Columbia’s Golden Era
9 Episodes
While for many major Hollywood studios the 1950s marked the beginning of their decline, for Columbia Pictures it was a decade of ascendance. Spurred by the desire to differentiate their cinematic output from their television programming, the studio went bold with ambitious prestige productions like FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, ON THE WATERFRONT, and THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI—all of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. From genre gems like the Southern Gothic mystery SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER to some of the era’s best stage-to-screen adaptations (A RAISIN IN THE SUN, PICNIC), Columbia Pictures carried the torch for the big-screen experience.
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01:01Episode 1
Columbia’s Golden Era Teaser
Episode 1
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1:58:13Episode 2
From Here to Eternity
Episode 2
Directed by Fred Zinnemann • 1953 • United States
Starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah KerrBurt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make waves in this landmark blockbuster about raging passions and stormy personal dramas on a Hawaiian military base in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Har...
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1:47:59Episode 3
On the Waterfront
Episode 3
Directed by Elia Kazan • 1954 • United States
Starring Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. CobbMarlon Brando gives the performance of his career as the tough prizefighter-turned-longshoreman Terry Malloy in this masterpiece of urban poetry. A raggedly emotional tale of individual failure and soc...
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1:33:50Episode 4
Bonjour tristesse
Episode 4
Directed by Otto Preminger • 1958 • United Kingdom
Starring Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Jean SebergOtto Preminger’s second collaboration with the singular Jean Seberg casts her as Cecile, a hedonistic teenager living on the French Riviera with her similarly decadent father Raymond (David Niven),...
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2:41:34Episode 5
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Episode 5
Directed by David Lean • 1957 • United Kingdom
Starring William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack HawkinsA highly principled British colonel (Alec Guinness) becomes obsessed with leading a band of World War II POWs to build a bridge at the behest of their Japanese captors in Burma—setting up an explo...
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1:54:24Episode 6
Suddenly, Last Summer
Episode 6
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz • 1959 • United States, United Kingdom
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery CliftGay panic, incest, and a sprinkling of cannibalism: Tennessee Williams’s one-act southern-gothic shocker gets an appropriately lurid screen adaptation cowritten ...
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2:08:06Episode 7
A Raisin in the Sun
Episode 7
Directed by Daniel Petrie • 1961 • United States
Starring Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby DeeLorraine Hansberry’s immortal “A Raisin in the Sun” was the first play by a black woman to be performed on Broadway. Two years later, the production came to the screen, directed by Daniel Petrie. T...
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Picnic
Episode 8
Directed by Joshua Logan • 1955 • United States
Starring William Holden, Kim Novak, Betty FieldWilliam Holden and Kim Novak make sparks in this torrid adaptation of William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play. Holden is the handsome stranger who drifts into a small Kansas town to visit an old fr...
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1:42:26Episode 9
Born Yesterday
Episode 9
Directed by George Cukor • 1950 • United States
Starring Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William HoldenJudy Holliday pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Oscar history when she beat out both Bette Davis in ALL ABOUT EVE and Gloria Swanson in SUNSET BOULEVARD for the Academy Award for bes...