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Post by Matthew the Swordsman on Jan 14, 2018 13:35:34 GMT
Which do you prefer?
Both were great, but I prefer Columbia.
Why these two studios? Can't explain why I chose these two. Hey, I'm bored, I'm tired yet I can't get to sleep, so.....hey, at least threads like this keep me off the street!
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Post by politicidal on Jan 14, 2018 17:04:47 GMT
Columbia.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jan 14, 2018 18:01:31 GMT
Strikes me as a logical enough connection: they were once the minors of the majors. Reporting for work at Columbia on It Happened One Night, Clark Gable is said to have grumbled, "So this is what Siberia looks like." Asked where the nearest toilet was by a fellow player at Universal, Boris Karloff reportedly told him, "You're in it."
Universal -
Repeatedly plagued by financial woes and corporate upheavals, they went through nearly as many changes of logo as management. Its classic-era legacy is forever anchored by its fright films, Deanna Durbin musicals, Abbott and Costello comedies and Douglas Sirk melodramas, among other noteworthy entertainments like 1934's Imitation Of Life, 1936's My Man Godfrey and Show Boat, 1941's Back Street, some good late entries from W.C. Fields, exotic Technicolor Maria Montez mini-epics and the Sherlock Holmes series. Whatever the level of prestige and budget, slick and polished production values could be depended upon.
Columbia -
Outside of behind-the-camera personalities like Frank Capra and before-the-camera ones like Rita Hayworth or perhaps The Three Stooges, there isn't much that especially trademarks the output of this versatile studio. They did a little of everything, from serious social drama and screwball comedy to sweeping action/adventure and B-westerns, and did it quite well, courtesy of a virtual parade of A-list talent from both sides of the camera passing through their gates on either short or long term bases. Unlike Universal, Columbia remained under the iron-fisted control of combative Harry Cohn from its founding until his death. But there was never any kind of identifiable style such as those that can so often be discerned from the product of other studios of the era. You can stumble upon a WB film of the '30s through '50s that you've never seen, or one from MGM, Paramount, RKO, Goldwyn or the above-mentioned Universal, and usually peg the studio within a minute. That the same thing is difficult to do with a Columbia picture of the same period was perhaps one of its strengths.
I'm not sure I could express an overall preference, although it could be argued that jack-of-all-trades Columbia contributed the greater number of true classics of high quality, which may very well be down to the steadfast aspirations of Cohn to "play in the big league." Two things neither he nor his studio could be accused of were fast-buck laziness or resting-on-laurels complacency.
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Post by mattgarth on Jan 14, 2018 18:08:52 GMT
Columbia -- they had Rita and Glenn and Holden
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Post by petrolino on Jan 14, 2018 18:22:10 GMT
Such a tough choice. Both great as you say. But I'm voting for Universal for their horror output.
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Post by kijii on Jan 14, 2018 19:51:24 GMT
Which do you prefer? Both were great, but I prefer Columbia. Why these two studios? Can't explain why I chose these two. Hey, I'm bored, I'm tired yet I can't get to sleep, so.....hey, at least threads like this keep me off the street! This is funny, I often mix up Columbia with Paramount..didn't Capra direct for both? I have no problem sort of remembering the difference between MGM, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox. ..in fact I sort of know which actors (and directors) traditionally worked with which studio. |
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Post by mattgarth on Jan 14, 2018 20:07:07 GMT
(This is funny, I often mix up Columbia with Paramount..didn't Capra direct for both?)
______________________________________________________________________________
Kijii -- Capra directed two pictures for Paramount in the early 1950s, both starring Bing Crosby:
RIDING HIGH (a remake of his 1934 film BROADWAY BILL for Columbia -- using quite a bit of footage and even cast members from it)
HERE COMES THE GROOM (Oscar winner for Best Song -- "In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening")
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jan 14, 2018 20:20:01 GMT
Strikes me as a logical enough connection: they were once the minors of the majors. Reporting for work at Columbia on It Happened One Night, Clark Gable is said to have grumbled, "So this is what Siberia looks like." Asked where the nearest toilet was by a fellow player at Universal, Boris Karloff reportedly told him, "You're in it." Plus, and I might be wrong on this, I am pretty sure both did reasonably fine in the 70s when once-bigger studios like MGM were sinking. That's quite right. As the era of the founding moguls came to an end and that of multinational corporate acquisition and blockbuster financing eventually took its place, the fortunes of the surviving majors shifted significantly. And, I'd suggest, they shed their trademark identities as well, becoming anonymous and generic. By the '60s, what was left of RKO was owned by a tire and rubber company, WB by a parking lot corporation and Paramount (which had also bought the RKO lot from then-owner Desilu) by a metallurgical conglomerate. Universal, then under the ownership of Music Corporation Of America, did very well and, now as Comcast/NBC-Universal, is one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. Meanwhile, Columbia had sold its Hollywood studio in the '70s and partnered with WB in studio operations as The Burbank Studios, but remained a separate production entity. In the mid-'80s, I was still working on the MGM lot the day that Lorimar, the company by which I was employed at the time, purchased the studio and, that very day, watched as the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signage that had fronted the Thalberg Building and main gate and topped the tallest stage on the lot for decades was replaced by temporary ones declaring, "Lorimar Studios." I recall thinking, "I'll remember this day...the day the MGM studio died." Since then, MGM, which merged with UA in 1981, has remained a viable production/distribution entity, but one housed only in a series of office suites in Culver City, Santa Monica and Century City (once the 20th Century-Fox backlot). It seems rather sad. Only a few years later, when Lorimar itself was bought by WB, Columbia, then owned by Coca-Cola, acquired the old MGM lot in Culver City as part of the complex deal, which must have sent Louis B. Mayer spinning in his grave to think of the name of his antagonist Harry Cohn's company gracing his former empire. By the end of the '80s, Sony acquired Columbia, and the Culver City real estate now bears the name Sony Pictures Studios. Amid those and other acquisitions and mergers, Cohn, Mayer, Laemmle, Goldwyn, Zukor and the rest would never recognize what's become of their old businesses and stomping grounds. |
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Post by kijii on Jan 14, 2018 23:05:58 GMT
(This is funny, I often mix up Columbia with Paramount..didn't Capra direct for both?)
