KCET Studios - Monogram Pictures and Allied Artists

Monogram Pictures and Allied Artists

Monogram Pictures began renting space at the studio in the late 1930s and bought the property from Like in 1943. Monogram Pictures was a small studio that made B-Movies. Monogram's features included film series featuring "Charlie Chan," the "East Side Kids," "The Bowery Boys," "Bomba, the Jungle Boy," "Joe Palooka," "The Range Busters," and "The Cisco Kid," and westerns featuring Tex Ritter. Allied Artists followed Mongram at the site, where it produced both motion pictures and television programs in the 1950s and 1960s. The motion pictures filmed at the Sunset Boulevard studios during the Mongram and Allied Artists years include the following:

• "Smart Alecks" (1942) with Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Maxie Rosenbloom and Gale Storm
• "It Happened on Fifth Avenue" (1947) with Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore, and Gale Storm
• "Black Gold" (1947) with Anthony Quinn
• '"The Babe Ruth Story" (1948) starring William Bendix and Claire Trevor
• "Kidnapped" (1948) starring Roddy McDowell
• "Triggerman" (1948) with Johnny Mack Brown
• "Yukon Gold" (1952) with Kirby Grant, Martha Hyer and Chinook: The Wonder Dog
• "Killer Leopard" (1954) with Bomba, the Jungle Boy (Johnny Sheffield) and Beverly Garland
• "Two Guns and a Badge" (1954) with Wayne Morris and Beverly Garland
• "Riot in Cell Block 11" (1954) starring Neville Brand and Leo Gordon
• "Shack Out on 101" (1955) with Frank Lovejoy, Terry Moore, Keenan Wynn and Lee Marvin
• "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956) - the science fiction classic directed by Don Siegel
• "Friendly Persuasion" (1956) with Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, and Anthony Perkins
• "Love in the Afternoon" (1957) with Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn
• "The Oklahoman" (1957) with Joel McCrea and Barbara Hale
• "Queen of Outer Space" (1958) with Zsa Zsa Gabor
• "House on Haunted Hill" (1959) with Vincent Price
• "Al Capone" (1959) starring Rod Steiger and Martin Balsam
• "Sex Kittens Go to College" (1960) starring Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld and Martin Milner
• "El Cid" (1961) starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren
• "Tickle Me" (1965) with Elvis Presley

In 1964, financial difficulties forced Allied Artists to cease production activities and to become a film distribution company. The company moved its operations to New York, and the studios were used mostly for production of television program and commercials from 1964 to 1967. In 1967, ColorVision purchased the studio and continued to rent space for independent productions. ColorVision itself went bankrupt in 1969.