LVN Pictures
| Fate | closed and acquired by ABS-CBN Corporation |
|---|---|
| Successors |
Star Cinema (1993-present) |
| Founded | 1936 |
| Defunct | 2005 |
| Headquarters | Quezon City, Metro Manila |
| Owners | LVN Holdings (1936-2005) ABS-CBN Corporation (2005-present) |
| Parent | see Owners |
LVN Pictures, Inc. is one of the biggest film studios in the history of Philippine cinema and its foremost establishment in motion picture post-production until 2005. In its heyday of motion picture production, LVN Pictures has been compared to that of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) of Hollywood because it had, under contract, the biggest stars and film craftsmen of the period. This was the oldest living film studio running for 68 years.
LVN Pictures was formed by the De Leon ["L"], Villonco ["V"] and Nabua, Camarines Sur ["N"] families before the onset of World War II in 1938. At that time, the American-occupied Philippines was a ready market for American films, which further influenced various filmmakers like Jose Nepomuceno (the Father of Philippine Movies) to set up various film production companies to produce Tagalog movies.
With its creation, LVN Pictures offered a rival to then-newly established Sampaguita Pictures of the Vera-Perez family. LVN chose the big piece of land in P. Tuazon Boulevard, C. Benitez and St. Peter Street in Cubao, Quezon City as its home, and for the next seven decades, the lot would become the backlot and administration location of the studio. The LVN Gate, with the initials of the studio emblazoned in red letters and set in white beams, became as famous as the Paramount Pictures gate, and the big LVN Studios logo atop the Main Building became as famous as the MGM logo atop its main building. To oversee its production facilities, Doña Narcisa de Leon of the De Leon family took over the company as its president and "Executive Producer". She was the first Filipina film mogul. Eventually, due to the uninvolvement of the Villonco and Navoa families, she bought their shares, which made LVN a De Leon family company.
The studio's first offering was the musical Giliw Ko(one of the very few Pre-War Filipino Films still extant today), which starred the three biggest stars of the era (Ely Ramos, Fernando Poe, Sr. and Fleur de Lis [who subsequently became Mona Lisa]) and introduced Mila del Sol. The movie, released in 1939, was a box-office success. In 1941, LVN introduced another trend. The first Filipino film in color (utilizing the "Varicolor" process), Ibong Adarna, was produced by LVN and was directed by Vicente Salumbides. The color sequence of the film, which was the singing of the bird, was painstakingly hand-colored. The film also starred Mila del Sol, Fred Cortes and Manuel Conde and was a box-office success. Nevertheless, the growth of the studio was hampered due to World War II and the Japanese Occupation, which ravaged Manila and the rest of the Philippines from January 2, 1942 to February 1945. Due to the hardships of the war and to avoid being used as Japanese propaganda center, LVN closed shop.
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