchantment.”
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