CBC Film Sales Corporation

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CBC Film Sales Corporation
Company typePrivate
IndustryFilm
PredecessorIndependent Moving Pictures
FoundedJune 19, 1918; 106 years ago (1918-06-19)
FoundersHarry and Jack Cohn
Joe Brandt
DefunctJanuary 10, 1924; 100 years ago (1924-01-10)
FateRenamed as Columbia Pictures
SuccessorColumbia Pictures
Key people
Harry Cohn (President)
ProductsMotion pictures

Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales Corporation (also known as CBC Film Sales or simply CBC) was an American film studio that was founded on June 19, 1918 by brothers Harry and Jack Cohn and their friend and co-worker at Independent Moving Pictures (later became Universal Film Manufacturing Company), Joe Brandt, with capital of $250 ($3363 in 2023 dollars[1]).[2] The headquarters were at 1600 Broadway in New York.[2]

Brandt was the president of CBC Film Sales, handling sales, marketing and distribution from New York along with Jack Cohn, while Harry Cohn ran production in Hollywood. CBC Film's early productions were low-budget short subjects: Screen Snapshots (started in 1920),[2] the "Hall Room Boys" (the vaudeville duo of Edward Flanagan and Neely Edwards), and the Chaplin imitator Billy West.[3] The start-up CBC leased space in a Poverty Row studio at 6070 Sunset Boulevard in 1922.[4] The studio released its first feature film More to Be Pitied Than Scorned on August 20, 1922. Its success led the company to open its own film exchanges.[2]

Among Hollywood's elite, the studio's small-time reputation led some to joke that "CBC" stood for "Corned Beef and Cabbage". The studio's last film to be released was Innocence on December 1, 1923. The Cohn brothers changed the name of CBC Film Sales to Columbia Pictures on January 10, 1924, with a view toward improving its image.

Filmography

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Release date Title
August 20, 1922 More to Be Pitied Than Scorned
December 15, 1922 Only a Shop Girl
March 1, 1923 Temptation
April 16, 1923 Her Accidental Husband
August 15, 1923 Mary of the Movies (co-produced with FBO)
August 15, 1923 The Barefoot Boy
August 15, 1923 Yesterday's Wife
September 15, 1923 Forgive and Forget
October 25, 1923 The Marriage Market
December 1, 1923 Innocence

References

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  1. ^ CPI inflation calculatorUnited States Bureau of Labor Statistics
  2. ^ a b c d "Jack Cohn Dead; Film Pioneer, 67". The New York Times. December 10, 1956. p. 31. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
  3. ^ The Hollywood Story, by Joel Waldo Finler, page 81
  4. ^ Natale, Richard (January 25, 1999). "Where Col travels, others follow". Variety (Columbia Pictures 75th Anniversary ed.). p. 12.