______________________________________________________________________________
Kijii -- Capra directed two pictures for Paramount in the early 1950s, both starring Bing Crosby:
RIDING HIGH (a remake of his 1934 film BROADWAY BILL for Columbia -- using quite a bit of footage and even cast members from it)
HERE COMES THE GROOM (Oscar winner for Best Song -- "In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening") ...and all of those "Road to" movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were for Paramount. Right? It really makes me wonder if Crosby had a contract with Paramount, and Capra had to honor Crosby's contract. This is telling: "RIDING HIGH (a remake of his 1934 film BROADWAY BILL for Columbia -- using quite a bit of footage and even cast members from it)" Let's see....footage from a Columbia movie for a Paramount movie..hummm? I've seen both versions of this movie now, Riding High (first) and Broadway Bill (second). Since I saw them very close together in time, I was shocked how the script between the two was the same. It was strange seeing (and hearing) Myrna Loy delivering the same lines as Coleen Gray and Warner Baxter delivering the same lines as Bring Crosby. I'm not a fan of Crosby's "coolness talk'n" but the songs were great. This is the one that I remember perhaps from my childhood, Sunshine Cake: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmYllTsYy6Q The only actor that seemed the same in both movies was Raymond Walburn (Prof. Pettigrew) At the end of my DVD of Riding High, there was a short video of Frank Capra, Jr. talking about why his dad wanted to re-make this movie. It seems that Warner Baxter was afraid of horses (though it didn't show in the movie) and Bring wasn't. Here Comes the Groom (1951) came right after Riding High (1950). Maybe Capra and Crosby made a two-movie deal. |
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Post by mattgarth on Jan 14, 2018 23:30:13 GMT
Friends say there's nothing like the flavor
Don't wait to do your friends a favor
And for goodness sake
Let's bake a sunshine cake
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Post by OldAussie on Jan 14, 2018 23:44:43 GMT
Columbia -
Lawrence of Arabia
Bridge on the River Kwai
On the Waterfront
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jan 15, 2018 0:00:35 GMT
Here Comes the Groom (1951) came right after Riding High (1950). Maybe Capra and Crosby made a two-movie deal. After his war service, Capra partnered with Sam Briskin, Willie Wyler and George Stevens to form Liberty Films, which ultimately produced only two pictures: It's A Wonderful Life and State Of the Union. Facing foreclosure in the late '40s, they made a deal with Paramount to buy the company, part of which entailed 5-picture arrangements for the three directors. RH and HCTG were the only ones eventually resulting from Capra, and of course, Paramount was still Crosby's home studio at the time. Capra very much enjoyed working with Crosby, referring in his autobiography to the crooner's "gaiety and whole-hearted cooperation," which Capra described as "beyond the call of contract." |
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Post by mattgarth on Jan 15, 2018 0:11:47 GMT
In addition to Raymond Walburn, the following performers also appeared in both versions of Capra's two films (though in either different roles or in the same footage):
Douglas Dumbrille
Clarence Muse
Margaret Hamilton
Frankie Darro
Clara Blandick
And a heavier Ward Bond
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jan 15, 2018 17:20:11 GMT
Doghouse6 Still waiting for that book you ought to be writing! Psssst: I'm waiting for all the authors of the books from which I pick up most of it to pass away so they don't sue me for stealing their stuff. In the meantime, I've got a title: "Mostly Unrelated Movie Trivia and Anecdotes That Come Up In Conversation (and Other Random Recollections)." Think it has enough punch? |
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Post by mattgarth on Jan 15, 2018 18:49:00 GMT
More than just a mere punch, Doghouse -- a veritable roundhouse knockout!
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Jan 16, 2018 7:06:52 GMT
Charles Schneer had family connections to Columbia-which is why he and Ray Harryhausen had a home there--so that was a good thing.
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Post by vegalyra on Jan 19, 2018 22:44:05 GMT
I like both, Universal for their early horror films and Columbia for their wide range of excellent films. Mentioned above, Lawrence of Arabia in particular...
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