One century ago this week, the January 27, 1924 edition of “The Film Daily” carried this hopeful headline:
The article below the headline seeks to make the case that the fear that the “radio craze” will diminish movie theater ticket sales is unfounded.
The following day’s edition contained still another article citing evidence that competition from radio was not a serious threat. It seems clear that the industry was nervous about the possibility that their customers might choose to sit at home and be entertained by radio broadcasts in preference to leaving home to attend movie screenings at their local theaters. (Some thirty years later the rapidly increasing popularity of television would cause similar worries in the industry.)
But while the industry as a whole seemed to be gearing up for a frontal assault from the radio industry while simultaneously reassuring itself that no such assault would occur, there were other factions within Hollywood beginning to think in terms of coopting this new entertainment medium rather than taking up arms against it. In particular, in 1925 Warner Brothers struck a fateful deal with AT&T’s subsidiary, Western Electric, to look into the possibilities of the latter’s experimentation with new sound recording and reproduction technologies.
A couple of years earlier the Warners would not have had the financial means to pursue such a speculative venture, but, as it happened, they had recently acquired some much-needed financial backing through the good offices of Waddill Catchings, the head of the investment division of Goldman Sachs. With Wall Street money to draw on, Warner Brothers now had the financial breathing room to expand their facilities and holdings to allow the company to grow in new ways.
With this infusion of working capital, Warners established new distribution exchanges and purchased theaters, solidifying the vertical integration that by then was a necessity for any studio to compete in the marketplace as a top-tier player.
Unsurprisingly, Catchings was duly installed as chairman of the Warner Brothers finance committee, as reported in the October 31, 1925 edition of “Exhibitors Herald”:
It was the expansion of facilities and properties flowing from the Goldman Sachs investment capital that had prompted the Western Electric connection. Along with their more conventional purchases, Warners had used some of the funds to purchase a Los Angeles radio station.
So why would a movie studio want to own a radio station in 1925? The simple answer is that it provided them with a reliable way to publicize their movies. The March 7, 1925 edition of “Radio Digest” carried the announcement of the Warner Brothers station, newly christened as KFWB:
As the article notes, the station, the first to be owned by a Hollywood studio, was constructed right on the Warners lot. Radio, the threat that one year earlier had the movie industry girding itself for a frontal assault from a formidable rival, had now slipped in the back gate to establish a foothold inside a studio without a shot being fired.
References to the studio-owned station would even occasionally creep into Warner’s films, as evidenced by this image from a 1934 cartoon short subject called BUDDY’S BEARCATS:
The August 22, 1925 edition of “Radio Digest” prophetically noted that “Movies and Radio Are Drawn Closer.” The article points out that KFWB’s addition of remote broadcasting trucks, in addition to making the station’s programming more versatile, could also help out in certain instances by providing directors with a more efficient alternative to the traditional director’s megaphone:
All of this cool new Western Electric technology was catnip to Sam Warner, the most technically-minded of the four brothers. He was fascinated by the audio gadgetry being developed by the engineers, and was eager to find new ways to employ it.
Meanwhile, others were beginning to catch on to ways in which radio technology and motion picture exhibition might converge. “The Film Daily” cited one example in its August 26, 1925 edition:
“Picture Play Magazine” described others in its November, 1925 edition:
“Exhibitors Herald,” in its October 24, 1925 edition, provided photographic coverage of the Norma Shearer – Lew Cody broadcast referenced above, trying out the phrase “air film” as a way of describing the exhibition experiment:
Slowly but surely, a convergence of motion picture technology and radio technology was transpiring in the industry. Eventually, despite the resistance of Harry Warner, the brother who primarily held the reins of the company’s finances, Sam was able to successfully advocate for an investment in a synchronous sound system developed by Western Electric.
The sound-on-disc system, known as “Vitaphone,” was not initially intended for use in making “talking films.” (“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” Harry had complained.) Instead, the idea was to make silent films with a pre-recorded musical score. This would permit small-town theaters, where musical accompaniment was typically limited to just a piano player, to give their customers the big-city experience of a full orchestra score with their movies. In August of 1926, the Warners premiered their first major Vitaphone release – John Barrymore in DON JUAN. The advertisements in the industry trade papers promoted the new sound process more prominently than the film itself:
The August 8, 1926 edition of “The Film Daily” carried a glowing report of the success of the premiere screening:
But even more significantly, the following day’s edition noted an uptick in the value of Warner Brothers stock:
And the very next day’s edition reported an even greater rise in the stock, which was now identified as “the most sought-after film stock on the market.”:
This remarkable stock performance was no flash in the pan. Some two weeks later, the August 26 edition of “The Film Daily” spoke of “speculative interests” that were operating on the assumption “that the Vitaphone will add materially to all future income from pictures.”:
Warner Brothers was not, however, the only studio testing the waters of synchronous sound. Fox had made a separate deal with Theodore Case for the rights to his sound-on-film system, which they marketed as “Movietone.” This could have resulted in a counterproductive format war, forcing theaters who wished to convert to sound to choose between installing either a Vitaphone disc system or a Movietone projector that could read the soundtrack off the film. (Years later, the home video market would face the same problem when consumers had to choose between the mutually exclusive Beta and VHS videotape formats.) Warners and Fox avoided the problem by means of a patent-sharing agreement, as reported in the January 15, 1927 edition of “Exhibitors Herald”:
The logical outgrowth of this agreement was the development of a dual-format projection system that could use either format. The February 26, 1927 edition of “Moving Picture World” described just such a device:
Warner Brothers and Western Electric had successfully established a beachhead together in this new synchronous sound market, but by mid-1927 it was time to better define their respective roles in that market. An agreement announced in the May 14, 1927 edition of “Exhibitors Herald” delineated that henceforth Western Electric would deal with the hardware end exclusively while Warners would handle the production of the content. Corporate ownership and board memberships were therefore to be adjusted accordingly.
The next chapter in the emerging dominance of sound is, of course, well-known. In October of 1927, Warners released THE JAZZ SINGER, which took the DON JUAN experiment one step further by introducing musical numbers and a smattering of spoken dialogue. The audience response was even more overwhelmingly positive than the acclaim for DON JUAN. Any remaining doubts that synchronous sound films were here to stay were swept away; the silent cinema had heard its death knell.
The premiere of THE JAZZ SINGER is often cited as the watershed moment that marks the beginning of the talking film era. While it was an important milestone, the true crossing of the Rubicon came the following May, when all of the major studios formally adopted Western Electric’s system of sound recording and reproduction. This wasn’t just Warner Brothers and Fox; this was every important company in the industry declaring their intention to go all-in on talking pictures. The May 26, 1928 edition of “Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World” reported the news.
Note that the “Herald-World” takes the opportunity to announce the establishment of “a new department devoted entirely to the new type of entertainment.” The industry had decisively committed itself to sound; there would be no going back.
The big winner, of course, was Western Electric. The radio technology that had been perceived as a threat back in 1924 had turned out to be benign after all. Like the Trojan horse, it was allowed in willingly, but what it brought into the walls of Warner Brothers was not a hostile assault, but rather a lucrative partnership that would ultimately transform the industry.
Fascinating stuff!
Thanks!