 | |
| Industry | Film studio |
|---|---|
| Founded | December 1945 |
| Defunct | 1950 |
| Successor | Company: Eagle-Lion Classics Library: Paramount Pictures (through Melange Pictures) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (through United Artists) (with some exceptions) |
Key people | J. Arthur Rank Arthur B. Krim |
Eagle-Lion Films was the name of two distinct, though related, companies. In 1944, UK film magnate J. Arthur Rank created an American distribution company with the name to handle his British films. The following year, under a reciprocal distribution arrangement with Rank, the U.S. company Pathé Industries, which already owned the small Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) studio, established an Eagle-Lion Films production subsidiary, while Rank's American business dropped the name. PRC, with its existing distribution exchanges, handled releases in the U.S. When PRC shut down in 1948, its distribution exchanges were assumed by Eagle-Lion Films. In 1950, Pathé merged Eagle-Lion with an independent reissues distributor, Film Classics, to create Eagle-Lion Classics. The latter was acquired by and merged into United Artists a year later. Rank also released films in the United Kingdom through Eagle-Lion Distributors Limited.