Columbia's Gems

Tops among Hollywood writer-director teams for many a year were hairy little Frank Capra, who used to be a Mack Sennett gagman, and baldish Robert Riskin, who got into the movie business when a shirt manufacturer he was working for decided to take a flier in shorts. During the six years they worked together for Columbia, Capra & Riskin turned out a dazzling string of critical and box-office successes, Lady For a Day, Broadway Bill, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It With You. They won their share of Oscars and some of the biggest money in the business. Last year they parted when Samuel Goldwyn offered Riskin a five-year contract (reportedly worth $1,000,000) as an associate producer. Hollywood guessed that Capra, whose $350,000-a-year contract with Columbia had another year to run, was also on Producer Goldwyn's list.

But last fortnight Bob Riskin, weary of the constant harangues that working for Mr. Goldwyn entails, threw up his contract, this week sailed for Europe. Last week Frank Capra, completing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington under his Columbia contract, announced that, instead of signing another, he would rejoin Riskin in the fall as Frank Capra Productions, Inc. Since high-powered Screenwriters Gene Towne and Graham Baker have also set up shop for themselves this year (TIME, May 29), Hollywood saw a Trend. Though the Capra-Riskin production plans remained their secret, neither they nor anyone else thought they would have much trouble in financing as many pictures as they wanted to make, which will probably not be very many. "A good writer should be able to do two good pictures a year," Writer Riskin once remarked. "Unfortunately, we all do several more than that."

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