Screen Gems

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The studio's logo

Screen Gems is a US subsidiary of the Columbia TriStar Film Group , which in turn belongs to Sony Pictures Entertainment . It fulfills different tasks for the parent companies.

history

Animated Film Studio: 1940–1946

For a full decade drove Charles B. Mintz its animated - short films Krazy Kat , Scrappy , and Color Rhapsody via Columbia Pictures . In 1939, Mintz was so deeply in debt with Columbia that he was forced to sell his studio to Columbia. Under the new management, the studio was renamed Screen Gems . The new head of the studio was initially Mintz 'former production manager Jimmy Bronis, who was soon replaced by Mintz' brother-in-law George Winkler. As a result, Columbia decided to "clean up" the house from the old clique and dismissed most of the staff, including Winkler. Instead, cartoonist Frank Tashlin was hired, who was soon replaced by Dave Fleischer . After several other successors, Ray Katz and Henry Binder , who came from Warner Bros. , took over this position. Animators, directors and writers included Art Davis , Sid Marcus, Bob Wickersham and later Bob Clampetts.

The studio characters included Flippy , Willoughby Wren, and Tito and his Burrito . The most successful was probably the duo The Fox and The Crow , which consisted of a sophisticated fox and a cunning crow.

Screen Gems is the American animation studio that has been producing black and white cartoons the longest. In order to keep production costs down, color cartoons were not produced until 1946 - three years after the last of their competitors, Famous Studios and Termite Terrace , produced their last black and white cartoons. That same year the studio finally closed its doors, although its cartoons were distributed until 1949.

Compared to the cartoons from Disney , Warner Bros. and MGM , the productions of Screen Gems achieved only moderate success. The role that the studio had taken on within the group was outsourced to United Productions of America (UPA) after its end , with cartoon series such as Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mister Magoo being more successful both commercially and with critics.

TV Shows and Entertainment Subsidiary: 1948–1974

In 1948 Screen Gems was revived to work as a television subsidiary in Columbia. Several popular shows have been produced and adopted (see below), including Columbia Pictures' theater film archive, including the hit series The Three Stooges . They also acquired the rights to a package of horror films from Universal, which gave the genre a huge resurrection. The notable final production of this policy by Screen Gems was the 1974 miniseries QB VII .

From 1958 to 1972, under the direction of Vice President of Production Harry Ackermans, Screen Gems distributed the classic sitcoms:

  • Father Knows Best, Dennis the Menace, The Donna Reed Show,
  • Hazel, Gidget, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun,
  • The Monkees, Love, American Style, and The Partridge Family.

Screen Gems also entered the broadcasting business in the late 1950s. Stations like KCPX ( Salt Lake City ), WVUE ( New Orleans ), WAPA ( San Juan ), WNJU (Linde, NJ) and other radio stations have come under the ownership of Screen Gems over the years.

In 1974 the name of Screen Gems was abandoned and Columbia's subsidiary became Columbia Pictures Television . In 1982 there were changes in Columbia's ownership when the Coca-Cola Company bought the company. However, it continued to operate under the CPT name. In the mid-1980s, Coca-Cola reorganized its holdings to create Coca-Cola Television, CPT was merged with the television division of Embassy Communications to form Columbia / Embassy Television, although both companies continued to use separate identities until they merged with TriStar Television in 1988 CPT names were reunited. In 1989, Columbia pictures were purchased by Sony Corporation Japan. In 1991 Columbia Pictures Entertainment was renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment (as a film production distribution subsidiary) and later merged CPT with a revived TriStar Television in 1994 to form Columbia TriStar Television.

The television division is now known as Sony Pictures Television.

