The Extras - Hollywood Icons: The Warner Brothers

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

Join us for a captivating journey as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of Warner Brothers with authors and Hollywood historians, Chris Yogerst and Alan K. Rode. In this special episode, we bring to light the tumultuous, yet triumphant saga of the Warner Brothers, pulled straight from the pages of Chris’s recent book, " The Warner Brothers." Our conversation zeros in on the impact the Warner Brothers had on the film industry, the Wall Street influence Harry Warner introduced, and their unrelenting determination to keep their company amidst fierce corporate competition. We delve into their belief in using film as an instrument for education and change, and how this ethos was embedded in their productions. From exploring their approach to realism in films to the Warner Brothers' revolutionary advancements in sound technology, we take you behind the scenes of some of Hollywood's most impactful moments.As we reach the grand finale of our episode, we reflect on the legacy of the Warner Brothers, the tragic story of Sam Warner, and the significant role he played in the evolution of cinematic sound technology. We also touch upon the family dynamics that shaped their legacy, including the heartbreaking relationship between Jack Warner and his son, and the internal politics within the studio. We invite you to experience the captivating history of Warner Brothers on a personal level, a narrative that is intrinsically woven into the fabric of America's 20th century.Purchase links:THE WARNER BROTHERS bookMICHAEL CURTIZ: A LIFE IN FILM bookAlan K. Rode websiteThe Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site.

I'm Tim Millard, youru-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host. As many of you know, Warner Brothers is celebrating its 100th year anniversary this year, and we've had quite a few podcasts celebrating this centennial. And today we're kind of going to cap off the celebration with a lively discussion about the men behind the studio with author Chris Yogerst, who has a brand new book out called The Warner Brothers. Chris has previously written two books on Hollywood, and his work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books,

the Journal of American Culture, and the Hollywood Reporter. And joining us is a friend of the podcast, Alan K. Rohde, author of the fantastic book, Michael Curtiz, A Life in Film, and his recent book, Blood on the Moon, which just came out this last spring. Chris, Alan, it's good to have you guys on the podcast today. Thank you. Great to be back with you, Tim. And it's great to be back with Chris because we were just at Larry Edmonds a couple days ago talking about those Warner Brothers, and here we are going to do it again. So looking forward. Well, Chris, before we dive into the discussion of your new book, I did read in the acknowledgements

that you actually were on the Warner Archive podcast a few years back discussing your other Warner Brothers book from, I guess it's titled From the Headlines to Hollywood, The Birth and Boom of Warner Brothers. And it said in there, you've been a fan of the Warner Archive for quite some time. So tell us a little bit about that experience. Oh, that was great. I mean, I was connected to Matt Patterson many years ago through a mutual friend of ours. And he was at Larry Edmonds with us the other night. And yeah, he was the one who, you know, when I was first working on Warner Brothers, you know, I was able to come onto the lot and, you know, kind of, you know, feel that history, you know, just coming off the walls seemingly around every corner. that I was planning on writing into a book. I was focused on the 30s and how Warner Brothers really, we always hear about how they ripped from the headlines. So I wanted to focus on exactly that and how they did that, because I just think it's a really cool part of history. But yeah, it was a perfect timing, because when I was working on that, you had the Warner Archive

guys and the podcast and all these new movies coming out that were hard to find. So it was really, you know, by the time in my life where I was starting to get really serious about writing and researching about Warner Brothers and not just being a fan, I had all this access to information and it was, and, and physical discs that, you know, you couldn't get, you know, stream anywhere. So it was just, it was, yeah, I am, I am a huge fan and also it really helps my research. Right, right. Yeah, you mentioned George and I'm sure that they had a great time with you. I might have to go through and look for that podcast so I can listen to it again. I probably have the link somewhere. I'm actually going to be doing a talk with George at the Burbank Public Library in November. Oh, you are? All right, well, I'll have

to... I did that when Curtiz came out and one of the things I loved about the Burbank Library, it's a beautiful library, is that the audience was all industry people. And a lot of them were Warner Brothers people. That's what they told me. They have that draw and they connect to the studio and bring them in. You don't get the, you know, garden variety type of questions. You get very, very insightful questions and connections with Warner Brothers, with the industry. So it's a great place to do that. I mean, you probably had this happen, too, with your book. I mean, since my latest book came out, I've been getting emails from people that were connected. Like Saul Polito, the cinematographer, his grandson reached out to me yesterday.

I got an email from, I think, the grandson of Dean Jennings, who co-wrote Jack Warner's memoir. If we can call it that. I know we talked about the pros and cons of that book. It's amazing what all comes out of the woodwork once you put your work out there. Absolutely. I remember I've had a fellow in Israel whose father worked with Curtiz at Sasha Films and Moon of Israel in the early 20s before he came to America and sent me all these pictures of Curtiz on the set. I bumped into someone who lived in Curtiz's old house here in what is now Woodland Hills. Some guy came up to me at a signing, I think at the Billy Wilder Theater. Oh, Curtiz's younger brother used to rent our house and he left all these photos, you know. And of course,

you're delighted to hear this. Although when you hear all these stories, you say it's too late, the book's published. But anyway, yeah, the best one is I got a Tom Doherty got me in touch with Greg or who's Jack Warner's grandson or step grandson, and he read the book and I got got just in time for him to get a blurb on the inside cover. So. Right. Yeah. I do have to, I do have to compliment our publisher who published your fine book and published Michael Curtiz University of Kentucky Press,

because when they wanted to put Curtiz out in paperback, by that time I had gotten to know Michael Curtiz's grandniece. And she told me some family stories, particularly with regard to what happened to members of Michael Curtiz's family during the Holocaust, and how his sister, who was the grandmother of Aggie, the grandniece who befriended me, how she survived Auschwitz. And it's a compelling, compelling, heart-rending story. So I said, Kentucky, I really need to write an afterword for the new edition with all this story. And they said, of course.

So I was able to do that, and I was very grateful that they let me do that. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I will be dealing with everything that's already happened in the last two months. I'm going to be doing something similar, you know, in a year or two when the paperback comes out. But it's good to know about your book because I know I'm back in November. So when I go back to visit our mutual friend, David Kaye, I'll pick up a signed copy at his shop. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we did recently have Greg on the podcast to talk about he's really seeing re-releasing, I should say, with an update to his documentary about his grandfather. And so that was fun. And then he he mentioned you. And I said, oh, yeah, I've already connected with Chris on Facebook. Yep. And we did an interview that's on his that's a bonus feature on his desk. Yeah, exactly right. So, hey, it's a small circle. We all love Warner Brothers.

