By Georg Szalai. Global Business Editor. From war movies and westerns to noir films, screwball comedies all the way to musicals β Sony-owned Columbia Pictures has had them all over its first years. Locarno unveiled its retrospective of 40, mostly black-and-white, titles by emphasizing the importance of the studio for Hollywood history. As Columbia Pictures, the studio struck gold, producing a major string of successes and becoming, over the next decade, an integral part of the Hollywood ecosystem.
So what Columbia Pictures golden age classics will Locarno77 unspool? Below, see a selection of 11 of the titles featured in the retrospective to whet your appetite. At 68 minutes, it is also shorter than other fare in the tribute program. The story focuses on a steelworker-turned-ruthless tycoon whose tough business methods lead a rival to suicide. The movie, directed by Nicholas Ray, not only featured foreign lands on screen but also traveled itself, debuting at the Venice Film Festival in The minute movie tells the story of two families caught up in the rise of Nazism in Germany before the start of World War II.
Heflin plays a powerful rancher who always protects his hot-tempered adult son Hunter by paying for damages and bribing witnesses β until his crimes become too serious. Grant plays a beautiful half-French, half-Sioux woman toward who the hothead makes unwanted advances. In a sign of its influence, Quentin Tarantino later said that the film was an inspiration for Tanner , the fictitious movie in his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Dorothy Arzner, one of just a few women directors who managed to have a long and successful career in Hollywood in its early days and later became a focus for students of film and relationships, directed the film from a screenplay by Mary C. McCall Jr. The introduction at Locarno will come from another female voice, namely freelance writer, critic, and film historian Pamela Hutchinson.
Rosalind Russell, John Boles, Billie Burke, Jane Darwell, and Dorothy Wilson star in the film about Harriet, who has married a man because he is able to provide the kind of posh lifestyle she desires. But when her husband gets a scare involving the police, her way of life is threatened.
