Columbia Pictures 50th Anniversary yellow box, how many of them?

[Winbert Hutahaean]

As film collectors you must recognize this yellow box with "Columbi a Pictures 50th Anniversary". Many of these releases are from their golden era, so good to have them in our collection. Most of them are in B/W so we do not need to worry with film fading. However, there are at least two downsides I can say, first their boring yellow box without any artworks and secondly, the box spine does not have respective title on it (we must pull it out one by one to find a particular title, hence box will break easily).

I am googling it and found out that 50th anniversary of Columbia Pictures was in 1975, so two questions here:

a. Were all titles released in 1975?
b. How many of them are there, any complete list (with catalog # started by MM-xxxx)

cheers,
winbert

[Carter Bradley]

Hi Winbert. Doug posted a complete list of Columbia Classics back on November 9, 2004. He accurately listed 111 titles!!

[Douglas Meltzer]

And here's a link to that thread!

Columbia kindly repackaged a number of their releases with actual artwork as they continued on. That Grand Old Forum list is missing a few of their later releases, including Hardcore and The China Syndrome.

[Paul Adsett]

My fav 400ft Columbia's:

Only Angels Have Wings
A Christmas Carol
Requiem For A Heavyweight
Gilda
The Jolson Story
Jolson Sings Again

[Winbert Hutahaean]

And here's a link to that thread!

Columbia kindly repackaged a number of their releases with actual artwork as they continued on. That Grand Old Forum list is missing a few of their later releases, including Hardcore and The China Syndrome.

I move that list here with a little modification and adding one title that is not in Doug's list, i.e "You can't take it with you"

I added the cat# so we can check and re-check for the missing numbers. For those titles without the cat# I put them in alphabetical order. If you have the cat# or want to add new titles please copy the below list and paste to your post since I am not able to edit this post after several hours (day?) due to the forum regulation.

Note: MM-10xx (B/W), MM-50xx (Color)

MM-1015 Jungle Jim
MM-1032 Holiday
MM-1036 You Were Never Lovelier
MM-1038 Miracle Woman
MM-1044 Angels Over Broadway
MM-1047 You can’t take it with you
MM-5006 Good Day For a Hanging
MM-5009 Guns of Ft. Petticoat
MM-5013 Commanche Station
MM-5019 Murderer's Row
MM-5020 Jerry Lewis - Three On A Couch
MM-5024 Lawrence of Arabia
MM-5025 Guns of Navarone
MM-5028 Jerry Lewis Big Mouth
MM-5030 Chase
MM-5033 Man From Laramie
MM-5034 Mysterious Island
MM-5038 Major Dundee
MM-5039 A Thousand and One Nights
MM-5046 Hell On Frisco Bay

All The King's Men
Anderson Tapes, the
Awful Truth, the
Back From Eternity
Birds Do It, Bees Do It
Boogie Man Will Get you, the
Born Free
Born Yesterday
Breakout
Brian's Song
Bridge On The River Kwai
Buchanan Rides Alone
Buck and the Preacher
Bye, Bye Birdie
Caine Mutiny, the
Cat Ballou
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Commandos Strike At Dawn
Confessions of a Driving Instructor (Parts 1&2)
Cowboy
Craig's Wife
Creature With the Atom Brain
Deep Six
Deep, the
Dirigible
Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River
Drum Beat
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
Escape From Devil's Island
Emmanuelle
Fail Safe
Forty Guns to Apache Pass
Fuller Brush Girl
Fuller Brush Man
Gamma People, the
Genghis Khan
Getting Straight
Gilda
Goddess, the
Golden Boy
Gorgon, the
Heat's On, the
It Came From Beneath the Sea
It Happened One Night
Jolson Sings Again
Jolson Story, the
Jungle Jim's Manhunt
Lady From Shanghai, the
Last Hurrah, the
Lost Command
Machine Gun McCain
Mad Magician (3D), the
Member of the Wedding
More From Emmanuelle
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
My Dog Rusty
My Sister Eileen
New Centurions, the
Odessa File, the
On the Waterfront
Only Angels Have Wings
Pennies From Heaven
Petty Girl, the
Platinum Blonde
Professionals, the
Queen Boxer
Requiem for a Heavyweight
Santa Fe
Scream of Fear
Shamus
Silencers, the
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
So This Is Africa
Son of Dr. Jekyll
Song Of India
Stampede
Strait-Jacket
Stranger Wore a Gun
Submarine
Taxi Driver
Tiger Makes Out, the
Tommy
Twentieth Century
Twenty Million Miles to Earth
Two Fisted Law
When the Devil Commands
Where Jesus Walked
White Line Fever
Wild One, the
You'll Never Get Rich

[Adrian Winchester]

In fact Columbia did add some rather basic artwork to some of those boxes. I don't know how widespread this was but I currently have two: The Gorgon (shown here) and All the Kings Men. If the films in the 50th Anniversary boxes were all released in 1975, I suppose it's possible that they added artwork to some left over boxes in 1976! I have a copy of Scream of Fear in the 50th Anniversary box, but I know some later prints of this appeared in properly printed boxes with artwork.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Columbia also had this generic cover:



I have the following titles in boxes with Columbia artwork:

The Anderson Tapes (2 different covers!)
Brian's Song
Buck and the Preacher
Bye Bye Birdie
Cat Ballou
The China Syndrome
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Confessions of a Driving Instructor (2 parts)
The Deep
Fail Safe
Getting Straight
The Jolson Story
Lost Command
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mysterious Island
The New Centurions
The Odessa File
The Professionals
Shamus
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
Taxi Driver
White Line Fever

Columbia also repackaged a number of films in clamshells with new artwork. I have a few UK Columbia releases (via Mountain Films) that used stills on their cardboard box covers.

[Winbert Hutahaean]

Columbia also had this generic cover

Yes that is right.. but I rarely seen this type of box. Maybe they released it only few of them.