We're all big fans of the history of the studio. And that kind of leads me into the next question I had, which is, you had written the earlier book, but what's the story kind of of, hey, I decided to do one about not Warner Brothers, the studio, but the Warner Brothers? Yeah, so each book I've done has led into the next one. So, and I feel like that's going to continue, but I, you know, so I did the one about the studio in the thirties. And during that research, I discovered Harry Warner's defense of Hollywood, uh, when the Senate came after Hollywood for making anti-Nazi movies. And that led to the book about writing a book called Hollywood hates Hitler about this Senate investigation. And then going back through Harry again with that book, I was thinking, I got to write a book about Harry Warner because, you know, everyone, you know, Jack is like the Warner brother. Right. But it's like, it was the Warner brothers.

There was four of them. There was a lot of brothers and sisters, but it was four that, that focused on, on the studio. So I really wanted to focus on Harry. And then I was saying before we started recording, I was telling Alan, our mutual friend, Pat McGilligan, who's also a fantastic biographer in his own right, suggested that I take on all of the brothers because not enough people will know Harry necessarily by name,

but even people who don't know Hollywood history, a bell rings when they hear Warner Brothers. So maybe focus on all of them. And that gave me the opportunity to focus on the brothers and not just the studio. You know, so many, so many books about Warner Brothers is about the stars, the movies, and then the actual brothers who founded the studio kind of take a backseat as supporting characters. And I wanted to write a book where they were the main characters and all of the studio drama and the actors and the talent and all of this were the supporting characters. You know, Chris, you're absolutely right. And I think one of the fascinating things about the Warner Brothers, it's it's kind of like the Warner Brothers were the longest running reality show in Hollywood because the family dynamics was something right

out of a movie like House of Strangers or Broken Lance. I mean, Harry, the conflict between the older brother, Harry, and Jack Warner, the kid brother, Sam holding them together, all of that dynamics. And then, of course, near the end in the 50s, the ultimate betrayal by Jack, what happened with his son. You know, it's really something when your closest friend is your masseur who shows up at your funeral. The dynamics of the whole Warners as a family is, I find, so fascinating and could be a movie in and of itself. Absolutely. I mean, it's the drama within the family. I mean, it's got everything, right? You've got the immigrant rags to riches story, right? But then within that, you have all of this and even more stuff that really isn't in a lot of the other books. I mean, you know what this family went through. I mean, Harry. You know, priming his son, Lewis, to become this big player at Warner Brothers, and then he dies in 1932 or 33.

And, you know, and they had just lost Sam a few years prior. And it's it's it was really heart-wrenching. And Stan Lyser, the day or the night before his greatest triumph premieres, The Jazz Singer. I mean, tell me that isn't a script made in Hollywood. Absolutely. You can't write it better than that. Yeah, the tragedy of the family and yet this striving to succeed that I think, as you pointed out, the immigrant up from their bootstraps story. But I think what also bound them together was the anti-Semitism that went back to when their father was, you know, where they were ducking pogroms and Cossacks and possibly

being killed and coming to this country. And then the failed businesses of their father, the humiliations. And I think it, particularly in the beginning, regardless of the differences between like Jack and Harry, it was the Warner Brothers against the world. And they were shoulder to shoulder that they were going to make good. And it turned out to be the movie industry. And they were going to make good no matter what. Yeah, because there was a ton of it.

I tried to chronicle in the book. Every mention of a possible other business they ran, I tried to put in the book. You know, it's everything. I mean, a lot of books have Ben Warner's shoe repair shop, right? But it's like they had grocery stores, busher shops, bowling alley, bicycle shops, I think there was mention of an ice cream shop and somebody in the somebody from their hometown was writing Esther Hamilton was her name. And she was she was covering a lot of them as like hometown heroes. And I think in one of her, this is the only place i've seen it so i don't know if it's confirmed but they i think she even made a claim that they what was it it was the some some ice cream invention i don't know

what it was i can't remember what it was but it was like they were they were on top trying you know trying to trend set with every single product they had right and then movies come along and then they end up doing that. But the difference with that one is every time they fail in it, they go back to it again. And they come back, you know, with that knowledge and to do something else, right? You know, they're in exhibition, then they're in distribution, then they're in production.

And along the way, you know, they have successes and failures. Thomas Edison shuts them down. They come back again, you know, eventually move away from the East and go out West. And yeah, every time they come back stronger. And that is straight from, like Alan said, that's straight from their parents' experiences. And that was instilled in all of the brothers. Yeah. And I think one of the things, as you pointed out, Jack was kind of the public face

of the company because he was, you know, as it said under the shield, in charge production, you know, this like Ben Hur grabbing the chariot reins, you know, Jack always had to be strong. But Harry was the fellow that bought all the theaters that connected with Motley Flint and the Security Pacific Bank when banks weren't lending money, particularly to Jewish studio executives that were just starting out in the 20s and so on and so forth. And Harry was the one that really built the vertically integrated company. And then when Warner Brothers bought First National in 1929, that was like the flea swallowing the elephant. I think the head of Paramount at the time said, I thought it was going to be First National buying Warner Brothers. the good things I think that your book does is that it gives Harry his due as the guy that really from a corporate business sense built the company while Jack and Sam was involved in making the

movies and doing the technological innovations. Harry was building the company that made it all possible. He was. He was. And you mentioned Motley Flint, right? That's another tragedy that came to the Warner Brothers, because here's this guy, right, who was, he's this virtuous, right, he's lending to Jews, you know, when that was not a popular thing to do. But then also, here's this guy who was caught up in the Teapot Dome scandal and ended up getting murdered in court. Yeah, there was a scandal in LA during the boom oil years. And there was some very complicated scandal that I read a book about. And they had something called the bottomless oil well. And somehow Motley Flint was somehow, I don't know whether he was directly involved or

peripherally involved because his bank lent some notes. But you're right. He was in a courtroom and some guy that was unhinged who had been ruined financially brought a gun into the courtroom and killed him during a trial. And that was one of Jack Warner's few close friends, by the way. Yeah, I always thought the name Motley Flint was a W.C. Fields invention. It sounds like W.C. Fields name, but he was a real person and it was a tragedy. Yeah. I'm glad you guys mentioned Motley Flint because when I was reading and I think that, you know, going back to Harry, he was the older brother. Jack was still pretty young in those

early days that made sure that the company didn't get swallowed up by the other, other companies. And basically by the sheer force of, of nature of their personality and their, their brotherhood, they pushed through and they fought through all of the lawsuits and all of the, uh, it sounded like they had a lot of people, you know, being pretty negative about them too, uh, in those early days. And they just said, okay, you know, you know, being pretty negative about them too, uh, in those early days. And they just said, okay, you know, we are the small one, but we're going to make this work. But behind the scenes, what I wouldn't know if I didn't read the book is how important a character like Motley Flint is in the story because they needed that money. They needed that access that they're not able to do what they do. They're not able to expand. They're not able to do their, you know,

various different companies. Cause you mentioned that they, they ran many companies within that, that Warner brothers umbrella as they kept expanding and kept pushing forward and expanding. And so I thought that was a really interesting part of this story. Yeah. I think Harry was one of the first people that brought Wall Street money, bank money into the film industry. Right. Because there were a lot of companies like Warner Brothers in the early 20s and going back to the teens that were, you know, would just set up shop in Hollywood. And, you know, they were kind of operating on the seat of their pants. And it was kind of the only the strong survive, you know, the Warners, the cones, people like that. But the thing that I respect about them is movies were their business

and they cared about what their name went on. You know, I always remember Bill Wellman Jr. telling me about how his father made the Oxbow incident, and he took it to Zanuck. And Zanuck said, I'll make it, I'll produce it. It won't make a dime, but I want my name on it. But of course, Bill Wellman, you got to make three other pictures for me, for me to do this. You know, he drove that hard bargain. But these guys cared about movies. They weren't part of Ivy League graduate corporations trying to run everything with an Excel spreadsheet. And I'll let the audience draw their conclusions from that. But they cared about their product.

