The 100th Anniversary of Warner Bros. Part One

It was 100 years ago today, on April 4 1923, that Warner Bros. was formally organized. The would pioneer the use of sound in movies, releasing both the first movie with both synchronized recorded music score as well as lip-synchronous singing and speech (The Jazz Singer in 1927) and the first all talking feature (Lights of New York in 1928). They also pioneered the use of colour in film, with the first all-colour, all-talking feature (On With the Show! in 1929). Warner Bros. would go onto become one of the Big Five studios of the Golden Age of Hollywood, known for such stars as James Cagney, Bette Davis,  and Humphrey Bogart, their animated cartoons, and much more.

Of course, while Warner Bros. was formally organized in 1923, an argument can be made that the company existed in some form well before that. In fact, it was largely because of second youngest Warner brother Sam that they entered into the movie business. Sam worked as a movie projectionist at Idora Park, an amusement park in Youngstown, Pennsylvania. He saw the possibilities of the medium and as a result persuaded his family to back him in buying a used projector. His two older brothers, Harry and Albert, then joined him in showing movies in the mining towns around Pennsylvania and Ohio in 1903. The venture proved successful enough that they opened a movie theatre, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania. It was in 1904 that they founded the Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company to distribute movies. It was in 1909 that the name most associated with Warner Bros, youngest brother Jack, was brought into the family business.

It would not be long before the Warner brothers would go from exhibiting and distributing films to actually producing them. It was in 1918 that hey opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. The first movie ever produced by the Warner brothers was My Four Years in Germany, released in 1918. It was based on the book of the same name by former United States Ambassador to Germany James W. Gerard. The Warner brothers would release several films before the studio was formally organized in 1923. Sadly, most of those films are lost.

While the Warner brothers had been releasing movies for a few years, it was on April 4 1923 that Warner Bros. Pictures, Incorporated was formally organized. The first movie released by the formally organized Warner Bros. Pictures, Incorporated was Main Street (1923), now considered a lost film. It was that same year that Warner Bros.' first major star emerged. Rin Tin Tin had appeared as a wolf in  The Man from Hell's River (1922) and the family dog in My Dad (1922), but with Where the North Begins (1923) he had a starring role. Where the North Begins became Warner Bros.' first major hit and turned Rin Tin Tin into a star. He appeared in 24 more movies.

Warner Bros. began to grow not long after it was formally organized. It was in 1924 that Goldman Sachs provided financing for Waner Bros. to open two theatres in New York and Hollywood. The next year, in 1925, that Goldman Sachs arranged for a loan so that Warner Bros. could purchase Vitagraph Studios. This not only gave Warner Bros. control of Vitagraph's Brooklyn studio, but ten theatres as well.

Another acquisition, this one made in 1926, would be historic for Warner Bros. and film history in general. Since the 1910s Western Electric's Bell Laboratories had been been developing sound-on-disc and sound-on-film technologies for movies. Sam Warner visited Bell Laboratories where their sound-on-disc system made an impression on It was in 1926, then, that Warner Bros. bought the sound-on-disc system from Wester Electric. Warner Bros. formed Vitaphone Corporation to advance this new sound technology. Over the next five years, Warner Bros. would release over 1000 short subjects with sound.

Warner Bros.' first feature film to use the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system was Don Juan (1926), which featured a synchronized film score and sound effects, but no spoken dialogue. The film proved to be a success at the box office and was, at the time, the most expensive film Warner Bros. had made. Unfortunately, it was so expensive that it failed to recoup its rather hefty budget. That could have been the end of Warner Bros.' experiments with film, but Sam Warner persisted and even threatened to leave the company unless they produced more sound on film. It was then that on October 6 1927 that The Jazz Singer premiered in New York City. It was the first first movie with both synchronized recorded music score as well as synchronous singing and speech. The Jazz Singer (1927) proved enormously successful and changed movie history forever. It would be followed by The Lights of New York, the first all talking feature film, which premiered on July 6 1928. The Silent Era had ended and the age of the Talkies had begun.

It was in 1928 that Warner Bros. bought Stanley Theatres, one of the biggest theatre chains in the United States. Stanley Theatres owned one-third of rival studio First National, which Stanley Theatres had shares in. This would result in a bidding war with William Fox of Fox Film Corporation in which Warner Bros. wound up buying even more shares of First National. Warner Bros. would entirely take over First National in 1929, when they bought the one third of the studio owned by William Fox. Warner Bros. them moved from its Sunset Boulevard address to First National's lot in Burbank, essentially the modern day Warner Bros. lot. Although owned by Warner Bros. movies would continue to be released under First National through 1934. It was in 1936 that the stockholders of First National voted to dissolve the studio.

The success of  their sound movies would transform Warner Bros. from an independent to a major studio. Throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood, Warner Bros. would be one of the Big Five studios. And while the studio had achieved a good deal during the Silent Era, its best years were yet to come.