The Rise and Fall of the Brothers Warner

Welcome back to the Bull where it goes to Hollywood. My name is Sunny Bunch from Culture Editor at the Bulwark. And I’m very pleased to be rejoined today by Chris Yogars. He is the author of amongst other books Hollywood hates Hitler, jubating anti nazism, and the Senate investigation into war mongering and motion pictures. He was on the show to talk about that.

And also the new book, The Warner Brothers, from Kentucky Yes. Chris is, an associate professor of communication in the Department of Arts and Humanities at the University of Wisconsin love having him on the show. Chris, thanks for being back.

Thanks for having me back. I appreciate it.

So we are gonna talk, today about the Warner Brothers, who were of Corey. It’s not just the name of the studio. The Warner Brothers actual an actual group of brothers, in early Hollywood, some of the first moguls and they have a interesting family history here. But what was it about the Warner Brothers and, you know, the the whole a hole in the, the the, literature about them that made you wanna write this book.

Well, I it the whole project started as a I wanted to write a biography of Harry Warner. Because there’s when you think of, like, the Warner Brothers, there’s always, like, Jack Warner is the Warner Brother. Right? He lived the longest and he you know, he was still alive when old Hollywood fever started and everyone was getting interviewed that was still around in the seventies. And I I was gonna write a book about Harry Warner, and then I met, biographer Pat McGilligan at a Book Talk and he wanted to have lunch.

And he said, yeah, you need to do, all of the brothers. And I was like, wow, that sounds like a really hard project. I mean, that that’s way bigger than just Harry Warner. And he’s like, what, you know, but everyone knows who the Warner Brothers, nobody knows. Not there’s not a lot of people who just would know Harry Warner right the bat.

So I’m like, no, that’s a good point. So he’s like, if you want people to really notice it and actually have this fill a gap in literature, you should you should tackle the brothers because there’s know, it’s been a long time. There’s been little books like David Thompson had his small book a few years ago and stuff like that, which is, you it it’s basically just kind of rehashing. It’s good, but it’s rehashing a lot of stuff we already know. So I had an opportunity to, bring this to Kentucky Press, the screen classic series that Pat edits and, really try to focus on all of the brothers, which, I even found, you know, more about Jack than I expected.

So but I as a part of this process, I was able to, like, kind of recenter Harry as, the the central and really important figure that he is. And one of the things that drew me to him was that he’s so different than all these other moguls. He seems to kind of subvert all of these, like, nasty not all of them, but a lot of the nasty, narratives we have about the old studio bosses and stuff like that. He seemingly was very much a cut above the rest. So I had an opportunity, to to fit him into a story, and I’m I’m very happy, that I was able to do that.

Yeah. I mean, the, of the brothers, you know, the three who, I think, form the the, you know, the meat of this book. You have Jack obviously who is, as you say, kind of the the old school, Louis b Mayer type. Right? He’s, you know, of a womanizer and, and, you know, kind of a, tyrant on the on the studio lots.

You have Harry who is the, I think I think, a fair way to describe him in, in this book and in your in your research as the conscience of the studio, you know, the kind of political ideological, but also, you know, business conscience of the the studio. And then you have Sam, who I think is really interesting and, you know, especially in an era when we’re thinking a lot about technological change and how that works within a Hollywood itself, who was the kind of he was the guy who really pushed for sound, and wanted wanted the technological innovations that led to the talkies and, you know, all that. When you were when you were researching them, what was your what was your takeaway, on how they interacted with each other and how the, how they both aided and kind of retarded each other’s, you know, efforts to to, build the studio up.

Yeah. Well, that’s, you know, what what I found is a lot of what I mean, going back to a great book like, Neil Gabbler’s an empire of their own, you know, a lot of what he outlined in there still holds true. What I really found, you know, as far as, like, Sam being a technical genius, right, and Jack being kind of the goofball and Harry, like you said, is the is the kind of the conscience of the studio. And that’s that’s one of the reasons I wanted to focus on him is because he all of the all the reasons we love Warner Brothers, these these social conscious movies, that all came that whole mindset came from Harry. And then we had Albert who, man, was he hard to find stuff about.

He avoided the press big time. But he did a lot of interviews in the early days I was able to meet. So he was, you know, a lot like Harry, very business minded, very smart with, distribution and stuff like that. And what one of the things I found that you know, I suppose that that hindered. Well, really that helped.

I mean, they made a lot more mistakes. I mean, one one of the things that was surprised. I mean, I know they had started in the early nineteen hundreds with with, you know, a single theater and then growing from there. But one of the things that I I guess surprise me is how many, like, startups and failures they had between nineteen o five and nineteen twenty three. So it’s like you think of, you know, the right.

They’re they’re doing the hundred of Warner Brothers this year. It’s the, you know, the Centennial and, you know, you know, it it’s easy to assume. It’s like, oh, well, they probably got their start around then. It’s like, no, man. They by nineteen twenty three, they were old pros.