And particularly Harry, and Chris really brings this out really well in his book, Harry believed motion pictures were virtuous in that they could uplift and educate Americans about their country, about the freedoms, about everything. And the series of films they did and documentaries on America, and more than that, the charitable stuff that he did. And a lot of that people aren't even aware of. And I really think that Chris did a great service in bringing out what Harry Warner stood for. You know, he stood for a lot of things that were good and that were virtuous. Of course he didn't, he didn't believe in unions, you know, uh, but, but I don't think a lot of people who came up during his time did that. And he, that has the union thing had to be kind of force fed to them, uh, as it did.

That was, that was, they were there, they were just in line with the studio, you know, we, you know, with that era, you know, you know, all the other studio heads stance, you know, with that era, you know, you know, all the other studio heads stance. But yeah, Harry, yeah, what was interesting about him is that, you know, the more I learned about him, the more I just, it solidified how it was never really preachy. Nothing was phony about it, right? He truly wanted to, you know, for every big public speech he would do, he would also get

everybody together in an afternoon on the lot and talk with them about the news of the day and what was going on and what he's learned so that everybody would be informed and have this on the back of their mind while they were making movies for the public good. And that's something that I feel like was a real top-down influence. And of course, I mean, you mentioned Alan, you mentioned Zanuck before, right? There was also major producers that weren't Warner Brothers, like Zanuck and Hal Wallace, that really also took this mentality and really perfected it. And in Zanuck, you can see this when you go to Fox, right? He's making movies that could have been Warner Brothers movies. Oh, yeah. Well, Zanuck, with all due respect to the brothers, Zanuck really founded the Warner Brothers brand during the 1930s.

The musicals, the rip from the headlines, the crime, all of that. I mean, they even ventured a little bit into horror movies when studios were going bankrupt and theaters were closing and they were having dish nights and everything like that. were up and theaters were closing and they were having dish nights and everything like that. Although Jack Warner, he disliked horror movies and he hated movies about alcoholics. I remember towards the end of his career when they were making, Blake Edwards was making The Days of Wine and Roses. And he says, why do we want to make a movie about a couple of drunks? You know, he didn't get that. You know, he didn't get that part of the drama. But Warner Brothers were – the brothers were technical innovators in the late 20s and the 1930s, you know, with two-strip technical sound, of course, and the jazz singer.

And as you pointed out, Chris, Sam Warner and the Warners weren't the first people to work on sound, but they were the ones that took it and made it what it became with with with the Vitagraph on disc sound system. Yeah, they could bring it to market. And that was even while Thomas Edison was talking trash in the press about it, you know, and saying, oh, that'll never work. I couldn't get it to work. And if I, Thomas Edison, couldn't get it to work, these, you know, these kids won't be able to get it to work. And of course they do. But Jack, another thing that comes to mind when you mentioned, you know, why you want to make a movie about a couple of drunks, you know, Jack also, all of the brothers, but for the purpose of this this story jack was really good at reading the room reading the culture knowing what was you know what was on people's minds and he he was he actually defended the industry and his

studio in the 50s during the juvenile delinquency hearings um and senator keyflower who just went after the mob is now going after movies um and he gets all kinds of stuff wrong about which movies were Warner Brothers movies. And then he claims to have seen Rebel Without a Cause. And Jack's like, it's not even done yet. He's like, I haven't seen it. But then somebody, it's kind of weird. Never underestimate the stupidity of politicians. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. the stupidity of politicians oh absolutely absolutely uh and somebody starts hammering against warner's warner for making movies where there's like smoking and drinking and stuff and this is by now the late 50s and he claps back by saying you know you only drink water where you come from or what like that's you know it's basically like this is you know prohibition was decades ago now so like we are here today so he he was, yeah, well, I agree. And by the fifties, you know, the studios were shedding the tether of a 1930 production code that had gone out of fashion, like the buggy whip and women's wearing staves. I mean, it was by that time. And I think Joe Breen finally retired and limped off the stage in 1954 with his Oscar.

And it was the 50s were a time of change. And I think Jack Warner and the Warners realized that, you know, in 1951, if memory serves, Warner was Warners was the most profitable studio because Jack got rid of the got rid of the entire story department and laid off these people because they realized the days of the assembly line and having the theaters after the antitrust verdict had come in and they had to divest, they realized that the movie industry changed and they were going to change. They had to change with it. And I think Jack got out ahead of that. The thing that he didn't get out ahead of was television. He fought television. Initially,

he wouldn't have a TV set on the lot. He gave these interviews, which look really obtuse upon retrospective viewing that television is a fad and it's going to go away and everything. Television is a fad and it's going to go away and everything. But then he hired his son-in-law, Bill Orr, to run the television arm, I think, in like the mid 50s, like starting in 55. And and he he had to it took him a while to come to terms with television, I guess. And Harry saw value in it. I found that Harry tried to buy a couple television stations. And this was right after the antitrust stuff and they shut that down. But his only reason, but his reasoning for it wasn't to produce new content. It was just another way to show your movies and seeing like, well,

here's another stream of places we can put our movies. If people are going to have TVs in their living rooms, well, if they're not going, if they're going to, he could see ahead that, all right, if we're going to start having issues with theaters, why don't we just put the movies where they are? Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard,

host of The Extras Podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes.

Unfortunate that didn't happen because the person that really did that was Lou Wasserman when MCA had Universal and he bought almost the entire Paramount library and made how many billions have they made as Universal made off of that library. So, yeah, I think I think Harry was a very astute businessman. There's no doubt about that. He was. He saw that. But of course, by around 1950, I mean, he's the oldest brother. He's already thinking about retirement. Right. I mean, so he didn't really have the legs to get into this and see it through. But yeah, it is worth noting that he, you know, he, as one of the industry founders, you know, he even by that time, you know, several decades in the business, he could

still see a way to maneuver with the changing times. Right. And I think one of the other things that's become more well-known now, but that you wrote about was how Harry and the brothers recognize the threat of Nazism and did something about it and reacted to it in the 1930s. And, you know, as late as 1939, MGM was giving tours to staffers that worked for Joseph Goebbels in Germany because they didn't want to give up the German market. And things didn't change until war broke out in Europe in late 39. But correct me if I'm wrong, I think Harry wanted to make a movie

about a concentration camp in like 1934, 1935, and Joe Breen, Mayer, and the other moguls just shut that idea down right away. Is that accurate? That sounds right. Yeah. I'm trying to remember specifics, but this is also why, right, yeah, they were the first to pull out of Germany, their product out of Germany in 33. So they were the first to give up profits for what they felt was right, which is a perfect Warner Brothers thing to do.

