Preferred Pictures

Preferred Pictures was the independent company through which B.P. Schulberg, a former publicist and screenwriter known for his sharp and literate approach, attempted to establish himself as a film industry mogul in the early 1920s. He founded the company in 1919 at the age of twenty-seven, initially building it around actress Katherine MacDonald, who was marketed as the American Beauty. Schulberg produced a steady series of modestly budgeted features, and for a time, he brought in the respected distribution executive Al Lichtman as president, giving the small company a more professional sales structure.

Schulberg's most enduring contribution to film history came from a single act of talent scouting. In 1923, at the urging of his associate Jack Bachman, he offered an eighteen-year-old Brooklyn girl named Clara Bow a three-month trial contract. Bow had little experience, but the camera responded well to her, and Schulberg had signed the future It Girl before Hollywood recognized her potential. Bow appeared in a series of Preferred Pictures productions that began to showcase the energy and modern sensuality that would later define her as a leading star of the Jazz Age.

Despite his talent for discovering stars, Schulberg struggled with personal vices, particularly compulsive gambling, which drained the company's resources. On October 21, 1925, Preferred Pictures filed for bankruptcy, its financial records showing debts exceeding $800,000 against assets of only about $1,400. The company's collapse was driven as much by Schulberg's gambling losses as by broader market challenges.

Ironically, the failure of Preferred Pictures propelled both Schulberg and his discovery to greater success. He took Clara Bow's contract and his own talents to Paramount, where he eventually rose to oversee production at one of the industry's leading studios. At the same time, Bow became a major star in films such as *It* and *Wings*. Preferred Pictures itself faded from existence, remembered mainly as the small independent studio where one of the most prominent stars of the 1920s first emerged.