Like, they had they had fought Thomas Edison. They had been put out of business. They they had theaters. They had distribution networks. They had lost those.

Started again, and they were really seasoned vets. And I think that’s why they had so much success in the nineteen twenties and grew so fast because they had already learned a lot a lot from their mistakes.

Well, what did they learn? I mean, what was about those early Warner Brothers movies that were like, oh, this is, you know, we don’t really think I I I think today, audiences don’t necessarily look at studio labels and think this is a Warner Brothers movie. This is a universal movie. This is a Paramount movie. We think this is a star or this is a a comic book I recognize, right?

It’s it’s different. But once upon a time, you said, this is a Warner Brothers movie and people understood what that meant.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So they, you know, in those early days, it was pre nineteen twenty three days. I mean, yes, they they they they were running theaters. They had networks, they started to dabble in production and make movies and and try that out.

They were the first studio what I can tell to roadshow a movie when, I think it was Sam, who who found a copy of Dante’s inferno, and they were road showing it with with somebody reading, some from the book along with the movie. And by the nineteen, the late teens. They were doing a lot of a lot of movies that or they seem to be mostly interested in movies that that, either big adventure they did a cereal called The Lost World, I believe. They were they were kinda close to the Sealique Zoo, so they they They were their buddies there, and they were able to use some of the animals. But they they, they made a lot of social conscious movies.

So they made fricking the title of it, but I know, Sam was involved in in this this government assisted movie about Venereal disease, you know, so there’s these little things like that. But then, of course, one of the ones that shows up in some books is, my four years in Germany, which, you know, by the ambassador, so they were already, you know, we’re at the tail end of World War one, and, you know, they’re already thinking of what, you know, making a movie that’s really touching on the kinds of things that are in newspapers. And, you know, they were already looking at optioning best sellers Harry was really interested in that, and, Sam was very interested in that. So they were they were already by time they incorporated, they already were interested in making movies that were that were in about things that are in the headlines, as well as finding popular books that already had an audience that they could make in the movies. So those those were two things that, clearly drove them, and we’re driving them by nineteen twenty three.

Yeah. I one one thing that’s interesting in your book is you know, repeatedly, we we hear Harry Warner in particular talking about, the the ability of movies to change society, to impact society, to, you know, alter how people think. And that is also, you know, what, what some of the moral crusaders at the time argued. Right? Like, so Will Hayes, for instance, There’s a there’s a quote in the in in here.

I think it was when, the jazz singer came out, but maybe maybe it, maybe it was a little before after. But anyway, this is, Hayes says, you know, quote, immeasurable influence as a living, breathing thing on the ideas and ideals, the customs and costumes, the hopes and ambitions of countless men and women and children, end quote. That’s what he he believed film could be. Right? And, that leads to a lot of conflict between Hayes and then later Joseph Breen, and the Warner’s because, you know, Hays and Breen say, well, you’re making these gangster movies.

That’s gonna make kids wanna be gangsters. It’s it’s bad for society. And the Warner say, no. We’re showing that this is bad. Like, it’s it’s one of the early depiction versus endorsement battles, which I find really interesting that we’re still kind of having them.

Absolutely. Yeah. And and Harry weighed in on this early too. I mean, as soon as there was pushback on gangster movies, he he very publicly commented multiple times. I know at least one of them I quote in the book in the thirties where he he he essentially says that these these kids aren’t criminals because of movies.

Like, they were probably already up to no good. And then, you know, so this whole, you know, and the juvenile delinquency comes up again in the fifties, and Jack goes to defend the studio. But The warnings were really clever about about doing this. I mean, in my favorite example is you’re right. They’re making these big gangster movies.

And then you know, the the code comes in, Joseph Green comes in, or the code finally gets enforced by thirty four. Breen is there. And And then Hayes says as soon as John Dillinger is killed, then nobody’s making a movie about down John Dillinger. Right? Like, there’s we gotta we can’t do this stuff anymore.

So Warner Brothers makes g men. So they take Cagney, who has been this gangster, and they make him the good guy acting basically like the gangster still just He’s a he’s a, you know, a Bureau man now. And they rip so much from the headlines in that movie. I mean, the whole little Bohemia shoot out in all the Dillinger stuff is in the this is essentially in g man just in another context. So there’s still they’re still creatively ripping from the headlines Ron DeSantis saying, well, we’re on the side good now.

And they, you know, and and they were really good about finding stories that still touched on the moment where there was the the proper amount of comeuppance. I mean, a movie like legion with Humphrey Bulwark deals with, you know, the rise of of racism and and anti Semitism and things like that and very cleverly weekend. You know, they were able to depict really all these this bad movement with this this character that gets swept up in it that that you know, pays the price in the end. So they were they were able to weather that really effectively and still make really edgy punchy movies, even when the the code was as written and as enforced was seemingly supposed to be watering these movies down.

Yeah. And, of course, Warner Brothers was one of the first studios to really go to war with the Nazis. So to speak, you know, they pull, their their people out of Germany in the early nineteen thirties. Interesting. So one of the stories that is often told about the mourners and that the mourners themselves would say is that one of their employees was killed, during, during, you know, a Nazi riot.