But then they started making these, right, because you had the production code, right, which you mentioned, which one of the strictures where you couldn't go, you couldn't attack other nations. So this is tricky when you have the Nazis. It's like, yeah, we should attack them. But the rules say we can't attack other nations. So they started making these allegorical anti-Nazi movies, stuff like Black Legion and They Won't Forget and The Life of Emile Zola

and all these movies that are really, anybody living at the time would have seen these as very, very kind of blatant anti-authoritarian movies. And anyone who's watching the patriotic short movies that he also made basically pumping up Americanism and democracy and our way of life with kind of a compare and contrast to what was going on in Europe. So and they were doing this before it was cool, right? As soon as World War II broke out, the Office of War Information goes to Hollywood and it's like, oh, how can you help?

But the Warner Brothers had essentially been doing this kind of stuff and thinking about it since 1933. Yeah. And as you wrote in your Hollywood Hates Hitler book, the studio chiefs, including the Warners, got raked, attempted to be raked over the coals by these isolationist Republican senators. Because roughly half or maybe 45 percent of the country wanted nothing to do with any wars or anything in Europe, didn't want to support England and so forth. I mean, Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, the president, had to do a lot of things by stealth initially to support England when England was standing alone against the Nazis. So when they started making movies like in 1941, everyone brings up Confessions of a Nazi Spy.

And that was certainly controversial, groundbreaking, raised a lot of hackles. But my favorite one is Underground in 1941. And when the Harry appeared in Congress, he made the senators look like, frankly, the fools that they were. Yeah, because, yeah, the senators hadn't seen any of the movies that they claimed were so dangerous. And yeah, that's my favorite part is Harry goes and he brings a letter to one of the where senator nye who was one of the orchestrators of this whole senate investigation had actually seen confessions of a nazi spy loved it wrote to the warners said you know this movie made him love america we need to make more movies like this uh and it was it was silly but yeah underground and we talked about this the other night at edmunds

too and underground is one movie i think in recent years more people have discovered confessions of nazi spy right warner archive put it out on Blu-ray. Maybe that'll be our recommendation to Warner Archive. Let's do Underground. Underground is a movie waiting to be rediscovered. Tim, take that for an action item. Warner Brothers needs to put out Underground on Blu-ray. From Chris Yogurts and Alan Rohde and alan roadie yep on the list by

the way i didn't want to kind of go back i know you guys have so much knowledge about this and i just don't want to lose the listeners who maybe need to catch a few other points on this but i did want to go back a little bit to the early days. I thought there were a couple of themes that you really focus on that happened in the 20s, which is you already mentioned that that they wanted to do. They felt that there was a real power in cinema for good, for education. And these movies you're mentioning, they did all that. And these movies you're mentioning, they did all that. They were controversial, but they were, they were also like social issues. You know, they were like, Hey, these are the real people. This is what people are going through.

And we want to show that we want to show people back and let people know what's going on in the world. And that stemmed from, from Harry. And I think he, you talk about this speech he did at Harvard, where he really talked about the importance of using cinema for education. And I thought that was a theme that really is a Warner Brothers, one of the key themes that I saw there. And that mixed right in, I thought, with the other ripped from the headlines, which is so important that those two kind of really went together.

Talk about that a little bit. Yeah. I mean, when you, when you look at everything Harry Warner was saying in the twenties, you see, you know, constantly putting, you know, his money where his mouth is. And then you see this all come through in the movies. So he thought movies should mirror the world, engage with the world as it was. And, you know, their first full length sound film, right. We talk a lot about the jazz singer. The first full-length sound film, still a pretty short movie, but Lights of New York,

is essentially kind of a, you know, an embryonic Warner Brothers gangster movie. And I found there was a script girl who was interviewed in the 70s before she died. And there's some anecd anecdote she has about that movie and how the producer, Brian Foy, who was a longtime Warner Brothers employee, she had said that all the people on the set and helping inform this movie were like all actual mobsters.

And she had said that Foy had so many criminal friends that these people were just kind of on the lot. And that's to inform in it to inform you know make these movies feel more real and you know they do the same thing with um i am a fugitive from a chain gang where you have this guy who was wrongly you know prisoned hard time chain gang for a petty crime on the run writes a book they pick him up and they hide him at the warner brothers studio so he could inform this movie of the same title. That is like probably the quintessential Great Depression movie about struggle and the impossibility of tomorrow.

And they're they're so they're so attached to to getting realism that they bring these people in. I mean, same thing with Confession of a Nazi Spy. They bring these people in. I mean, same thing with Confession of a Nazi Spy. Jack sent people to the trial, writers to the trial to listen to stuff and talk to people and get a sense of what was going on, the feelings. So this could be incorporated back into a movie. So when you look at what, you know, yeah, the the, you know, Harry Warner, there was a bunch of studio big shots that gave a speech, gave it was it was like a course put together by Joseph Kennedy that all of these, you know, now by 1927, 28, we're realizing that movie industry in the United States is going to be this major global force. So let's start talking about it. So there was, you know, there's a book you can get with everybody's speeches in it, focused on really not only pushing movies as this new interesting thing, but something that we can use to help not only ourselves, but the world.

And I think when you see the kinds of movies they're putting out pretty much from thereafter, everything is really kind of salt of the earth. I mean, even their musicals. I know I think Alan and I were talking about the other night, too, right? Their musicals are not MGM musicals. They are musicals, these are the backstage musicals where the performers and the artists are living in the same Great Depression as the viewers, where they're like, if this show isn't successful, we're going to lose our house. Warner Brothers was the proletarian studio. I mean, when you just look at the physical appearance and how James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, I mean, those people would not have been hired at MGM. killed at the end of the film. I don't think that would have happened to Ronald Coleman or Clark Gable. Okay. It would not have happened. And speaking about Warner's social commentary,

I mean, they made another movie about the Edith Maxwell case in 1937 called Mountain Justice. And Edith Maxwell was a 21-year-old schoolteacher with this horribly abusive father who used to beat her. And she ended up killing him in self-defense and was sentenced to death. And they wanted to lynch her. This is in Virginia, when Virginia was rural. And, of course, the Warner Brothers seized on that and said, let's make a movie about that with George Brennan, Josephine Hutchinson and Michael Curtiz directing it and so forth. And that was another bit of social commentary ripped from the headlines. And this was after Zanuck had left the studio in 1933. So this was, you know, this was Hal Wallace and Jack Warner continuing that, even as when Zanuck left, the emphasis shifted with Wallace making The Swashbucklers,

making Harold Flynn a star, Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, putting more money and more grandeur into the films. Because I think Wallace and Jack Warner could sense that the country was starting to come out of the Depression and they wanted things to be more upbeat and more entertaining than, you know, Public Enemy with James Cagney falling trussed up dead when his brother opens the front door. They wanted a little more uplift than that. And they weren't averse to the, you know, the classier kind of pictures. I mean, even in the 20s, you know, they were the they were the studio that brought Ernst Lubitsch to Hollywood and ended up thinking he was a little bit too much of a pre-Mandana for the way they like to operate. But I mean, it shows you they still had this interest in, you know, that's the whole reason they, you know, one of their first film distribution companies called the, you know, they named it after Duquesne university because they thought,

