Harry Warner

Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.

The studio discovered a trained German Shepherd named Rin Tin Tin in 1923. The canine made his starring debut in Where the North Begins, a film about an abandoned pup who is raised by wolves and befriends a fur trapper. According to a biographer, Jack Warner's initial doubts about the project were quelled when he met Rin Tin Tin, "who seemed to display more intelligence than some of the Warner comics." The trained dog proved to be the studio's most important commercial asset until the introduction of sound. Prolific screenwriter Darryl F. Zanuck produced several scripts for Rin Tin Tin vehicles and, during one year, wrote more than half of the studio's features. Between 1928 and 1933, Zanuck was the studio's executive producer, a position whose responsibilities included the day-to-day production of films; while Warner's younger brother Jack and Zanuck were able to develop a close friendship, Warner never really accepted Zanuck as a friend.

After establishing Warner Bros., the studio had unfortunately overdrawn $1 million (the amount which Warner had borrowed from Flint) and Warner decided to pay off the debt by expanding the studio's operations further. In the process, Warner acquired forty theaters in Pennsylvania. In 1924, Warner Bros. produced two more successful films, The Marriage Circle and Beau Brummell. In 1924, after Rapf left the studio to accept an offer at MGM, Ernst Lubitsch, the successful director of The Marriage Circle, was also given the title of head producer; Lubitsch added additional success to the studio's profits. The film Beau Brummel also made John Barrymore a top star at the studio as well. Although the studio now had success, the brothers were still unable to compete with The Big Three (Paramount, Universal, and First National).

In 1925, Harry and a large group of independent film-makers assembled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to challenge the monopoly the Big Three had over the film industry. Harry and the other independent film-makers at the Milwaukee convention agreed to spend $500,000 in newspaper advertisements; this action would help benefit Warner Bros. profits. With help from a loan supplied by Goldman, Sachs head banker Waddill Catchings, Warner would find a way to successfully respond to the growing concern the Big Three Studios further induced to Warner Bros., and expanded the company's operations further by purchasing the Brooklyn theater company Vitagraph. Because of that, Warner Pictures now owned theaters in the New York area. Around the time, Warner purchased a home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hancock Park, where he stayed until 1929.

In the later part of 1925, Harry's younger brother Sam had also acquired a radio station, KFWB. After acquiring his radio station, Sam decided to make an attempt to use synchronized sound in future Warner Bros. Pictures. Harry had initial reservations about the idea; when Sam first made this suggestion, Harry wanted to focus on background music before delving into people talking on screen. Harry responded, "We could ultimately develop sound to the point where people ask for talking pictures" The company also began acquiring theaters. Eventually, Warner Bros. came to own and operate some 250 theaters. By February 1926, however, the brothers' radio business had failed, and the studio was facing a net loss of $333,413.00.

After a long period of refusing to accept the usage of sound in the company's films, Warner agreed to use synchronized sound in Warner Bros. shorts, as long as it was only used for background music, Harry then made a visit to Western Electric's Bell Laboratories in New York, (which younger brother Sam had visited earlier) and was impressed. One problem that occurred for the Warners, though, was the fact that the high-ups at Western Electric were perceived as anti-Semitic. Sam, though, was able to convince the high-ups to sign with the studio after his wife Lina wore a gold cross at a dinner he attended with Western Electric brass. After that, Harry signed a partnership agreement with Western Electric to use Bell Laboratories to test the sound-on-film process.

Godfather of Talkies

The success of Warner Bros.' early talkie films (The Jazz Singer, The Lights of New York, The Singing Fool and The Terror) catapulted the studio into the ranks of the major studios. Flush with cash, the Warners abandoned their old location in the Poverty Row section of Hollywood and acquired a big studio in Burbank, California. As a result of this success, Warner was able to acquire the Stanley Company of America (founded by Jules E. Mastbaum), which controlled most of the first-run theaters on the East Coast. The purchase gave them a share in rival First National Pictures, of which Stanley owned one-third. After the transaction Warner was soon able to acquire William Fox’s one third remaining share in First National and now was officially the majority stockholder of the company. After the success of the studio's 1929 First National film Noah's Ark, Harry Warner agreed to make Michael Curtiz a major director at the Burbank studio as well.

After purchasing a string of music publishers, Warner diversified the company by establishing a music subsidiary-Warner Bros. Music- and buying out additional radio companies, acquiring foreign sound patents, and adding a lithograph company as well; he even was able to produce a Broadway musical Fifty Million Frenchmen. By the time the 1st Academy Awards took place, Warner was recognized as the second most powerful figure in the movie industry, just behind MGM head Nicholas Schenck. In the wake of the success of Gold Diggers of Broadway, journalists had dubbed Warner "the godfather of the talking screen." The studio's net profit was now over $14,000,000.00. During that time, Warner soon also grew tired of the Hollywood atmosphere and acquired a twenty-two acre ranch in Mount Vernon, New York. Once Warner returned to New York, he and Albert were able to work together once again.

