Realart Pictures

Realart Pictures was founded in 1948 by Jack Broder and Joseph Harris, based on a business insight more about reselling films than producing them. When Universal reorganized as Universal-International, its new studio head William Goetz decided that the company's large collection of older sound films was of little value and leased the entire pre-1948 library, covering the years 1930 to 1946, to Broder and Harris for theatrical reissue. In this deal, Realart acquired the right to re-release hundreds of films, including Universal's classic horror films, for a ten-year period, with only television rights retained.

Realart made effective use of the library through exhibition strategies. The films were grouped into double-feature packages and sold to theaters with bold, often provocative new advertising. Importantly, the original studio was not credited, allowing the films to be presented as new attractions. Many films were released under their original titles, but others were given more sensational titles to attract a new audience, such as renaming the Lon Chaney film *Man-Made Monster* to *The Atomic Monster*, reflecting the concerns of the atomic age. Many postwar moviegoers first encountered Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, and the Wolf Man through Realart's reissues rather than their original releases. Broder also ventured into modest original production through Jack Broder Productions, working with the young Herman Cohen and distributing the results through the Realart network.

The reissue business had a natural limit. The ten-year theatrical lease was always temporary, and the excluded medium, television, was rapidly undermining the market for theatrical reissues by making old films freely available in homes. As the 1950s progressed and the classic Universal library found a new audience on television, Realart's unique business model declined. The company faded by the end of the decade, a testament to the profitable but ultimately unsustainable practice of reselling old films.