Oh, this, this has some prestige. So if we name our, our company, it's people are going to automatically assume. So they, they still, they still had their, their eyes on, you know, on that level too, on where, you know, where can we, where can we, we, we add a little prestige to our product? Yeah. They're the ones that hired John Barrymore, for goodness sakes, and made The Sea Beast and made Svengali. But they dropped him because his films weren't making enough money to cover his salary. And they dropped him.

And let's be honest here. Jack Warner did not like actors as a group. I mean, he really didn't. He viewed them as necessary evils, but he tried to keep them as kind of, you know, indentured people who should be grateful to him that they made. people who should be grateful to him that they made, that he turned them into stars and how dare they want to make, say no to him on certain movies and that they wanted more money and where was gratitude, you know, and all of this. And I remember Edward G. Robinson told a funny story when I think Warner went by his house to give him the script of Kit

Galahad and Warner was kvetching over Olivia de Havilland, Betty Davis. I made them stars. Where's gratitude? And, you know, and Robinson just shook his head and said, he doesn't get it. And he never will. There was a strange sense of ownership. And it wasn't just the Warners, right? It was all these studios where you invest in making somebody a star and then you feel like either we own that stardom uh and that yeah and

and if someone got too big for their britches or made too much money uh they they they knocked them down and the the emblematic example is what happened to kay Francis. You know, I think by 1937, Kay Francis was making $5,000 a week. And Harry Warner's, I think, realized, how can this woman be making this kind of money? That's almost as much as me or more. And she had the temerity to sue Jack Warner because he had promised to cast her in Toverich. And instead, they borrowed Claudette Colbert. And when she sued, she suddenly dropped the lawsuit. And then all of a sudden, her dressing room was taken away. She had to do screen tests with rookies that were brought in. And she just said, I don't care what they put me in or what they do, they're going to pay me

my contract. And they made it very tough for her. And she got paid. But by the time they were done, she was no longer a movie star. And she was damaged goods by the time her contract was over. So there was that side of the Warners that if you cross them and you were talent and you cross them or your popularity ran out, like Edward G. Robinson, when they got ready to drop him, Jack Warner just said, hey, I've got a new movie for you, The Beast with Five Fingers. How do you like that? And Robinson said, I'm out of here. And that made it that made it easy. So they were they were they could be hard hearted when they felt that people were not loyal. like Monty Blue, who had been a silent star and kept a lot of the old timers around and kept them employed and so on and so forth. But Jack was the kind of guy he didn't he didn't want anyone to know he had any kindness in him because he felt people would take advantage of him. Right. Right. And he also wanted to be the star. Pardon?

Right. Right. And he also wanted to be the star. Pardon? He also wanted to be the star. I feel like, you know, if, you know, if Jack could have been James Cagney, he would have. Yeah, the singing, you know, he was singing on the Warner's radio station and the jokes. I remember Dick Erdman told me they would have all the distributors in for a big banquet, and it would be on a soundstage. And Jack Warner would be at the center of the dais, and he would tell these terrible, corny jokes. And if no one laughed, he figured they didn't hear him, so he'd tell it again in a louder tone of voice. And everyone had to show up for these things. and everyone had to show up for these things.

And that was when they played the outtakes of, of actors going dry and stuff going wrong. And they call them the follies or the breakups. And I think there there's a lot of those that are still available and they would show those and they'd have a banquet and try and keep the distributors happy and so forth. But yeah, I think, was a frustrated kind of like a broken down vaudevillian with the corny jokes and all of that stuff. That was that was part of his personality, no doubt. Hey, we've talked a lot about Harry and we've talked a lot about Jack. And I think that those are the two that probably most people talk about.

And part of it is Sam, you know, died young. But maybe we should talk a little bit about Sam and the influence he had. And then also, we don't want to forget about Abe. But I was, you know, I was reading the part about Sam and he really was focused on technology and helping find ways to advance. And he was the biggest maybe risk taker in that sense. And I think that you have a quote in there that I pulled out and said, so somebody said, don't wait to find out what the audience wants. And that became something that either they learned through doing the sound or was a part of their thinking during that. Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. When Sam was, you know, yeah, he was the one who brought the projector home right the story that is in all the books you know that got them but he was also i mean he he found a movie that that was you know they that wasn't locked down and um dante's inferno and they would they did what it looks like was one of or not the first road show movie you know so they would do that they And they would bring in, you know, this, this drunk guy, apparently come read parts of the book and then show some of the movie. And so he was always thinking like, Hey, I think if we would do this, um, because he was, Sam was also the one who worked for Hale's tours. So he, he saw some of the early ways to tinker with moving pictures to get people to come. Um, so he, you know, he was, his mind was always, you know, not like, let me see what's popular. It's what can I create that might be the next big thing.

So that was, that was definitely his mentality. And that's why it never really phased him when Edison and other companies, you know, had been tinkering with sound forever and never really got it to work. I mean, he, he lived day and night to figure out how to make sound work in bigger and bigger venues. And when they bought a Vitagraph in Brooklyn, he was, he moved out there and he was working there and working on, on different ways to, to wire, where to, where to put the, the wax discs, where to put the projector, where to, you know, eventually he's, he rents out a space in New York city and he's going, you know, to, you know, eventually he's, he rents out a space in New York city and he's going, you know, up, you know, up and down floors with wire, you know, trying to get

everything where there's no interference of sound. And where of course, you know, the table, you start a record, someone sneezes too hard close to it. Now your movie's all out of sync. So he, you know, he really literally killed himself trying to find the best way to do this. And, you know, in a lot of books, it's like, oh, you know, you know, Sam, you know, you know, brought the projector and then helped with the jazz singer and then died. But it's like, there's this, this huge chunk of time years and years where he is just really busting his ass, trying to figure out how to make movies better, and more, and trying to level up, you know, first with music, synchronized music, and then with dialogue. And, and he was, I mean, just, just like Harry,

he thought movies could always be better, always be more important. And I think he really, he really took that to heart. Yeah. And Sam was really the, the glue that kept the brothers together, particularly Harry as the absence that's his old elder. And then Jack, who was the younger kind of clownish kid brother who was a pain in the neck when he was a kid. And Sam could bridge those gaps with both of them.

