SCREEN GEMS

'Screen Gems' is an American subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation.

Contents

Animation studio: 1940–1946

Television subsidiary: 1948–1974

Selected TV shows

Specialty feature film studio, 1999–Present

Screen Gems films

EUE/Screen Gems

See also

External links

Animation studio: 1940–1946

For an entire decade, Charles B. Mintz distributed his ''Krazy Kat'', ''Scrappy'', and ''Color Rhapsody'' animated film shorts through Columbia Pictures. When Mintz became indebted to Columbia in 1939, he ended up selling his studio to them. Under new management, the studio assumed a new name, ''Screen Gems''. Jimmy Bronis, Mintz's production manager became the studio head, but was shortly replaced by Mintz's brother-in-law, George Winkler. After this, Columbia decided to "clean house" by ousting the bulk of the staff (including Winkler) and hiring creative cartoonist, Frank Tashlin. After Tashlin's short stay came Dave Fleischer and after several of his successors came Ray Katz and Henry Binder from Warner Bros. Animators, directors, and writers at the series included people such as Art Davis, Sid Marcus, Bob Wickersham, and, during its latter period, Bob Clampett.
The studio had several characters on their roster. These included ''Flippy'', ''Willoughby Wren'', and ''Tito and his Burrito''. However, the most successful characters the studio had were ''The Fox and the Crow'', a comic duo of a refined Fox and a street-wise Crow.
Screen Gems is also notable for being, in an attempt to keep costs low, the last American animation studio to stop producing black and white cartoons. The final black-and-white Screen Gems shorts appeared in 1946, over three years after the second-longest holdouts (Famous Studios and Leon Schlesinger Productions). During that same year, the studio shut its doors for good, though their animation output continued to be distributed until 1949.
The Screen Gems cartoons were only moderately successful when compared to those of Disney, Warner Bros., and MGM. The studio's purpose was assumed by an outside producer, United Productions of America (UPA), whose cartoons, including ''Gerald McBoing Boing'' and the ''Mr. Magoo'' series, were major critical and commercial successes.

Television subsidiary: 1948–1974

In 1948, Screen Gems was revived to serve as the television subsidiary of Columbia, producing and syndicating several popular shows ''(see below)'' and also syndicating Columbia Pictures' theatrical film library to television, including the wildly successful series of two-reel short subjects starring The Three Stooges in the late 1950s. Earlier, they also acquired syndication rights to a package of Universal horror films, which was enormously successful in reviving that genre. The final notable production from this incarnation of Screen Gems was the 1974 mini-series ''QB VII''.
From 1958 through 1974, under Vice President of Production Harry Ackerman, Screen Gems delivered 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'', and ''The Partridge Family''.
In the late 1950s Screen Gems would also go into broadcasting. Stations that would be owned by Screen Gems over the years would include KCPX (Salt Lake City), WVUE (New Orleans), WAPA (San Juan), WNJU (Linden, NJ), and several radio stations as well, including 50,000-watt clear channel WWVA (Wheeling WV).
In 1974, the Screen Gems name was retired and Columbia's television subsidiary became Columbia Pictures Television. Changes in corporate ownership of Columbia came in 1982, when the Coca-Cola Company bought the company, although continuing to trade under the CPT name. In the mid-1980s, Coca-Cola reorganized its television holdings to create Coca-Cola Television, merging CPT with the television unit of Embassy Communications as Columbia/Embassy Television, although both companies continued to use separate identities until 1988, when it and TriStar Television were reunited under the CPT name. In 1989 Columbia Pictures was purchased by Sony Corporation of Japan. In 1991, Columbia Pictures Entertainment was renamed to Sony Pictures Entertainment as a film production-distribution subsidiary, and subsequently combined CPT with a revived TriStar Television in 1994 to form Columbia TriStar Television.
The television division today is presently known as Sony Pictures Television.

Selected TV shows

Television programs produced and/or syndicated by Screen Gems (most shows produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions are now owned and distributed by Warner Bros. Television, except for ''Jeannie'' [see below]):

★ ''Burns & Allen'' (syndicated reruns of filmed episodes from 1953-1958)

★ ''The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin'' (1954-1959)

★ ''Father Knows Best'' (1954-1962)

★ ''Rescue 8'' (1958-1960)

★ ''Huckleberry Hound'' (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; distributed thereafter by other Columbia/Sony divisions)

★ ''Route 66'' (1960-1964)

★ ''The Flintstones'' (produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions) (1960-1966; syndicated by Screen Gems until 1974)

★ ''Yogi Bear'' (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)

★ ''Hazel'' (1961-1966)

★ ''The Farmer's Daughter'' (1963-1966)

★ ''Bewitched'' (1964 - 1972)

★ ''Jonny Quest'' (produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions)

★ ''Magilla Gorilla'' (produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions) (1964-1966)