But you found that that’s not necessarily true? Is that

no. That’s not that the where that legend comes from is Jack Warner’s memoir. He’s he lays it out that this guy was killed and they pulled out to Germany. And it’s the guy was not killed, but they did have an employee in Europe that was assaulted by the Brown shirts. And, so there there was foul play that led them to pull out, in thirty three, which was they were the very first studio to pull out of Germany and say, we don’t need your profits we don’t agree with you.

So they were they were, very much ahead of the curve there because a lot of Hollywood got criticized for sticking around in Germany for, you know, mostly just because there was a great depression and it was a a it was a a market where they were still making money. So they were in a tough spot there, in terms of making some kind of moral decision, about their business practices. But, no, I think it was it was Phil Kaufman was was assaulted and it was covered in the press. So I found some of that, I think, in variety. And, yeah, so he did not He was not killed.

That was a that was, you know, Jack. As the storyteller that he was, he he made that a little bit more You made a better story out of it

—

Yeah. — than it was. But the the baseline is something did happen to one of their employees in Germany that really was kind of like the last draw for them to to bounce.

Yeah. And then, of course, the the they start making actual, you know, anti Nazi films. Again, one of the first studios to to really do that, talk about that a little bit. How did that how did that come about, or how did how did their upbringing influence their their thinking here?

Right. And that that was another tricky situation for the studios. I mean, with the Warner’s and and a lot of other studio moguls, I mean, they they grew up in in a part of Europe where, I mean, I I know the Warner’s they’re dad, Ben Warner, was going, was going to his, you know, go going to his services, in Secret Podcast it was the, you know, they would get attacked if they knew, you know, Jews were going to to to pray or worship and and do their thing, you know, over here. So they had to it was all Secret Podcast and Harry Warner, you know, as the one of the older or the oldest that that really had an impact on him, you know, coming of age and learning about his family’s faith and that it was so, So scrutinized, and dangerous to do, where he was. That, you know, when they saw this rising again in Europe, it really struck a cord.

And of course, the problem was not only, of course, they pulled out of Germany, their their product out of Germany, but the production code One of the rules was that you could not ridicule other countries or religions. And this was tricky because if you went after Nazi Germany as justified as it was, it actually went against the production code rules. So that’s why when Warner Brothers first started, these movies were all allegorical. And they were all they wouldn’t say Jew or they wouldn’t say, Nazi Germany. It was all things were just implied.

Like, in Black Legion, we were talking about yeah, I think, Humphrey Boggart makes a comment about somebody getting a raise because of size of their nose. So now you’re you’re, you know, they’re playing on these stereotypes that everybody knows and just going right up to where you’re directly saying it and just not saying it. They did the same thing with they won’t forget, which was based loosely on the Leo Frank case from the teens, which a whole thing about antisemitism that a lot of people who would have been living at the time would have known. But by nineteen thirty nine, when confessions of a Nazi spy come comes out, they they finally decided we’re just gonna go all in and we’re gonna we’re gonna use the words. We’re gonna call it like we see it.

And see what happens. And that’s totally on brand for Warner Brothers, because they’ve been, you know, they’ve been beating to their own drum all along. And that really opened the floodgates. And lots of other, you know, not a lot of other moves in me. Like you said, I wrote the book about the senate investigation that went after all this stuff.

I mean, there were There was enough anti Nazi movies. There wasn’t a ton of them, but they they did have an impact. And then and you definitely saw, you know, thirty nine forty, early forty one, enough of these movies coming out by major studios with big stars, where studios were fine finally comfortable putting putting themselves out there and and where they stood on what was going on in Europe before we were involved in the war.

Yeah. And, you and you write a little bit about this about FDR’s, you know, involvement here. What was what was the involvement between Hollywood and the White House, you know, specifically the Warner Brothers, I know we’re, we’re we’re close with FDR. What what was the relationship like there? Well, I mean, obviously, you know, we’ll talk about this a little bit more on a mission to Moscow, which I think is a very interesting little, yep, diversion.

But the but what what was the White House saying to Warner Brothers and the rest about, you know, what how to help with the war effort?

Oh, right. They the the mourners were known as basically, like, the FDR studio. And there was, you know, the and it’s and it’s referenced in their movies where they’re clearly, you know, characters are supporting the National Recovery and all this kind of stuff. So they really put themselves out there as, you know, a lot of Hollywood was supportive of FDR, but, I mean, they put themselves out there in their movies as a pro FDR studio. Harry Warner was giving speeches, you know, talking about about Warner.