And he kept the brothers as a team. And I think you made the point how hard he worked. He literally worked himself to death. And when he died, that put Harry and Jack in direct conflict. But they coexisted as long as Harry stayed in New York and Jack was running the studio out here in Hollywood. But when Harry moved out here, that put him into close quarters because Jack viewed the studio as his own domain. And Harry viewed himself as I'm the older brother and I can I run the company. And so the conflict between those two became as time went on, became worse and worse and worse. Right. And that's why everybody on the lot knew about it. They all knew that they that Jack and Harry hated each other.

And and of course, that ended up with the betrayal, with the brothers, the three brothers agreeing to sell the studio. And then Jack made an under the table deal to get his stock back and become the company. And I don't know, Chris, as the story goes, Harry found out about it in the trade papers and it gave him a heart attack. Yep. Yeah. He had a heart attack from which he never recovered. He died two years later, but he was never the same. And that's why, you know, the story has so much just incredibly heart-wrenching tragedy, you know, because, and that's the thing, things might've been different had Sam lived. I mean, I think Sam, as far as the company had, had his impact was felt forever,

but I feel like with, with the family, uh, they probably would have got along better. I mean, it's, it's, that's where the real tragedy is. I mean, not only to see what else Sam would have done, but I think he would have helped the family. I think everybody would have been happier. And that's why it's that much more tragic when they lose Lewis, Harry's son, because it sounds like Lewis was a lot like Sam. Everybody loved him.

He was another kind of this glue figure, like Alan said, that everybody rallied around, had confidence in. It was like one of the family members everyone could agree that they liked um yeah and then they lose him a few years later so now you you know you're not that harry was the same after that he was never the same after losing his son no no and neither was his wife and and i guess but for the invention of antibiotics, both Sam and Harry's son would have probably recovered. For sure. These are the kind of stories that make you happy you're living now.

Yeah, yeah. The other thing is that I think Sam being one of the younger was closer to Jack. And I think it lost years that is that Jack lost an ally, like he lost his best friend, I think you say in the book in many ways. And so then you've got Jack and Harry with nobody in between to kind of bridge. And so that leads to some of their, there's some other things that I thought were interesting about Sam, and that's the fact that he marries Lena. Lena Baskett. Right. And that's a very interesting story because I think we kind of think about Sam as being, you know, kind of steady and he just focused on sound.

But he actually married the most unique, right? He married outside the faith and then he has a daughter. and then he has a daughter and that whole story is it's kind of a dark chapter but you i think put a nice balance to it because harry takes uh lita and raises her with his own family but um yeah it really changed the family in so many ways and affected them for decades to come and i think the positive was the was kind of focusing on the them being risk takers and pushing. Oh, yeah. And I think I think initially, like in the 20s and particularly the 30s, they were ahead of the power curve on taking risks and gambling with sound, with technicolor. And then later, a little bit with 3D that was more of a fad. But by the time the 50s rolled around, they're both older. And it turned to more, particularly what we built rather than being innovative and something like that.

And and the other thing that really drove a I think the brothers apart was the fact that Jack divorced his wife, Irma, and he married outside the faith. And he married outside the faith and he married Ann Warner, who was a divorcee. And Harry just went absolutely bonkers over that. And, you know, the fact that before Jack got divorced, he left his wife and he was squiring Han around at all these Hollywood events and everything. And Harry, with Harry, everything was like family, faith, business, you know, in, in, in, in kind of that order. And, uh, Harry, you know, Jack's attitude was I'm a grown man. I'm not your little brother. I can do whatever I want to do,

which was correct. Uh, but, uh, that, that whole divorce thing really drove the, the, the older and the younger brother apart. It did. Yeah. We haven't talked much about Abe, the other brother. What was his role in the family and what are some of the things you learned in the research? Abe was a tricky one and he was probably the first reason I hesitated on doing All the Brothers because Abe avoided the press expertly, did not give a lot of interviews,

was not that accessible. I found some interviews, even Cass Warner on our website has some family members who knew Abe and had some good stories. So that was helpful. I ended up finding a lot of stuff in like the pre-1923 where he, you know, as one of the oldest, you know, he was, you know, he took the reins with some interviews and things. So I was able to incorporate him more, but he, in the early years, just along with Harry, cause they were the closest in age. They, they were the, the business leaders. They were the ones, you know, talking to the banks and, and as their company grew, Albert was the one who was focused on distribution. So a lot of, you know, a lot of

places I could find quotes about him or find meetings he was at were in, in magazines and publications that were meant for distributors. And, um, and he also, I mean, just like Harry, he was hugely, uh, philanthropic. And, and even before one of the favorite pictures I have in my book is not long before he died, there's a picture of him watching the groundbreaking of this hospital that he and his wife funded in Miami, where he retired and lived down there. So they were, you know, a lot of times most of Albert was in the news was either for philanthropy or for awards he was given for his philanthropy. Yeah. I think I wrote in my book about Crotiz that Albert or Abe had all the effervescence of an undertaker. He was very low key and he was very much a supporter of his older brother and very allied. In fact, when Jack betrayed them with the company, I think from that time, Albert and Jack, he never spoke to Jack again after that. I don't think so.

My favorite Albert story, though, is in the days when they were still doing just distribution, they had offices in New York, and Edison's trust still had his attack dogs looking to shut people down. And one of Edison's thugs came into the Warner Brothers office and threatened to shut them down. But at this point, the Warners were getting a little bit bigger. I think this was as they were the Duquesne Company, or it might have been the Warners Features Players, somewhere in there. And Abe stands up, who is a really big guy, stands up and threatens to throw this guy out the window. And he leaves, and they don't have any problems with Edison from then on. That's exactly how Burt Lancaster renegotiated his contract with Hal Wallace.

There's some other interesting stories and anecdotes, you know, you intersperse throughout the book. One of them that I wanted to bring up is because, you know, we talked about the four brothers and it's like, well, why didn't their offspring, obviously Lewis died, but why didn't some of the rest of their offspring get more involved? And, you know, Jack Jr. maybe would have, that's really his father not letting him. Yeah. You know, but there's also a kind of, I just want to pull one small story out. And there's this story about Harry's daughter, Doris pitching Gone with the Wind, but she really, even though he maybe wanted her to take over Lewis's kind of, hey, be more involved with the company, she was not that interested. And the other kids, many of them were not. Right. Yeah, they were. Yeah. Doris, who married

Mervyn LeRoy, right? So, I mean, so she was always connected to the business. And that's what I love about that is, right, she pitches Gone with the Wind, but then Mervyn LeRoy, her husband, ends up producing that at MGM. So it's weird to think what Gone with the Wind would have been like as a Warner Brothers movie. But but yeah, I mean, there's there was attempts and it says a lot about Harry, too, where it sounds like I mean, Betty Warner. It sounds like, I mean, Betty Warner, Harry's daughter, had thought that Doris didn't really want to deal with this kind of overbearing male dominated structure of the top echelon. But it does say a lot, which was true. And I certainly don't blame her. I can imagine how difficult that would have been in the 30s.