★ ''Peter Potamus'' (produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions) (1964-1966)

★ ''Days of Our Lives'' (produced by Corday Productions) (1965-1974; produced thereafter by Columbia Pictures Television, Columbia TriStar Television and Sony Pictures Television)

★ ''Camp Runamuck'' (1965-1966)

★ ''Gidget'' (1965-1966)

★ ''I Dream of 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)

★ ''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; produced thereafter by Columbia Pictures Television, Columbia TriStar Television and Sony Pictures Television)

★ ''Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'' (1973-1974)

★ ''Police Story'' (1973-1974; by Columbia Pictures Television from 1974-1977)

★ ''Jeannie'' (produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; Sony Pictures Television owns the distribution rights due to the show's connection to ''I Dream of Jeannie'') (1973-1975)

Specialty feature film studio, 1999–Present

In September 2002, Columbia TriStar Television became Sony Pictures Television, while three years earlier, in 1999, Screen Gems was resurrected as a second specialty film producing arm of Sony's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, after Sony Pictures Classics. Similar to Dimension Films, Screen Gems produces and releases smaller-budget science fiction, horror, teen movies, farce or ethnic films with more centralized target audiences than Columbia TriStar's mainstream outputs, although it started out as a sister studio of Sony Pictures Classics, which produced more mature, intelectual fare.
The most-successful Screen Gems film commercially as of 2006 was ''The Exorcism of Emily Rose'', which grossed $136,661,432 in international box office receipts.

Screen Gems films

★ ''Arlington Road'' - 1999

★ ''Limbo'' - 1999

★ ''Girlfight'' - 2000

★ ''Snatch'' - 2000

★ ''The Brothers - 2001

★ ''The Forsaken'' - 2001

★ ''Ghosts of Mars'' - 2001

★ ''Two Can Play That Game'' - 2001

★ ''Formula 51'' - 2002

★ ''Love and a Bullet'' - 2002

★ ''The Mothman Prophecies'' - 2002

★ ''Resident Evil'' - 2002

★ ''Swept Away'' - 2002

★ ''In the Cut'' - 2003

★ ''The Medallion'' - 2003

★ ''Underworld'' - 2003

★ '' - 2004 (distributed by Columbia Pictures).

★ ''Breakin' All the Rules'' - 2004

★ '' - 2004

★ ''Into the Sun'' - 2004

★ ''You Got Served'' - 2004

★ ''Boogeyman'' - 2005

★ ''The Cave'' - 2005

★ ''The Exorcism of Emily Rose'' - 2005

★ ''The Gospel'' - 2005

★ ''Hostel - 2006 (distributed by Lions Gate.)

★ '' - 2006

★ ''When a Stranger Calls'' - 2006

★ ''Ultraviolet'' - 2006

★ ''I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer'' - 2006

★ ''The Grudge 2'' - 2006 -

★ ''Zombies - 2006

★ ''The Covenant'' - 2006

★ ''The Messengers'' - 2007 (distributed by Columbia Pictures).

★ '' - 2007

★ ''Stomp The Yard'' - 2007

★ ''The Brothers Solomon'' - 2007 (distributed by Columbia Pictures)

★ ''When a Stranger Calls 2'' - 2007

★ ''Vacancy'' - 2007

★ ''Hostel Part 2'' - 2007 - distributed by Lions Gate - Such titles: Hostel Part Two or Hostel Part Two: The Sequel)

★ ''Lakeview Terrace'' - 2008

★ ''The Stepfather'' - 2008

★ ''Prince of Pistols - 2008

★ ''Boogeyman 2'' - 2008

★ ''Underworld 3'' - 2009 - such titles as: Underworld 3: The Untilted Underworld Prequel'' or ''Underworld 3: Untilted Underworld Prequel'' or ''Underworld III'')

EUE/Screen Gems

Screen Gems should not be confused with 'EUE/Screen Gems', which uses the same "S" logo. EUE/Screen Gems was founded by Frank Capra, Jr., and owns and operates motion picture and television production facilities in Wilmington, North Carolina and New York, New York. (The WB drama ''Dawson's Creek'' was filmed at the Wilmington facility, and the soap opera ''Guiding Light'' was videotaped at the New York studio for many years until being moved to CBS Studios in 2005; the incoming Rachael Ray talk show has replaced it).
In 1984, Capra purchased the assets of Screen Gems from Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., but apparently not the name because he was forced to make a minor change in the company's name (thus the EUE).
EUE stands for Elliott Unger & Elliott, a New York video/film production company.

See also

★ Colgems Records

External links

★

★

★ Screen Gems Network Official Website - Former block of Screen Gems programs that aired in TV syndication the U.S.

★ The Columbia Crow's Nest - site dedicated to the Screen Gems animation studio.

★ EUE Screen Gems, Ltd.