I know they were in in contact with the president’s office. That’s one thing that, really, the Warner Brothers, that I think that was one of their strengths, and really it speaks to their Their interest in topical stories is that they were always, you know, always in contact with the White House, and Harry was always sending letters getting meetings and stuff like that. And and with with Roosevelt, they were they were really in lockstep with everything he was doing, for for a lot of the a lot of the thirties, up and through, they got real vocal when the lend lease bill went through in early forty one, which is not unlike what we had been doing. You know, with a Russian invasion and all this kind of stuff. We’re essentially just sending, sending material sending, you know, ammunition and all that kind of everything except soldiers, you know, it was a way for us to, you know, still say we weren’t involved in the war.

But Warner Brothers, you know, one of the things Harry Warner was doing, is he was trying to, I guess, this deviates from FDR a little bit, but he was he was holding meetings at house where he was getting other studio moguls involved with discussions of like how can we how can we help the country be better? How can we use not only use movies, but use our own platforms, to to to build bridges between politics between religions and all this kind of stuff, and that really speaks to a lot of what who Harry Warner was and think that a lot of that trickles down through the kind of movies that get made as well.

Yeah. As I as I mentioned, so there there is a There’s a movie that’s made around this time, Mission to Moscow, which is, ends up being pretty controversial for, Warner Brothers because it is it’s based on a a a work by a, very, USSR sympathizing, government official, which, then, you know, in turn, they wind up whitewashing a lot of the stalin’s, stalin’s crimes, etcetera. But, you know, the point, the argument that the mourners make when they’re hauled in front of, the the the senate or the I can’t even remember if it was the senator of the house. Is they were our allies at the time. We were just trying to help out.

Yeah. Yeah. There was this this came up in the in the infamous Hue investigations, and they and they they hammered Jack Warner with this. And I, you know, I really kinda felt bad for Jack because he he he was right when this movie was made. The multiple studios made movies sympathetic with Russia in forty three, early forty four because they were our allies for a time.

And it’s you know, it’s these all movies I mean, I I know in another book, Tom Dorothy made a good point where it’s like, all these movies seemed like a good idea at the time and then very quickly. Became not so great. And right. Yeah. They they picked up I mean, and and just like, the the movie in the in nineteen eighteen that they did with the ambassador, you know, to Germany, they didn’t made a similar move.

They found Davis who was in, Russia, in the late thirties, and He oh, yeah. He he really whitewashed the purge trials and, a lot of the, you know, made it look like. And anybody who was, you know, sentenced to death or murdered or put in jail or whatever was these were all bad actors, which was turns out wasn’t the case. And and, it’s funny when I was writing this book, I had a a fellowship at UW Madison, and one of the other fellows was a historian there who, and her her focus is on on Russia. And we had some interesting conversations about this movie and about that ambassador and And, she definitely had some opinions on this ambassador.

And one of the things that comes up, with the Warner history is you know, were they or weren’t they in communication with the Kremlin, were they in communication with Stalin, all this kind of stuff. And it turns out that even though they were denying this Robert, Buckner, who, who was the producer here was was going back and forth to Russia. And so they were certainly in communication with, if not, Stalin directly. I mean, I found a letter in the Warner Brothers archives that I it it’s unsigned, but I’m pretty sure it’s a letter to Stalin for. I mean, it’s a letter to and I know that.

It’s probably from Jack. Because he was probably the only one with the the the least political clout to think this might not be a good idea. But the movie was was screened, was to, you know, Stalin watched it. Buckner was there. And his re all of his reports said that everybody was laughing at the movie.

Like, they thought it was the stupidest thing ever. But, and it it was pure propaganda. I mean, there’s no question about it there. Just like the book, The movie White Wash’s you know, all of it makes Russia look good. And, it’s just one of those weird things.

Like, yep, we were like Jack said by in forty seven, I mean, which only three years later, We were allies, and this was just a it was a wartime production, and this is it’s really not a whole lot different than the early war movies where You know, the good guys always win. There’s not, you know, there’s not a lot of bloodshed. You know, you know, thinking earlier, like, desperate journey, these kinds of thing, you know, these movies with Earl Flynn and It’s they’re really simplistic. And, yeah, it’s just wartime propaganda.

Yeah. Let’s shift gear here. So there there are some interesting stuff in this book about, the Warner Brothers, and their fights with the unions, which is, you know, obviously kind of relevant to the moment. You know, it’s it’s funny to look at the the the picketing today and compare it to the, like, the riots, I think, is a fair bare way to describe what happened in forty five and forty six. I mean, so tell us tell us a little bit about that.

And also, I I want you to I want you to discuss a little bit about, Iatse, and the mob, because this was something I did not know about. There was a there’s a actual, you know, mobster essentially running Iatse and and and shaking down the mourners. This is all very fascinating to me. So let’s why do we start there and then move to the — Okay. — the labor action?

Sure. Yeah. This goes back to the thirties. So there was there was, a gangster named, Willie Byoff, which is a perfect name. And he was shaking down the studios as early as the thirties.

So he was trying to take over Ayatse and what he was doing as early as the thirties as he was he was essentially mobbing up that union, and then anyone else who tried to do a rival union would either get intimidated, shaken down, and in some cases killed. And there are some legends out there that he was in some of the early days, he was killing some of these people themselves. There was some some really wild stories in in Chicago that I found about, you know, a a a a rival union boss getting murdered, and, in in pretty spectacular fashion. So it would get headlines so he was doing this. So he so do you know, that established the the fear of this guy.

