Today marks the centennial of Columbia Studios who went from a scrappy indie to one of the major players in Hollywood. The studio began as a small production and distribution company run by brothers, Harry and Jack Cohn and their friend, Joe Brandt in 1918. They first called their studio CBC Film Sales Corporation but seven year later changed the name to Columbia Pictures.
They never had their own lot until a year later, purchasing two sound stages near the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Gower. The studio couldn't really afford contract players, usually borrowing actors from other studios, but they did sign on a few and creating stars in the process. This included Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ann Sothern, Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth. And in order to save more money, Columbia did not operate their own theater chain, unlike most of the other studios at the time. However, this would later prove to be an even greater financial benefit for Columbia after the government cracked down on monopolies and forced the studios to sell off their theaters.
Brandt soon grew tired of dealing with the mercurial Cohn brothers and sold his shares of the company to them in 1932. Columbia Pictures would remain a minor player in Hollywood for a while until Frank Capra entered as a director. Arriving in 1927, he came in and pushed the Cohns to spend more money on scripts and budgets. This would eventually pay off in 1934 when Capra's romantic comedy, "It Happened One Night" became a box-office smash and swept the Oscars, winning all of the top five major awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay) for the first time. Other hits by Capra for the studio included "Lost Horizon", "You Can't Take It with You", "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". Columbia would produce or distribute other popular movies like "His Girl Friday", "From Here to Eternity", "On the Waterfront", "Born Yesterday", "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "A Man for All Seasons", "Funny Girl" and "Oliver!".
Jack Cohn died in 1956 and his brother, Harry passed away two years later. Without clear leadership, Columbia Studios struggled with their movies throughout the 1960's with the studio going through a severe creative and financial downturn. They were able to hold on barely with the assistance of their successful Screen Gems divisions of television and music. But by the 1970's, Columbia was nearly bankrupt, forced to sell some of their studio property and formed a partnership with Warner Bros. to utilize that studio's lot in Burbank.
After a series of owners and numerous studio heads, Columbia Pictures was acquired by electronics giant, Sony in 1989. This was a merger that would prove to be very successful and make Columbia a lucrative movie studio for the new owners. Some of the noteworthy films released through the studio include "Philadelphia", "Men in Black", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Boyz n the Hood", "The Fifth Element" "The Social Network" and "Spider-Man".
Turner Classic Movies will honor the legacy of Columbia Pictures on the channel by screening twenty-six of the studio's most popular and influential films throughout the month of January. The 1933 pre-code rom-com, "Man's Castle" with Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young; "The Awful Truth", a Cary Grant and Irene Dunne comedy classic; the movie that made Rita Hayworth a star, "Gilda"; the Best Picture Oscar winner by David Lean, "Lawrence of Arabia" which introduced to the world, Peter O'Toole; Martin Scorsese's controversial thriller, "Taxi Driver"; One of Steven Spielberg's early hits, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"; two bio-pics that are Best Picture winners, "Gandhi" from 1982 and "The Last Emperor" from 1987; Sofia Coppola's second feature as a director, "Marie Antoinette" and Nancy Meyers' romantic-comedy for adults, "Something's Gotta Give" with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton are just some of the films that will be featured on TCM.
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