''Screen Snapshots'' are a series of documentary short subjects produced by

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

(and its predecessor

CBC Film Sales Corporation 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 ...

) between 1920 and 1958. They featured behind-the-scenes footage of

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

stars of the day at various Hollywood events or parties.

History

In 1919, Jack Cohn, brother of future Columbia president

Harry Cohn Harry Cohn (July 23, 1891 – February 27, 1958) was a co-founder, president, and production director of Columbia Pictures Corporation. Life and career Cohn was born to a working-class Jewish family in New York City. His father, Joseph Cohn, wa ...

, wanted short one-reel size films showing the reality of Hollywood. The two brothers created Hall Room Boys Photoplays, with Harry in Los Angeles to produce and Jack in New York for distribution. While Harry considered himself in charge of everything the company made, it was Jack's project and so he brought in Louis Lewyn to coproduce. From about 1930, these short documentaries were almost exclusively written, produced and directed (and occasionally edited and narrated) by Ralph Staub, until the series was discontinued in 1958. They usually ran for 9 or 10 minutes and were shown in cinema theatres like newsreels alongside main features.

Awards

Three of these documentary shorts were nominated for an Academy Award, Best Short Subject, One-reel, all produced by Staub. They are: * '' Screen Snapshots Series 23, No. 1: Hollywood in Uniform'' (1944) * '' Screen Snapshots' 50th Anniversary of Motion Pictures'' (1945) * '' Screen Snapshots Series 25, No. 1: 25th Anniversary'' (1946)

References

;Citations ;Works cited *

External links

* * * * Film series introduced in 1920 English-language films American black-and-white films American short documentary films Columbia Pictures short films Documentary film series Documentary films about Hollywood, Los Angeles Films shot in California {{short-documentary-film-stub