The Great Depression

After Albert's advice, Jack and Harry Warner acquired the rights to three Paramount stars (William Powell, Kay Francis, and Ruth Chatterton) for salaries doubled from their previous ones. The move proved to be a success, and stockholders maintained confidence in the Warners. The first year of the Great Depression, 1930, did not badly damage the studio and Warner was even able to acquire more theaters for the studio in Atlantic City, New Jersey. During that time, Warner was engaged in a lawsuit with a Boston stockholder who accused him of trying use money from the studio's profitable businesses to try to purchase his vast 300 shares of stock and create a monopoly. The company however suffered a minor financial blow during the year after Motley Flint, the longtime banker for the studio, and by now also a close friend of the Warners, was murdered by an angry investor.

In the latter part of 1929, much to Harry's dismay, younger brother Jack hired sixty-one-year-old actor George Arliss to star in the studio's film Disraeli. To Warner's surprise, the film Disraeli was a success at the box office, Arliss won the Academy Award for Best Actor, and Warner was convinced to make him a top star for the studio as well. During the Depression era, the studio also produced a series of gangster films; Warner Bros. soon became known as "gangster studio." The studio's first gangster film Little Caesar was a great success at the box office. After Little Caesar, the studio agreed to cast Edward Robinson in a wave of gangster pictures. The studio's second gangster film, The Public Enemy, also arguably made James Cagney the studio's new top star, and the Warners were now further convinced to make more gangster films as well. Another gangster film the studio released during the Depression era was the critically acclaimed I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. The film made Paul Muni a top studio star, and also got audiences in the United States to question the country’s legal system.

However, they would begin to feel the effects of the Depression in 1931. As ticket prices became unaffordable, the studio would lose money. By the end of 1931, the studio suffered a net loss of reportedly $8,000,000.00, During that time, Warner rented the Teddington Studios in southwest London. Hoping to fight off the financial problems the Depression gave the studio, Warner Bros was now focused on making films for the London market and Irving Asher was appointed as the Teddington Studio's head producer. Unfortunately, the Teddington studio could not bring in additional profit for the Warners, and the Burbank studio lost $14,000,000 in 1932 as well. In 1934, Warner officially bought out the struggling Teddington Studio.

However, relief would come for the studio after Franklin Roosevelt became US president in 1933 and the New Deal revived the US Economy. Moviegoers returned and during the year the studio was able to make a very profitable picture, 42nd Street, revived the studio's musical films business. However, in 1933, a blow happened as the studio's longtime head producer Darryl F. Zanuck quit over disagreements with Harry Warner, which included Warner being strongly against allowing Zanuck’s film Baby Face to step outside the Hays Code boundaries; and refusing to restore Zanuck’s salary, which had been reduced as a result of the financial woes the studio temporarily faced from President Roosevelt's bank holiday - let alone raise it in the wake of the New Deal's economic rebound. After Zanuck's resignation, studio director Hal B. Wallis became the studio's executive producer, and Harry who along with his brother Jack, was a notable "penny-pincher" finally agreed to bring salaries back up to industry expectations again.

In 1933, the studio was able to bring newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan films into the Warner Bros. fold. Hearst had previously been signed with MGM, but he ended his ties with the company after a dispute with the company's head producer Irving Thalberg over the treatment of Marion Davies; Davies was a longtime mistress of Hearst, and was now struggling to draw box office success. Through the studio's partnership with Hearst, Harry's younger brother Jack was able to sign Davies to a studio contract as well. However, Hearst's company and Davies' films could not increase the studio's net profits.

In 1934, the studio had a net loss of over $2,500,000; $500,000 of the loss was the result of physical damage to the Warner Bros. Burbank studio which occurred after a massive fire broke out in the studio around the end of 1934 destroying twenty years' worth of early Warner Bros. films. The next year, Hearst's film adaption of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream failed at the box office and the studio's net loss increased. During that time, Warner was indicted, along with six other Hollywood studio figures who owned movie theaters, of conspiracy to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act through an attempt to gain a monopoly over theaters in the St. Louis area. In 1935, Warner, along with executives at RKO and Paramount, were put on trial for this charge. After a mistrial, Warner sold the company's movie theaters, at least for a short time, and the case was never reopened. One problem that remained for Warner, however, was that the studio's projectionist labor union had fallen under Mafia control.

In 1935, the studio's revived musicals also had a major blow after director Busby Berkeley was arrested after killing three people while driving drunk one night. During the studio's union crisis, Warner received a threatening phone call from a union member saying that he would seize Warner's daughter Betty and adopted daughter Lita within forty-eight hours. Warner then agreed to accept the union's demands, and the kidnapping threat ended. However, in 1935 Harry got some relief as the studio rebounded with a year-end net profit of $674,158.00. Around that time, a depressed Warner—seeing that the newly recovered business no longer needed loans to pay off debts—decided to go to California and acquired 3,000 acres (12 km2) of ranch land just northwest of Hollywood in Calabasas, California. He later moved to a 1,100-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley.

During 1936, the studio's film The Story of Louis Pasteur was a success at the box office. In addition to the film's box office success, Paul Muni won the Oscar for Best Actor in March 1937 for his performance as the title role. The studio's film The Life of Emile Zola (1937), also starring Muni, gave the studio its first Oscar for Best Picture.