Glenn Close is the hostess and narrator of this documentary that covers Columbia from its beginnings to 1999. Glenn Close is, as usual, appealing and intelligent, but any documentary has to be judged on its script and on its structure.
And, in fact, it's not bad on either count. The greatest danger lurking in the shadows of this sort of endeavor is a kind of super patriotic, hagiographic bloviating. We've seen it often enough before. (See the AFI's history of American movies, in which American values are "a candle in the mind.") This narration, however, doesn't turn Harry Cohn, a notorious bonehead, into a kindly and generous avuncular figure. Audio clips from interviews with some of his subordinates -- and from Close's narrative itself -- are fairly straightforward about the kind of guy Cohn was. Nobody liked him, it seems, except a few beautiful women who thought they might be in a position to marry him.
Not to put Cohn down too much, or to put the studio down at all. The big three studios throughout the sound era were MGM, 20th-Century Fox, and Warner Brothers. Harry Cohn and his brother Jack established Columbia and although it was never as BIG as the others, confined for most of its existence to Gower Gulch, the studio did back some unimpeachable films, including a few true masterpieces like "On the Waterfront" and "Lawrence of Arabia." The studio's clunkers are briefly referred to as well -- "The Last Action Hero", for instance.
The clips from the productions are long enough to get a feel for what the films must have been like, to grasp something of the tone of the films.
It isn't a bad documentary if you have a casual interest in movies, and if you're a film buff you must see it to refresh your data base. I was surprised at the number of good movies Columbia managed to put out in its time.
And, in fact, it's not bad on either count. The greatest danger lurking in the shadows of this sort of endeavor is a kind of super patriotic, hagiographic bloviating. We've seen it often enough before. (See the AFI's history of American movies, in which American values are "a candle in the mind.") This narration, however, doesn't turn Harry Cohn, a notorious bonehead, into a kindly and generous avuncular figure. Audio clips from interviews with some of his subordinates -- and from Close's narrative itself -- are fairly straightforward about the kind of guy Cohn was. Nobody liked him, it seems, except a few beautiful women who thought they might be in a position to marry him.
Not to put Cohn down too much, or to put the studio down at all. The big three studios throughout the sound era were MGM, 20th-Century Fox, and Warner Brothers. Harry Cohn and his brother Jack established Columbia and although it was never as BIG as the others, confined for most of its existence to Gower Gulch, the studio did back some unimpeachable films, including a few true masterpieces like "On the Waterfront" and "Lawrence of Arabia." The studio's clunkers are briefly referred to as well -- "The Last Action Hero", for instance.
The clips from the productions are long enough to get a feel for what the films must have been like, to grasp something of the tone of the films.
It isn't a bad documentary if you have a casual interest in movies, and if you're a film buff you must see it to refresh your data base. I was surprised at the number of good movies Columbia managed to put out in its time.