 This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. Hail Columbia! From the Puff Culture Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. Dot com. We're wrapping up our survey of movie studios with a company that has probably gone through more owners than any other Columbia pictures. Considered to be one of the little three studios in the Golden Age of Hollywood, with Universal and United Artists being the others, Columbia began as a film distributor. The Cone Brand Cone Film Sales Corporation, or CBC, in 1918. Brothers Harry and Jack Cohen, and partnered with Joe Brandt. All three had previously worked at Universal. Brandt would sell out his share in 1932. The lure of making their own product called, and they moved from filming shorts to feature films by 1922, with a melodrama called, More to be Pityed Than Stoned. The films were shot in Hollywood's Poverty Row on Gower Street. In an attempt to polish up their image, CBC was renamed Columbia Pictures Corporation in 1924 with Harry Cone running production, which he would do for the next 34 years. Columbia, by the way, was a popular fictional character at the time, a diss-staff Uncle Sam rallying the troops in World War I, and a personification of the Americas going back to the 16th century. The character, apart from the film logo, has mostly been supplanted by the Statue of Liberty. Despite going for an upscale image, the new Columbia Pictures concentrated on small-budgeted films and short series. The studio was also known for nepotism. Robert Benchley called it the Pine Tree Studio because it had so many cones. Columbia did not have the major advantage of the majors. They had no theater chain of their own, which meant they had to bargain to get their movies onto the screens. They were greatly helped by the arrival of Frank Capra, who would greatly increase Columbia's reputation in the late 20s through the 30s, directing 20 films for the studio. 1934's It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert was a huge hit, both financially and critically for Capra, winning Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay. The film also just made it out for the censorship of the Hayes office made such films impractical for decades. Capra would also direct Lady for a Day, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It With You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Meet John Doe, winning five Oscars along the way. He won a sixth for a documentary, Prelude to War. His other seminal work, It's a Wonderful Life, was produced by a separate company, Liberty Films, which he co-created. Columbia could not afford to put a large number of stars under long-term contract like The Big Boys, so they would negotiate to borrow them on a film-by-film basis. MGM's Louis B. Meyer referred to Columbia as Siberia, used to punish actors who created problems for him. Columbia did contract a few stars, Gene Arthur, Ann Southern, and Kerry Grant, the last being a non-exclusive shared with RKO. Westerns were big at Columbia with formerly silent cowboys in the 1930s. Buck Jones, Tex Ritter, and Gene Autry and Charles Start were just some of them. They last making 131 pictures over 17 years. However, Columbia's bread and butter was making short subjects. Harry Cohn signed the three Stooges after MGM rejected them in 1934. Ironically, MGM kept original straight man Ted Healy who went on to very little. The Stooges would go on to make 190 shorts for the studio into 1957. They were so popular that the studio used them as leverage to force theaters to show mediocre B movies. Columbia had a number of comedy short stars in the silent era and in a hugely profitable move virtually all of those films, along with all the Stooges shorts were sold into television syndication in the late 1950s becoming source material for hundreds of local kiddie shows. Columbia also had an animation wing of swords. They distributed the early Disney shorts and silly symphonies until Walt took it over in 1932 then bought out the Mint Studio a year later renaming it screen gems with characters such as Crazy Cat and The Fox and The Crow. In the late 40s Columbia distributed cartoons from United Productions of America UPA with characters such as Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoyn-Boyn. In the late 50s they began distributing Hanna-Barbera shorts which went on for a decade on film and television. Movie serials were also big at the studio. These ran from 1937 until 1956, long after other studios had dropped the concept. They mostly used the comics and radio shows as source material. Mandate, The Magician, The Shadow, Captain Midnight, Batman and Superman all appeared. Let's just say the production values are not that high. Columbia benefited from a surge in ticket sales during World War II along with interest in their biggest star at the time, Rita Hayworth. Covergirl, Gilda, The Lady from Shanghai and The Loves of Carmen were big hits. The studio turned those profits into contracts going