But it says a lot about Harry that he, you know, that didn't seem to have an impact on him at all. It was just like, oh, well, I trust my family. Let's just whoever seems well, you know, fitted for this, let's give them a shot. So that's another, you know, as hair as much as Harry was kind of old timey, and conservative on certain things, he was also very progressive on other things like that. I think, Chris, you know, you talked about the the tragedy of a lot of the Warner family dynamics. And I think one element of that tragedy that's very striking is the relationship with Jack Warner and his son, Jack Warner Jr. And what happened with that? And I think, as Tim pointed out, Jack Warner Jr. was working for the company, was doing things. But there was always tension between the two of them. Because when Jack got divorced from Irma,

Jack Jr. was a kid and he remained with his mother and Jack always felt he sided with the mother against him. So there's always that tension. And then there was the car accident in the late 50s where Jack Warner almost died. It was in a terrible automobile accident, I think in Monaco or in the south of France, where he had his house. And I don't know what happened. I think Jack Jr. gave a press release that Jack Sr. in his condition felt like Jr. was going to take the studio away from him, which was preposterous. So as the story goes, Jack Jr. comes to the studio one day and the gate guard won't let him in and the locks are changed on his office. And his own father not only disowned him, he just basically locked him out of his life. Well, and this is where, you know, Harry is spending less time at the studio and, you know, Harry would always say, you know, would you, something like this would happen. He

would just call Harry and Harry would let him back on the lot. But that's one of the saddest things is, you know, Jack Jr. has these stories. I think it's in Cass Warner's book about, things is you know jack jr has these stories i think it's in cass warner's book about you know how you know in the before sam dies he kind of described jack as this kind of skipping to work very happy just loved everything about his life the business all this as soon as sam dies that all changes and now these walls are up um and then that that was only compounded when he leaves irma right and then you know and you know he's got the son when he leaves irma right and then you know and you know he's got this son who also loves his mom uh and jack you know feels that as i don't know some kind of weird betrayal you know so yeah it's just it's just every one of these things as soon as sam

dies every issue within the family gets compounded by the next issue the next issue the next issue which then you know explodes in 1956 with this sale and betrayal and all of that. And it's really, right. It's a wild story when you look at it as a whole. Yeah. And when Jack took over the studio in the last part of his tenure there, it was kind of interesting reading accounts of him working on films like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Bonnie and Clyde and all of that. You know, I guess his greatest last great triumph was My Fair Lady that he personally produced that won Best Picture and so on and so forth. on and so forth but um i think jack uh really befitting someone who was born in 1892 had trouble adjusting to the violence and bonnie and clyde and the rawness of who's afraid of virginia wolf though he did yeah he did just got made and they were successful and you know you're talking

you know this this with the late 50s early 60s this is that weird period where like a chunk of that time, the production code is still there, but really nobody's paying attention to anymore. And this is before we have the rating system that we have today. So there was this as early as I found the Kazan film Baby Doll. That was one that had issues with what was left of the code. But he said, well, let's just release it with an adults only stamp. And they got that out there i mean he went to great length to defend the nun story when the catholic church was going to ban it um he actually flew to rome um and then with virginia wolf right even though he probably didn't understand a lot of the rawness of that movie similarly he did let's do the adults

only and he defended the content of the movie which is not a whole a whole lot different than him defending the gangster movies in the early days. Right. Like he was that was a part of him that carried throughout, I think. And we can see that towards the end. But you're right. By the time we get to Bonnie and Clyde, he's no longer he can't even do that. Right. Like that, like just, you know, that was three or four years after Virginia Woolf. You know, that was three or four years after Virginia Woolf. I think one of the last pictures he greenlit was Bullet. And because McQueen had become a big star, Jack gave him his production company offices and a salary and everything. And then Steve McQueen couldn't decide on a script for a year.

And finally, McQueen's production partner said, we got to make a movie. You know, Jack Warner's production partner said, we got to make a movie. You know, Jack Warner's getting antsy. We got to make a movie. So they decide to make Bullet based on a book. And so McQueen's producer goes to see Jack Warner and he said in his memoir, this is emblematic how the business changed. He said, I got the picture greenlit in two minutes. He said, I went to see Jack Warner. And he says, I think we're going to make the movie on this. And Warner goes, McQueen is a cop. And he goes, well, there's going to be a lot of character nuances. And then he says, good. How much? You know, eight million. When can I have it? By the end of the year? Yes. He goes, good. I want you to do one thing for you. I need you and McQueen to come sit on this dais for this political

dinner I'm having. If you do that, you can make the movie. They said, fine. He said, I was in Warner's office for two minutes. There were no notes. There was no committee. There was nothing. It was Jack saying, sure, go ahead for this amount of money, deliver it here and come to dinner with me and you can make the movie. There was a similar story with I think I cut it out of the book as one of the readers didn't like it or thought it was just too much of an aside. But it was for A Star is Born, the Judy Garland one. Apparently she got cast in that because she agreed to sing at at jack's daughter's birthday party yeah yeah and didn't didn't she drive jack about round the bend

during that movie wasn't there a lot of uh you know she was late and the movie was running over budget yeah there was a tricky time in her life too and i think that was part of the issue part of his hesitation to cast her because she had become, you know, some of her personal issues that started to bleed into picture business. Yeah. Yeah. And it was kind of interesting, the relationship between Jack Warner and some of his stars was not always contentious. He did get along with Errol Flynn until Flynn's, you know, drinking and stuff in the late 40s and early 50s got out of hand and started costing Jack money. But I think Jack used to call Flynn the baron, and Flynn used to call Jack sporting blood. And I remember Paul Picerny, when they were making Maroo Maroo, was sitting outside the soundstage with Flynn having a smoke break.

And one of the Warner messengers comes up, hands Flynn a note, said, this is from Mr. Warner. And this note is, you've run up $2,000 worth of long distance personal phone bills. This is outrageous. You must pay it at once, Jack. This is outrageous. You must pay it at once, Jack. And then Flynn had the messenger hold up and he wrote, Dear Jack, I'm willing to overlook this if you are. So they did have that. I think Jack secretly admired Flynn's kind of outrageous dash and you know for sure the kind of kind of the way that howard used kind of wanted to be robert mitchum you know i think there was a little of that and jack uh and so forth but of course his battles with betty davis olivia de havelin whose lawsuit overturned the uh pernicious practice of adding suspension time to the end of seven-year contracts, which basically amounted to indenturement and won that case, and his battles with Cagney. You know, I mean, Cagney called Jack the Svants, which I'll let the audience interpret what that means. But there was,

there was no love loss between James Cagney and Jack. And you mentioned that, you know, Jack's treatment of actors, but, you know, it was quite different with directors, right? Because he was, some of them he was really good friends with, I mean, Mervyn LeRoy, right. And he spoke highly of them and he also liked to sit in the editing room with them and, you know, go through dailies and all that. So, I mean, and, you know, we talk about, you know, studio heads really loving movies and understanding the process of it. I mean, he was, you know, for all of his faults, which were many, of course, he still, he understood movies. He loved movies. You know, he loved to see what was going on day to day. He loved to, you know, talk about, you know, how can we speed up these movies? I know at Edmonds we talked about that, right? He would be in the editing room, be like, you know, cut this, you know, down.

