The key factor in Columbia Picture’s Depression-era
climb and its development of a distinctive house style
was, without question, its remarkable run of Capradirected hits—notably Platinum Blonde (1931), Miracle
Woman (1931), American Madness (1932), Lady for a
Day (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds
Goes to Town (1936), You Can’t Take It with You
(1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). All
were huge moneymakers for Columbia Pictures, which
finally shed its Poverty Row stigma during the 1930s,
and they brought critical recognition as well. Capra’s
films scored six Academy Award nominations for Best
Picture and five nominations for Best Director. It
Happened One Night and You Can’t Take It with You
both won the Best Picture Oscar, and Capra won Best
Director three times in a five-year span (1934, 1936, and
1938), a feat unmatched in industry history.
Equally important to Columbia’s surge was Harry
Cohn, whose authority over the studio—and Columbia
Pictures at large—increased dramatically in 1932, when
he prevailed in a struggle with Joe Brandt and his older
brother Jack for control of the company, thanks to the
unexpected backing by A. H. Giannini of the (renamed)
Bank of America. Consequently, Brandt sold his stake in
Columbia and Harry Cohn assumed the presidency, appointing Jack Cohn vice president and treasurer. Harry
opted to remain in Hollywood, thus becoming the
only president of a major motion picture firm to run
the company while overseeing production in the
Hollywood factory. Cohn was among the least ‘‘creative’’
of Hollywood’s studio bosses, but he was among the
most heavily involved in day-to-day operations.
Moreover, he opted to keep Columbia in the ramshackle Gower Gulch plant not only to cut costs, but also to
maintain personal proximity to all phases of production.
One exception to Cohn’s hands-on supervisory role
was the so-called Capra unit. Here Cohn relied on Sam
Briskin, Columbia’s vice president and studio manager,
whom Capra considered his own ‘‘unit manager,’’ the
one responsible for ‘‘all the production details.’’ Capra’s
key creative collaborator was writer Robert Riskin (1897–
1955), who signed with Columbia in 1931 and, after
contributing to both Miracle Woman and Platinum
Blonde, was Capra’s sole collaborator on American
Madness—and on seven of the next eight Capra-directed
pictures as well. Theirs was an ideal melding of talents:
Riskin’s glib, rapid-fire dialogue, Runyonesque characters, tightly constructed plots; and Capra’s deft pacing,
genius for integrating verbal, visual, and physical humor,
and skill with actors. Other key members of the Capra
unit were the cinematographer, Joe Walker (1892–
1985), who lit and shot all of Capra’s 1930s pictures,
as well as the editor, Gene Havlick (1894–1959), and the
art director, Stephen Goosson (1889–1973).
Casting Capra’s films—and all of Columbia’s
A-class pictures, for that matter—was a more complicated
issue, given Columbia’s relatively meager star stable.
Capra’s films generally co-starred a freelance star or loanout from another studio playing opposite a Columbia
semi-regular. From the mid-1930s onward, Capra
worked most frequently with the ‘‘outside’’ stars Gary
Cooper (1901–1961) or James Stewart (1908–1997)
playing opposite either Jean Arthur (1900–1991) or
Barbara Stanwyck (1907–1990), who had nonexclusive
contracts with Columbia. In whatever pairing, these costars represented what became the essential Capra screen
types: the aggressive, fast-talking, quick-witted career
woman and the deliberate, low-key, tongue-tied male,
out of his element among city slickers but ultimately
capable of timely, heroic action. Capra’s comedies usually
centered on the male hero, whose common sense and
homespun values put him at odds with the hustling
heroine and with some malevolent political or industrial
forces as well. The hero prevails, of course, thus projecting a world in which sexual antagonism and deep-seated
ideological conflicts might be resolved.
To ensure an adequate supply of first-run product,
Cohn also developed a cycle of operatic romances starring soprano Grace Moore (1898–1947), a former
Broadway and Metropolitan Opera star who had a breakthrough hit with One Night of Love (1934). It established
a pattern of first-run engagements in the United States
and Europe that would be repeated in Love Me Forever
(1935), The King Steps Out (1936), and When You’re in
Love (1937). Even more important to Columbia’s
Depression-era fortunes was Cohn’s decision to increase
and upgrade Columbia’s overall comedy output as the
Capra-directed screwball comedies caught on. This trend
coalesced with Twentieth Century (1934), a madcap comedy directed by Howard Hawks (1896–1977) and coscripted by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. It starred
John Barrymore (1882–1942) as an overbearing, overthe-hill Broadway director and Carole Lombard (1908–
1942) as his former prote´ge´, who is en route to
Hollywood and a movie career despite his ardent protestations. This film hit led to two 1935 comedies—The
Whole Town’s Talking, directed by John Ford (1894–
1973) and co-starring Edward G. Robinson (1893–
1973) and Jean Arthur; and She Married Her Boss,
directed by Gregory La Cava (1892–1952), with
Melvyn Douglas (1901–1981) and Claudette Colbert
(1903–1996)—that solidified the trend toward romantic
comedies with a top outside director and outside star
teamed with a rising Columbia inge´nue.
The trend continued with Theodora Goes Wild
(1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Holiday (1938), and
Only Angels Have Wings (1939), all of which were written, like the Ford and La Cava hits, by one of Columbia’s
top staff writers—that is, Jo Swerling (1893–1964),
Robert Riskin, or Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)—who not only scripted but also informally supervised production. These writer-supervisors proved far more effective
than the brutish Harry Cohn in dealing with outside
talent, and they also understood how to reformulate the
basic ingredients of the ‘‘Capra touch’’—the distinctive
blend of screwball romance and contemporary, socially
astute, comedy—for filmmakers like Hawks, George
Cukor (1899–1983), and Leo McCarey (1898–1969).
These comedies were commercial and critical hits, and
in fact The Awful Truth scored more major Oscar
nominations—five, including Best Picture, Best Director
(McCarey), and Best Actress (Irene Dunne)—and did far
better at the box office than Lost Horizon (1937), Capra’s
most ambitious production to date.
In 1939 Capra decided to leave Columbia in the
wake of his back-to-back hits, You Can’t Take It with
You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, eager to try his
luck as an independent producer-director (with Riskin
as a partner) and to end his battles with Harry Cohn.
Capra signed a lucrative one-picture deal with Warner
Bros. for Meet John Doe (1941), which gave him
enormous authority and creative control. The film was
a disappointment, starting a tailspin that would end
Capra’s career by the late 1940s and indicating that
Capra was a consummate ‘‘studio auteur ’’ whose talents
ideally suited the resources and constraints afforded by
Harry Cohn and Columbia Pictures.