Security Pictures
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Security Pictures was a film production company of Philip Yordan and Sidney Harmon.[1][2]
The company began in 1947 as Yordan Enterprises, with Mike Frankovich in partnerhip with Yordan.[3] It was renamed Security Pictures. The initial producton was Anna Lucasta in 1949. This was based on Philip Yordan's hit Broadway play, and Yordan co-wrote the script and producer.[4]
By 1952 Harmon and Lerner were working for Security Pictures on the film Man Crazy, which Yordan and Harmon wrote and produced, and Lerner directed.[5] In 1954 Security co produced The Big Combo with the company of Cornel Wilde.
In 1956 Security Pictures signed an eleven picture contract with United Artists starting with The Wild Party.[6][7] The two most successful movies of the company, Men in War and God's Little Acre, were directed by Anthony Mann.[8] The company became famous for giving work to many victims of the Hollywood blacklist including Ben Maddow and Bernard Gordon.[9] Harmon produced another version of Anna Lucasta but it was made for Longridge Enterprises. In 1959 Security signed a four picture deal with Columbia.[10]
Security Pictures shifted to Europe in the 1960s, being mostly based in Spain. In 1963 Security Pictures announced they would make ten films for Allied Artists over two and a half years, including The Tribe That Lost Its Head; Gretta, based on a book by Erskine Caldwell; a Western called Bad Man's River; and a science fiction film Crack in the World.[11] Some of these were not made. Among those that were made were The Thin Red Line.[12]
The company wound up in the late 1960s and Yordan went to work for Benmar Productions.