the company's first true sound film was Karu's The Lumberjack's Bride (1931), another rural drama. 1934–1939: The Golden Age The studio system In 1933 Karu was kicked out from Suomi-Filmi, his own company. He took his revenge by founding a new one called Suomen Filmiteollisuus, which started to use initials SF in its logo. This company managed far better than previous attempts to compete with Suomi-Filmi, and right after couple successful comedies directed by Karu it had grown as significant as its rival. It seemed at this point to be possible only for Karu to create successful production companies in Finland. The competition between the two companies proved to be fruitful. At the end of the decade there were about twenty full-length features made every year. The quality of the productions was high, the field of the subjects expanding and the popularity of domestic films increasing. With its own stars and creative producers, Finnish film industry began to remind a national miniature of Hollywood. Alongside with the two big studios, some minor ones did well also. Sound had increased the public's eagerness to see domestic films. The great breakthrough for Finnish talkies came with The Foreman of Siltala Farm (1934), a well-recorded comedy by Suomi-Filmi, that was seen by over 900 000 viewers. Suomi-Filmi Erkki Karu was instantly replaced with Risto Orko as the head of company, a place he held until the 1990s (although this was long after the company had stopped movie-making). Orko had directed The Foreman of Siltala Farm, and he returned to directing a few times since, most notably with two historical and patriotic dramas at the end of the decade: Soldier's Bride (1938) and Activists (1939). Most of his films as a director remain forgettable. The most important director at Suomi-Filmi was Valentin Vaala, who had a stunningly creative period at the end of the 1930s. After the silent years, Vaala had directed three more films for his first company Fennica. When he started the fourth, the company went broke. Now he moved to Suomi-Filmi, and although his first movie there (Everybody's Love, 1935) was quite a modest comedy, it was very popular, and most importantly, introduced two of the most beloved Finnish stars to the public: Ansa Ikonen and Tauno Palo. Vaala's last Fennica-films had been urban comedies, a genre which he greatly developed at his new studio with his next two light-weighted films,