guarantee a steady supply of releases. One of the most controversial Screen Guild releases was The Burning Cross (1947), which concerned the Ku Klux Klan. Lippert Pictures Screen Guild became Lippert Pictures in 1948, using rental stages and the Corriganville Movie Ranch for the production of its films. 130 Lippert features were made and released between 1948 and 1955. Lippert's fortunes and reputation improved when he sponsored screenwriter and former newspaper reporter Samuel Fuller. Fuller wanted to become a director, so he agreed to direct the three films he had been contracted to write for Lippert: I Shot Jesse James, The Baron of Arizona and The Steel Helmet, all for no extra money, accepting just the directing credit. The Fuller films received excellent reviews. A 1949 New York Times profile said Lippert owned 61 theaters. It also reported (erroneously) that he had directed most of the Westerns his company had made. Lippert tried to add luster to his productions, but only if it could be done economically. His studio became a haven for actors whose careers were interrupted when their studios, no longer making lower-budget pictures, released them from their contracts. Robert Lippert was able to sign major-studio talent for a fraction of the usual rate, giving his productions more marquee value. Among the established names who worked for Lippert were George Raft, Veronica Lake, Zachary Scott, Robert Hutton, Joan Leslie, Cesar Romero, George Reeves, Ralph Byrd, Richard Arlen, Don "Red" Barry, Robert Alda, Gloria Jean, Sabu, Ellen Drew, Preston Foster, Jean Porter, Anne Gwynne, Jack Holt, Hugh Beaumont, Tom Neal, Robert Lowery, and John Howard. Lippert maintained a small stock company of supporting actors, including Margia Dean, Mara Lynn, Don Castle, and Reed Hadley. Lippert's most ubiquitous actor was probably the diminutive Sid Melton. He appeared as a supporting comedian in many of Lippert's productions and starred in three hour-long comedies. The "name" cast ensembles were only part of Lippert's successful formula. Other selling angles were realized when certain of Lippert's features could be marketed in a process more elaborate than ordinary black-and-white. Lippert used Cinecolor and sepiatone to dress up his more ambitious features, and embellished others by using tinted film stock for special effects (mint green for Lost Continent, pinkish red-sepia for the Mars sequences in Rocketship X-M). He even anticipated the 3-D film craze by publicizing a special photographic lens, which he claimed gave a stereoscopic