In 1947, United World Films, Inc., the non-theatrical subsidiary of Universal Pictures, purchased a majority stake in Castle Films."United World, Inc., Buys Castle Films", The New York Times, January 2, 1947, p. 22. Eugene Castle became vice president of United World, but resigned in 1949. "Business Notes", The New York Times, December 13, 1949, p. 55. Castle Films thus became the brand name of the United World subsidiary, and began drawing upon Universal's library of vintage films (with Abbott and Costello, W. C. Fields, Boris Karloff, James Stewart, etc.). The merger with Universal also brought to Castle the Walter Lantz cartoons with Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Oswald Rabbit, and Chilly Willy. In the 1950s, Castle released a highly successful series of Hopalong Cassidy excerpts, licensed from the series' star William Boyd. When Universal was purchased by MCA Inc. in 1962, Castle also gained access to the pre-1950 Paramount Pictures sound feature films owned by MCA's TV division, releasing sequences from Cecil B. DeMille's spectaculars and Marx Brothers comedies, among other Paramount titles. Newsreels edited from NASA footage of U.S. space flights were timely in the 1960s. Castle's most popular series was its line of science-fiction and horror films, many featuring the Universal Classic Monsters Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Invisible Man. The series launched in 1957 and grew to 30 titles.