So then what he started to do once he had his his fingers in the union, he started going to the studios and saying, well, you know, I could I could issue a strike, but if you give me, fifty grand, there’ll be no strike. So stuff like that. So he was shaking down I know I found I know Harry Kohn for sure. I know the Warner Brothers, of course. The Warner Brothers ended up having to testify about this once the government started cracking down on organized crime and and his activities, at least the the union part of it.

And, they they kind of hammered Albert and Harry about, like, why didn’t you come to us? And they both said this in the basement. We we thought we were getting murdered. So we’re we’re we we were scared. And, you know, letters would come to the house.

I know Harry’s daughter had told some stories over the years of some of the intimidation and fear tactics that way about, you know, We’re gonna kill you. Here’s we’re gonna hide your bodies and all this kind of stuff. So it was it was scary. And By the time you, you know, so the there was a lot of the whole union situation is very complicated in Hollywood in the thirties and early forties and you had You had not only mob leaders with some of these, but then you have these kind of agitators that it might not necessarily be mobsters, but they were more like a Herbert Sorrell who wasn’t really a gangster. He was just more of like a pain in the ass.

And he just he he he wanted strikes. He wanted riots. He won. I mean, he was pushing this as far as he could. The reason the riots happened on Warner Brothers, like you said, I mean, and that’s there I know there’s one headline.

I don’t know if it was LA examiner LA of Times. They call it the Battle of Burbank. I mean, there it it got ugly. Is so you had the labor leader in in Sorrell who was who was there every morning telling people to really take the gloves off, get angry. The Warner Brothers head of security was a guy named Blaney Matthews.

And Blaney Matthews was a former investigator for the Los Angeles DA He was a guy really well versed in his own intimidation and getting info and all this kind of stuff. So he was He was ready for war. The second there was gonna be a possible strike. Warner brothers and people showed up in a picket line. He lined people up and was basically said, go at them.

And it, you know, battle ensued, and they there’s pictures. You can just Google image search, you know, you know, Warner Brothers riots, and you’ll find tipped over cars and and fire hoses and people were hurt and, you know, lots of people were hurt. I mean, there was weapons and stories of, you know, black jacks and, you know, wrenches and and all kinds of stuff And and this was happening. I mean, it was probably worse at Warner Brothers, but I mean, you know, in the early forties, there was there was riots at or at least really aggressive strikes at Disney at universal. I mean, this was popping up all over the place.

It just got the worst was at Warner Brothers. I think just because you kind of had the tension from the mourners of these shakedowns over the years and then combine it with a labor leader who really is really pissed off. And it just, you know, everything boiled and it got ugly fast.

Yeah. I mean, I and it and, I it’s wild to read about. Again, just in comparison to what what is going on today just, which is is fairly tame, by by comparison. But the, but then, so there there was also there were there were tensions between the unions. Right?

I mean, there’s there’s there’s there’s some, you know, a sag, which is at the time headed by Ronald Reagan is a little is a little less radical than, the other union, which the the the abbreviation is escaping me, but is is, headed by Sterling Hayden, I think. It what was what was what was going on there? That was Have I have I mistaken? Have I gotten this mixed up in my head? I’m

No. Yeah. It’s there there’s a lot of layers to this. I’m I’m actually paging back through my book too to remember some of this because it’s well, because, yeah, there was the so there was Iatsi, we which we’ve talked about. Right.

Right. There was also the conference of studio unions.

Yes. The CSE. And this

is the one that this was one of them that was so so the interesting thing about the unions at this time, there were there was either accusations, of being mobbed up or accusations of being communist. And the and the conference of studio unions was one of these that had, accusations of and and this also probably came from Blaney Matthews who was was one of the Warner Brothers people who was was throwing around the the communist, slur everywhere he could. And there was, yeah, there was this rumor that, you know, after after, the battle at Bulwark, there were there’s communist party leaflets were found and all this kind of stuff. And so I think this this all started to to solidify what would happen in forty seven. In terms of, Huac in questions of of communism, but I also, like, you know, Jack Warner, you know, so it’s not like you said Ronald Reagan was the head sag.

And Jack Warner was was very appreciative. And at this point, it’s it’s, you know, you all you have to remember it. At this point, Ronald Reagan was a very I mean, he identified as liberal. I mean, with with a lot of what he ascended, he was pretty centrist, pretty middle of the road, and he tr really tried to weather the politics and the industry as best he could with with saving the, you know, the union keeping any kind of radicalism out of it, whether it was whether it was actual communist, whether it was the mob, all those kind of stuff. And, you know, that that’s what you know, and that’s something I think informed Jack Warner a lot too in terms of, I mean, he he really respected Ronald Reagan after the the all the strike.

