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Columbia Pictures: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Columbia Pictures is a film production company.

History

Columbia Pictures was founded in 1924 by Harry Cohn as the CBC Film Company (some people thought the initials CBC stood for "Corned Beef and Cabbage" because of the fact that Columbia started out as one of the so-called "Poverty Row" studios of Hollywood). Gradually, however, Columbia built up its reputation with a number of high-profile films.

One of the directors that played a huge part in Columbia's early history was Frank Capra, who made a majority of his films at the studio. The critical acclaim and popularity of Capra's 1933 It Happened One Night (the first film to win all five major Oscars (including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay) solidified Columbia's position as a major studio. Among Capra's other films at Columbia included You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, and the original 1937 Lost Horizon (which Columbia itself remade as a lackluster musical 36 years later).

The Three Stooges also made Columbia their home in a series of 180 short subjects made during a period from the 1930s through the 1950s.

In the late 1930s, the Screen Gems division was initiated for a series of moderately successful cartoons to rival perennial favorites Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. After Screen Gems closed temporarily in the late 1940s, Columbia continued its animation output with limited animation company UPA (United Productions Of America), introducing the world to near-sighted Mr. Magoo and noise-maker Gerald McBoing Boing to theatrical audiences.

Screen Gems was reactivated in 1949 as Columbia's television division, producing successful shows such as Bewitched, The Donna Reed Show, I Dream Of Jeannie, Father Knows Best, and The Monkees.

Harry Cohn ran the studio until his death in 1957; his tough personality made him difficult to work with, but few could argue that he was not successful at his profession.

In the 1970s, the studio was brought up from near financial ruin by a number of hit films and TV shows but was still marred by the David Begelman check-forging scandal. In fact, it was Steven Spielberg's 1977 Close Encounters Of The Third Kind that saved Columbia from bankruptcy (Spielberg made one other film for Columbia, the 1979 cult comedy 1941). Begelman eventually resigned but later ended up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Columbia Pictures was bought by Coca-Cola in 1982. Columbia's fortunes were mixed in the 1980s, as hits like Tootsie and Ghostbusters were balanced by costly flops like Ishtar and Leonard Part 6. In television, Columbia acquired Norman Lear's production company (the television division of Embassy Pictures), thereby gaining the rights to his backlog of highly successful TV programs (such as The Jeffersons, All In The Family, Sanford And Son, and Married With Children), the television rights to the Embassy theatrical library (including The Graduate, The Lion In Winter, and Time Bandits), and the TV producing firm of Merv Griffin, which produced the hit game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy (although Griffin continues to hold the copyright on these shows).

Around the time of the Coca-Cola acquisition, Columbia, HBO and CBS formed a production company known as Nova; the three parents would share the cost of making films. When the company's first release came in 1984, it was renamed Tri-Star Pictures. Coca-Cola soon bought the two thirds of the company they didn't already own.

Coke execs soon grew tired of the volatility of the movie business and sold all its entertainment holdings to Sony in 1989. Today, Columbia Pictures is part of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

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Notable films

1930s

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