Lumiton

Background
Lumiton was an Argentinian film company, founded in 1932 at the very beginning of the Golden Age of Argentinian Cinema. During the 1940s, the company produced highly successful films in Argentina and throughout South America and Latin America, becoming one of the most important in the industry. Due to various political and economic problems faced after World War II, Lumiton was forced to shut down in 1952.

(May 19, 1933-January 25, 1951)


Nicknames: "The Original Gongman", "Rank (General Film) Wasn't The 1st Gongman", "The Classical Gongman", "Argentine Gongman"

Logo: In a darkly-lit room, we see a shirtless man with a mallet, moving to hit a gong in a slow motion. When the man hits the gong, "Lumiton presenta" in a signature font with a very wide glamour "L", with "presenta" in a modern font under the logo, appears in white, as the background fades to black.

Variant: On La muchachada de a bordo, the logo is thinner, and the background cuts to the opening scene of the film.

FX/SFX: Live-action and rostrum camera.

Music/Sounds: An excerpt of Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3 opus 72b and the gong.

Availability: Ultra rare. Can be seen on some Argentinian movies from the 1930s and 1940s, including La muchachada de a bordo, Los muchachos de antes no usaban gomina, Ven... mi corazón te llama, La rubia del camino, El fabricante de estrellas, El cañonero de Gilés, Casamiento en Buenos Aires, Luna de miel en Río, Divorcio en Montevideo, Historia de crímenes, Mi amor eres tú, and Los verdes paraísos, which can be seen on YouTube.

Legacy: It's worth nothing that this logo's concept is similar to the logo for the British company General Film Distributors (debuted six years later), which gave way to the more well-known logo for The Rank Organisation.