I mean, I guess the thing that we should we should point out is that The battle of Burbank, those unions, that wasn’t that wasn’t sag, that wasn’t like above the line labor. That was all artisans. Right? That was carpenters, that was set designers. You know, that was it was it was all trade type jobs on the lot.

So the actors and directors and producers weren’t involved in this kind of stuff. You know, a lot of them were kind of taken aback and surprised by a lot of it. So, yeah, there there was and and and it really since the thirties, once you into the forties thing to remember a lot of these unions are not that old. So they’re still, you know, they they had kind of a a a they had to elbow themselves into the industry to get established And then by the forties, they were they were all, wrapped up in political accusations or scandals or whatever, and now they had to fight that as well. But, yeah, you’re you’re right.

Sterling Hayden, I’m for forgetting as well too. Hayden was was really involved. And, you know, there’s I I can do give a recommendation here to the the, Tom Daugherty’s show trial is a book that does it it offers a really good cross section of where all the unions were coming from leading up to forty seven. So he does a good job kinda parsing all that out and where the politics were. And, yeah, it’s off the top of my head.

It’s it’s it’s it’s all jumbled up. But I know as far as informing the Warner Brothers, Sag, I think they had their eyes on. I think just because, you know, one of their rising stars was the head of that. So they they had some in in terms of branding, they definitely had some some interests in where that was headed.

Yeah. And I I get the sense from reading, from reading your book that the this the these battles with the unions kind of pushed, the Warner’s, I think Jack and Harry both, a a little a little further right. Than they had been. I mean, you know, by the end of, by the by the nineteen sixties, right, you’ve got Jack Warner writing, endorsement letters for Nixon over J. Is a kind of wild, can’t imagine something like that, you know, really happening today, but is is very is interesting.

It is. It is. I mean, they they definitely and even going back to the twenties, I mean, they the the biggest complaints about the warnings that seems to be justified from is is from some of the actors. I mean, they they definitely mean to use To use, a phrase usually attributed to Alfred Hitchcock. I mean, they treated actors like cattle.

I mean, they just saw them as you know, punch in, punch out, you know, you know, you’re overpaid kind of. There’s lots of memos of Jack Warner and Harry Warner speaking that way of actors. But, yeah, once the union stuff comes in and once Huac comes in, they definitely take a step to the right more so jacked. Well, and it’s it’s it’s interesting. I mean, yeah, there more so Jack.

I think Harry was was all Most most interested in trying to guess what’s the best way to put it? By the time you mean, what by the time you get into the fifties? I mean, Harry’s pretty old. He’s looking at retirement. He’s not as politically passionate.

But like you said, Jack definitely takes a step to the right you know, supporting Nixon and all of that, which is and you and of course, it’s it’s important to point out. Nixon was on Huac. Like, you know, we hear all this about Jay Parnell Thomas hammering his gavel and breaking his gavel shouting at Dalton Trumbo, but Nixon was right there next to him. So the fact that any moguls would would support Nixon, following that is very telling, of where where they where their politics lie. But once you get into, you know, but I I think the big thing about them is they they were smart about where the political winds were, and they wanted to be there.

So, of course, when the country swept up in red fever, they feel they I feel like Jack, at least anyway, because he was not very politically savvy. I think he was more bandwagon. As far as his politics go, he was like, alright. Here’s the red tide. We’re gonna we’re gonna jump on board with that.

But as soon as Kennedy, you know, JFK becomes popular. He very quickly, you know, starts sending letters starts getting himself invited to dinners when Kennedy’s gonna be in town and kinda trying to rub elbows with that. So he was he was also very quick to turn tail and go back towards the Democrats when that seemed to be the popular thing to do.

Yeah. No. It’s a it’s it’s it’s interesting. Just, you know, how much of how much of as with anything else in Hollywood, how much of it is driven by personalities and you know, various resentments. You know, it’s a Absolutely.

Whereas, like, I think in the thirties, right, them being the big FDR studio that was just they were You know, they I mean, they were they were even with the depression. I mean, they were they weathered that fairly well. So they didn’t have a whole lot to lose. FDR was pretty popular. Right?

Three term president that you mean, so it was it was it was also kind of even though they’re certainly FDR at his critics, but it was It wasn’t real controversial to being pro FDR in the thirties. Yep. So they they seem to, you know, a lot of it You know, I think, again, that probably comes from from Harry’s political savvy where it was he he was really good at knowing where the political wins were, where the power was gonna be, and this is why he stood up in forty one to defend the studio against, you know, the the against the Senate that was going after anti Nazi movies. He knew that that was a minority opinion that he was he they could they could trample that. And Jack similarly, in the fifties, when the the Senate went after Hollywood for for seemingly in encouraging or being, you for encouraging teenage delinquency.

Jack, really impressively trampled all over, Senator Keith over there who had just went after the mob. By the way, and then was going after Hollywood for, rebel without a cause and the wild one and these movies. There’s some great back and forth there. But, you know, so it as Jack as much as Jack was a bandwagon, I think as far as politics goes. He I mean, he he could he could step up when need be.