TV shows (selection)

Television programs produced and / or adopted by Screen Gems:

  • Burns & Allen (episode rerun; acquired from CBS television; 1953-1958)
  • Rin Tin Tin (1954-1959)
  • Captain Midnight (1954-1956)
  • Father Knows Best (1954-1960)
  • Casey Jones (co-production with Briskin Productions; 1957–1958)
  • Rescue 8 (1958-1960)
  • Hucky and Friends (Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1958–1962)
  • The Donna Reed Show (1958-1966)
  • Dennis the Menace (1959-1963)
  • Quick Draw McGraw (Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1959–1962)
  • The Three Stooges (1959–1974, still on the air and subsequently distributed by Columbia Pictures Television, Columbia TriStar Television and Sony Pictures Television)
  • Route 66 (1960-1964)
  • The Feuerstein family (produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1960–1966) SG took over the series until 1974 and CPT from 1974 until the early 80s; The series was later acquired by Worldvision and then by Turner Program Services, with Warner Bros. Television now the distributor
  • The Yogi Bear Show (Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1960–1963)
  • Top Cat (Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1961–1962)
  • The Jetsons (produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1962–1963; 1985–1987 new episodes were produced, which were then distributed by Worldvision)
  • Hazel (1961-1966)
  • The Farmer's Daughter (1963-1966)
  • In love with a witch (1964–1972)
  • Jonny Quest (Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1964–1965; 1986–1988 new episodes were produced as part of the weekly Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and distributed by Worldvision)
  • Magilla Gorilla (Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1964–1966)
  • Peter Potamus (produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; 1964–1966)
  • Zeit der Sehnsucht (Produced by Corday Productions from 1965–1974, still on the air and subsequently produced by Columbia Pictures Television, Columbia TriStar Television and Sony Pictures Television)
  • Camp Runamuck (1965-1966)
  • Gidget (1965-1966)
  • The Charming Jeannie (Produced by Sidney Sheldon Productions; 1965-1970)
  • Love on a Rooftop (1966-1967)
  • The Monkees (Produced by Raybert Productions; 1966–1968)
  • The Flying Nun (1967-1970)
  • Love American Style (1969-1970) (and Paramount Productions)
  • The Johnny Cash Show (1969-1970)
  • The Partridge family (1970–1974)
  • Bridget Loves Bernie (1972-1973)
  • Temperatures Rising (Produced by Ashmont Productions; 1972–1973)
  • The New Temperatures Rising Show (Produced by Ashmont Productions; 1973–1974)
  • The Young and the Restless (Produced by Bell Dramatic Serial Company; 1973–1974, still on the air and subsequently produced by Columbia Pictures Television, Columbia TriStar Television, and Sony Pictures Television)
  • Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1973–1974)
  • Police Story (1973–1974; then from 1974–1977 with Columbia Pictures Television)

Feature film production: Since 1999

Columbia TriStar Television became Sony Pictures Television in September 2002. Three years earlier, in 1999, Screen Gems was revived as the second feature film producer, after Sony Pictures Classics , by Sony's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group. Similar to Dimension Films, Screen Gems made and published inexpensive science fiction , horror , farce, or ethnic films with a far higher audience than the average Columbia TriStar productions. Although Screen Gems started out as a sister studio , it did better than Sony Pictures Classics.

The most commercially successful Screen Gems film in 2006 was The Exorcism of Emily Rose , which grossed $ 136,661,432 in international box office sales.

Films produced by Screen Gems

EUE / Screen Gems

Screen Gems should not be confused with EUE / Screen Gems, which use the same "S" logo. EUE / Screen Gems was founded by Frank Capra Jr. They have film and television production facilities in Wilmington, North Carolina and New York, New York . (The WB drama Dawson's Creek was filmed in the Wilmington studio and the soap opera Guiding Light was recorded in the New York studio for many years until it was moved to the CBS Studio in 2005, where it replaced Rachel Ray's talk show). In 1984 Capra bought the Screen Gems estate from Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc, but apparently not the name because it was forced to make a minor change in the company's name (hence the addition of EUE). The letters “EUE” are not an abbreviation and do not seem to mean anything.

Trivia

The logo's animation and music were sometimes found disturbing. This has also become an internet phenomenon.

Web links