A Jewel Production. Universal, unlike many of its competitors, never owned a proprietary theater chain. This business decision would eventually pay off handsomely for the studio after the 1949 Supreme Court anti-trust decision that threaten to cripple its peers. However, it required the studio to carefully market its feature product to independent owners. Carl Laemmle devised a 3-tiered brand system: Red Feather (low-budget programmers), Bluebird (mainstream releases) and Jewel (prestige productions). Jewel releases were produced in hopes of drawing higher roadshow ticket prices, a ploy that sometimes misfired. This branding system would fade away in late 1929.