And I think that, you know, there’s a lot even with the Huac stuff. When you listen to what he’s doing, I mean, he’s I think he was just terrified. I don’t think he was this big ideal log. I think he was terrified that this was gonna ruin Hollywood. And I think that’s why he volunteered to jump on and and go first.

I mean, I think, you know, Louis B Mayer was also one of the first, I think. It’s it’s a safer accusation or safer description rather than, you know, Louis b Mayer was, you know, very much an idea log. But I think, yeah, Jack. I don’t know. I I think the best way to describe Jack is how he’s always been described.

It’s just kind of a clown. Well, I

mean, do you think there do you how to put this, without without coming trying to put my finger on the scale one way or the other. I mean, do you think he was actually worried about, communist infiltration, particularly in the unions following the the labor battles, or was it, or not? I mean, I or was he just worried about getting, you know, shut down by by the government?

You know, I that that’s a really good question. I I tend to you know, this is one of those things. Sometimes it depends on the day. I feel like right after, like, if you if you think, like, right, you know, forty five forty six forty seven, there was probably some real and for a lot of people in the country, I think there there was that, you know, it’s why we call that, you know, the red scare is a perfect description of this. There was just a lot fear mongering going on.

A lot of people were afraid, justifiably or not. And it was you know, you look at you you listen to people who were were growing up during that time and, you know, they say the polarization today can’t even hold a candle to how bad it was. In the late forties and early fifties over a lot of this, fear of communism. So I think there was probably a little justified fear in the beginning. I think the, You know, once you get to HueAC and the Waldorf statement and the blacklists and a lot of this kind of stuff, I think the biggest thing for a lot of the studio moguls was a fear that if they didn’t take a stand, people would stop going to movies.

And, you know, a lot of this era has been has been portrayed as well. They all became these huge anti communist. It’s like, well, they the the Hollywood moguls were pro Hollywood. Above everything else. So and there’s even stories that have been coming out more and more of even like Louis b Mayer who was the most you know, reactionary of the muggles who, even during the the blacklist era, was known to say he didn’t give a shit.

What A writer’s politics were as long as they’re putting out good product. And it was similar from the Warner’s. Dalton Trumbo has some some conflicting stories on that as we know, Dalton Trumbull is also a really good storyteller, so it made him such a great writer. So I think there was it’s a little bit of bow I mean, I think there’s a period where there was a there was a very real fear. And then I think that that kind of gave way to just An overarching concern of just trying to save the business and trying to placate the public.

And if they feel like the public, feels that Hollywood is is overrun with communist, which it really wasn’t. Then, you know, people are gonna stop going to movies, and that’s they’re gonna be out of business. So I think that was I still think when you look at all of it, I think that’s the that was the biggest fear, even at the height of the red scare, for the Hollywood Mogals, the biggest fear was was saving their business.

Yeah. Let’s skip ahead to the dissolution of the essentially the dissolution of the Warner Brothers. I mean, I this, you know, it’s kind of a a sad ending to their business and personal relationship But, what let’s what happened between Harry and Jack, at the when when they decided to sell the the company that led to them having such a falling out.

Yeah. This is a this is a story that couldn’t have been written better for the movies. I mean, yeah, like you said, it’s it’s a really sad story. And I’ve in recent, you know, this year, I finally met, Gregor, Jack’s grandson, and we’ve talked a lot about this too. So and this goes back to the twenty.

So, the Jack and Harry were kind of always at odds with one another. And it’s important to point out that Harry and Albert were the were the old very old school brothers where Sam and Jack were were very much Young, and, actually, in Gregor’s documentary, Neil Gabbler points us perfectly. He says that that the Harry and Albert were a very old world in their their way of living and Jack and Sam were very new world. And, so the thing about Sam. So Sam dies.

I don’t think we mentioned that. So Sam dies in twenty seven, right, before the jazz singer comes out. Sam was very much this bridge between his older brothers and Jack. And, Jack was always kind of this troublemaker, always kind of, well, like I said, kind of the clown, which can be useful and not When Sam dies, there’s no longer this bridge between Harry and Jack. And now you have decades worth of of the competition and resentment and frustration that builds up.

And, you know, Harry was you know, he was married to the same woman. Very few people have bad things to say about him. You know, it doesn’t seem like he was in there was no affairs whereas with Jack, He was, like, you mentioned him as a womanizer. He wasn’t really the casting couch guy, but he was he was also not a great husband and parent. He, you know, he would be married.

He would always I’ll have a girlfriend that annoyed Harry to no end. Lots of high profile battles over that. So you have all of this stuff brewing for decades. Now they wanna retire. And one of the things when the brothers got started, one of the things their dad said that Harry took to heart was that if you do everything together, you you will all you will all be fine.

Whether it’s you’re succeeding or failing. If you’re together, you will be able to weather the ups and downs no matter what. And Harry took this to heart, and he lived his life this way. Everything for the family. Everything to protect the family.

