Warner Bros.

Studio System 

1903–25: Founding

The corporate name honors the four founding Warner brothers (Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack). The three elder brothers began in the movie theatre business, having acquired movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Their original name was Wonskolaser (born Hirsch, Aaron, Szmul, and Jacob), whose parents had emigrated to USA from Poland, which was at that time part of the Russian Empire. They opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1903. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, to distribute films. Within a few years this led to the distribution of pictures across a four-state area. In 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of WW I they had begun producing films.
-  their first nationally syndicated film was My Four Years in Germany based on a popular book by former American Ambassador James W. Gerard. In 1918 the brothers opened the Warner Bros. Studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

Gold Diggers (1933)

- Sam and Jack Warner produced the pictures,
- while Harry and Albert Warner and their auditor and now controller Chase handled finance and distribution in New York City. On April 4, 1923, with help from a loan given to Harry Warner by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. (However, as late as the 1960s, Warner Bros. claimed 1905 as its founding date.) The first important deal for the company was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwood's 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, from theatrical impresario David Belasco.

Successes:

Rin Tin Tin

Rin Tin Tin, brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, became the top star at the studio. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where The North Begins. The movie was so successful that Jack Warner agreed to sign the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Jack Warner nicknamed him "The Mortgage Lifter" and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanuck's career. Zanuck eventually became a top producer for the studio and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jack Warner's right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including the day-to-day production of films. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director; Lubitsch's film The Marriage Circle was the studio's most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for the year.

Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel  The film was so successful that Harry Warner agreed to sign Barrymore to a generous long-term contract; like The Marriage Circle, Beau Brummel was named one of the ten best films of the year by The New York Times.
By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably the most successful independent studio in Hollywood, but it still competed with "The Big Three" Studios (First National, Paramount Pictures, and MGM). As a result, Harry Warner – while speaking at a convention of 1,500 independent exhibitors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – was able to convince the filmmakers to spend $500,000 in newspaper advertising, and Harry saw this as an opportunity to finally be able to establish theaters in big cities like New York and Los Angeles.

As the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan. With this new money, the Warners bought the pioneer Vitagraph Company which had a nation-wide distribution system.
In 1925, Warners also experimented in radio, establishing a successful radio station, KFWB, in Los Angeles.

KFWB Radio Station's Logo

1925–35: Sound, Color, Style

Vitaphone Logo

Warner Bros. was a pioneer of films with synchronized sound (then known as "talking pictures" or "talkies"). In 1925, at the urging of Sam, the Warners agreed to expand their operations by adding this feature to their productions. Harry, however, opposed it,famously wondering, "Who the heck wants to hear actors talk?" By February 1926, the studio suffered a reported net loss of $333,413. After a long period of denying Sam's request for sound, Harry now agreed to accept Sam's demands, as long as the studio's use of synchronized sound was for background music purposes only. The Warners then signed a contract with the sound engineer company Western Electric and established Vitaphone. In 1926, Vitaphone began making films with music and effects tracks, most notably, in the feature Don Juan starring John Barrymore. The film was silent, but it featured a large number of Vitaphone shorts at the beginning. To hype Don Juan's release, Harry Warner also acquired the large Piccadilly Theater in Manhattan, New York and renamed it the Warner Theater.