When the Lights Dim: Studios Logos

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

It's a funny thing, but my favorite part of every movie comes before it's even started. The lights dim. The sound kicks in. And the main titles -- whether accomplished by resounding resounding trumpets, flouncing violins, or whatever studio-centric flourish-- flash over the screen.



What can I say? I lost it at the movies, and usually only find it there, too.

These few moments before a film signify something much greater than "turn off the cell phone/nudge your companion into silence/get comfortable" for me. It's a moment of promise: this movie could be anything. It could take you anywhere. That's always my hope, after all...that my expectations for even the most tepid-seeming romantic comedy/thriller/drama will be squashed or exceeded.

Usually they don't, because films have a habit of never betraying their trailers or advance press. But in those last moments before the fanfare dies, I could be sitting down to watch Casablanca for the first time, for all I know.

Not surprisingly, most of these logos have an interesting history in themselves.

20th Century Fox

That familiar fanfare was composed in 1933 by Alfred Newman, whose version was later reworked by his son, David. But by the 1970s, the fanfare had fallen into disuse: everyone was probably too busy discoing or some other era-appropriate verb. We oew its resurgence, unfortunately, to George Lucas, whose fond memories of the old reels of the Newman score compelled him to dig it out of the vault for his upcoming 1977 feature Star Wars.

Composer John Williams actually wrote the main theme to Star Wars in the same key (B♭ major) to work in tandem with the 20th Century Fox fanfare, which probably accounts for why the two scores are so closely linked in memory (mine, anyway).

The Fox logo in 1975. In the oldest version of the logo, its trademark spotlights were stationary, or barely moving. 

The logo itself was designed by landscape artist Emil Kosa, Jr.. created as a painting on several layers of glass and subsequently animated. In 1994, this was updated to the standardized CGI logo we now see today, its design headed by in-house producer Kevin Burns.

Fox Searchlight Pictures, a branch most famous for distributing independent and British films, doesn't stray far from the tree, apple-wise.

Columbia Pictures

The Columbia logo was originally designed as a woman carrying a torch and draped in the American flag, clearly invoking the iconic image of the Statue of Liberty, that waterfront beacon of the New World. The logo has gone through five major revisions, but perhaps the most telling was the one done in the 1950s: the lady’s robe was redrawn so that it emphasized her newly plunging neckline.

The Columbia Lady before Anatomy of a Murder (1959). Note that décolletage. 

The model for the original incarnation remains a mystery. Bette Davis, however, thought she’d solved it, and revealed it in typically insouciant fashion: in her 1962 biography, she speaks of Claudia Dell, a studio player from the 30s and 40s, whose person  "was used as Columbia Pictures' signature for years."  The current incarnation was created in 1993, using Jenny Joseph, a homemaker and mother of two children, as the model.

MGM

There have been five lions featured in the MGM logo, but the most famous is probably Leo, who is the longest-living and most widely seen, having appeared in all MGM films since 1957 (which makes Leo's image about 57 years old). Leo was also the first to roar; all the previous lions had been trained to growl only. Designer Howard Dietz decided to use a lion in the logo in tribute to his alma mater, Columbia University (which I must assume is a sports thing).

RKO

One of my absolute favourite logo, the old RKO Radio Pictures Inc. is instantly recognizable to any nerdy lover of the truly great old pictures. In my opinion, the appearance of the RKO logo was as close to a gold star that a film could land. Every RKO film between 1929 and 1957 (including My Favourite Wife, Citizen Kane, The Best Years of Our Lives and It’s a Wonderful Life) featured the iconic the spinning globe and radio tower, with the background beeps of the Morse code spelling out “Attention, Attention: A Radio Picture.”

The design was based on a two-hundred foot tower built for Tesla coil--a giant electrical amplifier originally created by Bad News Bear Nikola Tesla. But aside from the mad scientist shout-outs and the self-referential codes, perhaps its greatest endorsement came from all-around Great Person Orson Welles, who claimed the RKO emblem was his favourite among the older logos, “not just because it was so often a reliable portent [but] it reminds us to listen."

Exactly, you fortune-telling bastard. Exactly. 

Much thanks to Hollywood Lost and Found's excellent rundown of studio logo lore. 

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