Jacks didn’t really care about that so much. So when it came time to tire and start floating around. You know, let’s cash in our chips. It there was, you know, you know, back and forth about, you know, we gotta do this all together. Finally, everybody gets on board, Jack and Harry and Sam are all gonna, sell to,

Jack and Harry and Albert.

Or Jack. Yeah.

Jack and

Harry and Albert. Sorry. I was just talking about Sam. Yeah. Sam passes.

So Jack Harry and Albert are are getting ready to sell. But as Greg Orr had pointed out Jack’s grandson, you know, there was there was talk in the press about well, even if the Warner Brothers sell their interest, they’re gonna need somebody to run the studio who knows the studio. So Jack is a is a possible person to maybe even if he sells his shares, still run the the production part of the studio for a while. So Jack was the production head Harry was the president of the studio. Albert was running, distribution, and things like that.

So What what happened was they they agreed to sell. They they signed, the papers to sell all their shares. What Jack did was, take a backdoor deal to buy some of his shares back And then not only come back in to run the studio, but become president of the studio. So take Harry’s job. And, this is something that, you know, that day when that was learned, Harry had a heart attack.

I mean, he was so broken by this. And his secretary, the interview for with of his secretary that Cass Warner, recorded and put on our website, which is fantastic. Thank you, Cass. Where she tells about being in the office when Harry gets this news and just how heartbreaking it is to see this guy go through this. And again, this is why I mentioned the one for all family thing that even even though, you know, and that’s what really broke Harry is that, you know, that Jack really just did not care of their their father’s wishes.

And and Harry had nothing but respect and admiration for his parents and the sacrifice that they they did and for bringing them to the United States and you know, in multiple times when the brothers had had, you know, lost everything. They had, you know, sold all their jewelry or or gave their savings to the brothers for the next startup, whether it was for another theater, whether it was for a grocery store, bike shop, any one of their ventures. Here we thought that, you know, going out together, this would be our final ode to our parents sacrifice. And Jack kind of pissed all over that. And that broke Harry’s heart.

And and Harry’s family, you know, even the descendants to this day fully believe that Jack killed Harry because Harry had this heart attack from which he never fully recovered He lived in kind of a crippled state for a couple years and then died. And Jack didn’t come home for the funeral. And there was a lot of just a lot of bad, bad feelings around that. And like you said, it’s really sad, and it’s really heartbreaking. You know, there there’s a story of of Jack’s son who, you know, and again, Jack, you know, basically, wrote his son off.

And, you know, they were they were estranged, you know, most of their adult life. There’s a story I say in the book where Jack Junior goes to visit Harry. And, he’s still close with Harry. In Albert. And and Jack comes bouncing in for some reason, and Harry just goes stone cold and he’s fighting back tears, and he can’t even he can’t even look at him.

And it’s just this it’s just this heartbreaking thing to read. That just tells us everything about how Harry felt and how a lot of the family felt about Jack’s actions. And that’s that’s a a that whole, sale and Jack coming back in and stuff really broke a lot of the family. And and that’s why I titled that section, you know, end of the studio, but also end of the family because it really it was something from which, the family never recovered.

On that bright note. Happy Tury note. I, as you know, I always like to ask, at the end of these shows, if there’s anything I should have anything you think folks know about the book, Warner Brothers, the family, I anything. What what what should folks know?

Oh, man. There’s so much. You know, there the the the lead up to nineteen twenty three is really fascinating, so to know like where the know, what the brothers, you know, their trials and tribulations leading up to that. I think, you know, we talked a lot about Harry. I think a a big part of what I wanted to do with this book was really focus on Harry He gave a lot of really powerful speeches.

He was he was one of these people that was He he wore his heart on his sleeve and, I I I think the best example I can give is that after the Holocaust and after world war two, Harry literally tried to save all of the displaced families himself he he was having meetings with president Truman. He was trying to, bring them all to Alaska because there was room. He was gonna fund it. He was gonna he was gonna build infrastructure in Alaska to house all these people so we could then slowly bring them down into the United States. Just incredible stuff from from him.

So that was, you know, that kind of stuff. And then also with Jack, when we talked a lot about bad Jack is, there was a lot of surprising stuff too. There was a lot of good things about Jack that might surprise some people. Things that he did. He treated his family like shit.

But and sometimes his actors, but he also kept silent stars on the payroll when they they aged out and he He helped a lot of people surprisingly, so he also did. There was another side of him that I think will surprise a lot of people.

Yeah. Chris. Thanks for being on the show. The name again of the book is The Warner Brothers. Pretty simple.

Just search for Chris Chris Yogers, g y o g e r s t, at Amazon or Barnes and Noble, wherever books are sold, and the Warner Brothers, you’ll easily Find it. It’s well worth reading if you’re interested in the early history of Hollywood and the Hollywood Mogals and and that period in history. So check it out. Thanks again for being on the show.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Sunny Bunch. I am culture editor at the Bulwark, and I will be next week with another episode. We’ll see you guys on.