into the 50s including Glen Ford, Judy Holiday and Miller, Jack Lemon, Celestial Ball and Kim Novak. Harvey Cohn was very frugal to the point of avoiding full three-strip Technicolor until 1943, the last major studio to do so. Columbia's lack of a theater chain became an advantage when the Supreme Court forced studios to divest them, allowing Columbia to move from the little three to the big five replacing RKO. Columbia invested early in TV producing commercials under the Screen Gems brand after buying out a company run by Harry Cohn's nephew. This put them in a good position to expand into full television production with situation comedies including Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, Bewitched, I Dream of Genie, The Monkees and The Partridge Family. While other studios were forced to reduce output in the 50s once theater revenue was lost, Columbia plowed ahead doing topical films about teen crime, sci-fi and rock and roll musicals as B pictures. They did some high brow stuff too from here to eternity on the waterfront and bridge on the river Kwai all won Oscars. Harry Cohn died in 1958 and his nephew Ralph took over for only a year before also dying ending the family business. Abe Schneider took over having worked his way from the back office. The 60s did not go well for the studio. They famously turned down the James Bond franchise which would keep UA going for decades. They turned around and made the Matt Helm knockoff series. They continued high brow work such as Oliver and Easy Rider but continued to lose money. By the late 60s the Screen Gems television brand was its sole source of profits. Their studio facility was sold off in the early 70s with Columbia and Warner owning the Warner lot in Burbank and a new management team was brought in. Divisions were renamed. Screen Gems became Columbia Pictures television. There was a check forging scandal by a studio head. Various businesses were bought and sold. But they did produce 5 easy pieces. The last picture show. The way we were. Shampoo, taxi driver, close encounters of the third kind, midnight express and all that jazz during that decade. Kirk Cacorian and the casino mogul who controlled MGM at the time tried to take over Columbia in the late 70s which resulted in various lawsuits. The early 80s went far better for Columbia. They got a cut from E.T. because they had originally put a version of the film into turnaround. Universal would wind up with it. Stir Crazy The Blue Lagoon, Stripes, Tootsie The Karate Kid, The Big Chill and Ghostbusters helped their bottom line. None other than Coca-Cola were bought out Columbia in 1982 for 750 million which is a pit in today. The same year a partnership between the studio HBO and CBS formed TriStar Pictures. TV Empires from Aaron Spelling Norman Lear and Merv Griffin were bought out. 1987 brought us Ishtar a flop so huge although it only cost 51 million dollars to make that Coke sold the studio to TriStar Pictures Entertainment. Various small production companies were created the most successful being Castle Rock now a part of WB. There were a number of ownership changes ending up with the whole shebang purchased by Sony who wanted a content machine for their electronics. They would later buy out the old MGM studios renaming it Sony Pictures Studios. By 1994 Sony wrote off 2.7 billion dollars from Columbia. With a long growing fight over part of the Bond franchise Columbia had the rights to Casino Royale for the studios turnaround to begin. They wound up in a trade with the rights to Spider-Man becoming their most successful franchise. Ironically profits from those films allowed a Sony-led consortium to buy the Bond distribution later. 1997 was a high point for Columbia producing the fifth element Men in Black, Air Force One I Know What You Did Last Summer and Gattaca was the first company to produce a series of films with over 1.2 billion. They would break that record twice in the 2000s with Spider-Man and the Bond franchises XXX, The Da Vinci Code and 51st Dates. The Screen Gems Monitor would return in the 2010s mostly used for horror and teen films. So, the logo. Columbia began with a stylized female Roman soldier including a draped US flag which was dropped in the 40s when the US made a law against wearing the flag. Jane Bartholomew an otherwise failed actress then posed for the logo and her likeness was used until the 70s until it was replaced by a stylized sunburst used for several years until the torch lady returned. In 1992, a new version was made with the likeness of graphics artist Jennifer Joseph done on a lunch break which is something she ever did. By the way, Annette Benning once stated in an interview that she was the inspiration for the modern logo but there is no evidence that this is the case. Taking credit where credit is not due. Well, we don't do that. No. You can check out our audio podcast How I Got My Wife Treat Comics on iTunes or on our website asfpodcastnetwork.com And I'm Mark. Thanks for watching.