Pine-Thomas Productions
Pine-Thomas Productions was a prolific B-picture unit of Paramount Pictures from 1940–1957, producing 81 films. Co-producers William H. Pine (February 15, 1896 – April 29, 1955) and William C. Thomas (August 11, 1903 – April 2, 1984) were known as the "Dollar Bills" because none of their economically made films ever lost money. "We don't want to make million dollar pictures," they said. "We just want to make a million dollars." History William Pine and William Thomas William Pine was a graduate of Columbia University who went to work as a publicist at Paramount in 1933 becoming head of publicity. He became an associate director for Cecil B. De Mille at the studio and worked on several films. William Thomas was also a publicist who was working at Paramount producing "B" movies. Pine and Thomas struck up a partnership and swapped theories about how films could be produced for lower budgets. First Three Films: Picture Corporation of America Pine and Thomas talked with Richard Arlen, who had become famous with Wings (1927) but whose most recent films had been lower budgeted productions. Arlen, who owned several planes and ran an aviation school, suggested they make an aviation film; he offered himself and his aircraft for a movie. Pine and Thomas selected three titles, Power Dive, Forced Landing and Flying Blind, and wrote scripts around them. (The producers later called these "Westerns of the air".) They approached Paramount and said they had a star and three scripts and asked for a distribution deal. Paramount were looking for some low-budget action movies and agreed, enabling Pine and Thomas to gain loans from the bank to finance the films. The other key elements of the team were Maxwell Shane, a writer, and Doc Merman, a production manager. Power Drive (1941), starring Arlen and Jean Parker was made in ten days at a cost of $86,000 under the auspices of "Picture Corporation of America". Thomas produced the first film while Pine worked more an associate - he worked for Cecil B. De Mille. It earned almost a million dollars. Pine and Thomas saved money by shooting on location. Their second film, Forced Landing (1941) was another aviation film with Arlen; Eva Gabor made her debut. Arlen and Parker were in their third film, Flying Blind (1941), which was directed by John McDonald who would helm many of the company's early films. All three films cost under $90,000 and returned six times its negative cost. Paramount were so pleased with these results they offered to finance the duo's films from then on. Pine-Thomas Productions: Chester Morris Joins Company In June 1941, Pine and Thomas signed a six-picture deal with Paramount, three to star Richard Arlen and three to star Chester Morris. The Picture Corporation of America was dissolved and from this point on the company would be known as Pine-Thomas Productions. Morris' first film for the company was No Hands on the Clock (1941), based on a novel by "Geoffrey Holmes" (Daniel Mainwaring). It was