ABSTRACT
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) closed the Cosmopolitan studio facility in 1929 and resumed short film production in Culver City. MGM delayed her talkie debut as long as possible, thinking that her Swedish accent would prove fatal. MGM publicity described Hallelujah! as 'the first epic film dealing with the lives of those "brethren" below the Mason-Dixon Line torn between the flesh and the devil.' Marion Davies made nearly a dozen talkies for MGM under the Cosmopolitan banner. It attributed Irving Thalberg's track record in part to 'heavy but sagacious spending' which imparted 'a certain common denominator of goodness' in MGM's pictures. The matter came to a head in 1934, when Thalberg refused to assign her the leading roles in The Barretts of Wimpole Street and Marie Antoinette. Thalberg's production supervisors were now being referred to as associate producers, and like Thalberg, they worked without screen credit.