So we move from this scene to this scene. You know, everything could move fast. And, you know, one of one of the people that did like Jack was Jimmy Lydon, who I got to know a little bit. And I interviewed for my Curtiz book. Leiden, who I got to know a little bit and I interviewed for my Curtiz book. And he said, you know, because in the 60s, that was when Jimmy Leiden and Bill Conrad were making these movies like Two on a Guillotine, My Blood Runs Cold. And I believe they took over 77 Sunset Strip for a while. And he said, Jack would come down and say, hey, kid, why don't you make this movie? Here's 300,000 or whatever. And he said, as long as you didn't go over budget, he was great.

So didn't Jack like refuse to pay residuals after they were negotiated? And you guys had to strike Warner Brothers because he just said, I don't care what the contract says. I'm not paying for work. Not I already I only pay once for work performed. And Jimmy goes, well, it took Jack a while to get his mind wrapped around certain things. so but but jimmy jimmy uh jimmy lyden liked him uh liked working for him because i think at that point jack was very laissez-faire with with people working with him as long as they didn't go over budget and cost him money or cause trouble or anything like that you just let them have their head uh which is what filmmakers like

and an executive, quite frankly. Well, guys, it's been a lot of fun. And before we wrap up, Chris, I did want to kind of give you one last chance to kind of, you know, sum it up for you, this experience and this book. I mean, it's kind of surprising

that nobody has really done what you just did, but you read the book and it's, it's kind of this Shakespearean drama, almost, uh, of, of tragedy and triumphs and, uh, backstabbing and, and, uh, technology. I mean, but one of the things that I think makes it really fascinating is that Warner Brothers had, I think, on one of their advertisements that film cinema was going to do more good for humanity than anything else ever invented. And I sure know that in my life, I mean, the impact of cinema on the three of us is one of the most important things in our lives. most important things in our lives. And you see the impact of cinema and film nationwide in terms of informing thought and informing opinion and bringing issues. I mean, it really has become what Harry envisioned and Albert and everybody. But to sum it up, kind of tell us a little bit about your experience and how this has been for you. Yeah, I mean, this book, I mean, like my last book, I mean, it was a book that I really wanted to read.

And it was one of these things like, well, I guess I guess I will write it. So, you know, I kept seeing, you know, giving, giving due to Sam and Jack and Albert to the extent that I could, or Harry rather, and Albert, Jack has gotten plenty. But I also, I mean, with, with Jack, I, I thought I was going to find out way more dirt. What I realized is we kind of know all of it already. And there's, there was this other human side to Jack that he tried to keep, like Alan said earlier, he tried to keep very quiet. And, you know, as long as you weren't a family member, one of his, you know, quote unquote, overpaid actors, he could have, he could be really nice person. And he treated some people really well. So that, you know,

that kind of further complicates this whole narrative. Right. And it was, it was fun to see, you know, what, what was true and what was maybe a little bit of a stretch. Most of the stretches are things that were in Jack's memoir. But also, you know, giving Harry his due and some of the incredible things he did and, you know, trying to fund, you know,

relocating all the displaced citizens in Europe after World War II and telling Truman he would fund it. I mean, just these incredible stories that are not even movie stories that it's just it's almost unbelievable. But to try to put it all in one spot, I just you know, I wanted to learn all of it. And now I want everyone else to see all of it because it's just it's an incredible story. And it has literally everything you might want from a a book about movie history but also a book just about history because the brothers were engaged with world leaders um

especially harry jack tried to do that more later on in life uh but they were they were probably more plugged into the world than than anybody else in hollywood and it was just it's absolutely to me it's fascinating i hope it is to everybody else too. Yeah. I think, I think the, the, the, um, Chris's story about the Warner brothers, it's more than movie history and it's more than a Shakespearean family drama. It's, uh, it's part of the history of America in the 20th century. It really, really is. And it's a great book. And one of the things about Jack that I think we should point out in an era where women were treated abominably, and particularly in our present era of coming to grips with Me Too and all of this. As Betty Davis once said, I believe on the Merv Griffin show,

or Dick Cavett, she said, Mr. Warner didn't fool around with the help. He did not. He had his dalliances, but they were not with actresses and people who worked at the studio or people they were not they were not that way because it was not a casting couch studio it's not he was not a casting couch guy he i believe he did have a fling with marilyn miller like in 1930 who was a big broadway star who was under contract the warner brothers briefly that sent sent Harry's blood pressure through the roof. But beyond that, Jack was very circumspect about that type of stuff. And when you look,

I mean, they called Betty Davis the fourth Warner Brothers. I think that was exaggerated, but they did that for a reason, because he respected her and respected her box office power, her acumen, her moxie. And I think Jack was a guy that if you had talent and you could stand up to him successfully with a reason, I think he respected that to a certain degree. So I think Chris's book is wonderful because he's brought a real American story to life. And for me, looking back, Warner Brothers is the American movie studio through and through the pictures that they made. I mean, I think when we're long gone, people will still be watching The Adventures of Robin Hood because there's a movie that doesn't date, you know, and a lot of the movies that were made at Warner Brothers still hold up really, really well. And I don't think you can say the same thing

for some of the other studios. And I'm not putting somebody down to raise Warner Brothers up, but I just think that that's true. For sure. Yeah. A lot of other, you know, when you love old movies, you can love old movies that are outdated because you can see them through the lens of their time. But yeah, you're right. There's something about Warner Brothers where they were just, they were on the, on the pulse of something truly timeless with so many of their movies. And I like how you phrased that too. I mean, I should have had, you know, an American movie studio is like the subtitle of my book because it really is. Yeah. There, there's something about Warner brothers that is so encapsulating and different from everybody else in Hollywood at the time.

Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. And Chris, it was great to have you talk about your new book, but Alan, it was great to also get your insight because of your book on Michael Curtiz, you know, it was great to also get your insight because of your book on Michael Curtiz, you know, so much about the studio and the actual films and to get your input. So I really appreciate it. It was fun to be with you both. Yeah. Yeah. This was a blast. Thank you so much. Well, that was a real treat to have Chris and Alan on to talk about the Warner Brothers. I could listen to them talk for hours. They just have so much knowledge about the studio and all of the great classic films that we all know and love.

There are links in the podcast show notes for those who would like to purchase the books we discussed and on our website at www.theextras.tv. So be sure and check those out. If this is the first episode of The Extras you've listened to and you've enjoyed it, please think about following the show at your favorite podcast provider. If you're on social media, be sure and follow the show on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, so that you can stay up to date on our upcoming guests

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