An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee

I'm giving this short subject a few points more than it deserves, because there are some faces in it that one rarely if ever saw or heard in early talkies. Among them are Broadway stars Otis Skinner (see OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY and KISMET), and Marilyn Miller, as well as young Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Hammerstein II, Al Dubin, and such faces as Walter Huston, Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Edward G. Robinson, Walter Pidgeon, Loretta Young, Sidney Blackmer, and Ona Munson. I can even add the Fred Kohler Sr. and Beryl Mercer. It's pleasant seeing faces of some importance or still vibrant memory there.

But having said that I look at the bulk of the celebrities. The chief spokesperson is a young girl, Betty Jane Graham, as "Little Miss Vitaphone". Vitaphone, of course, was the process that the Warners used to bring talkies to Hollywood. Ms Graham is polite and well spoken. She is a pretty child. That said, there has absolutely no spark of talent or panache in her. If you check the thread on her, she had a career into the 1940s, but increasingly it fell into not even supporting parts but extras. Finally she must have gotten the message and left films entirely.

I have heard of Evelyn Knapp (barely) and Louis Fazenda, but who on earth are Leon Janney (any relation to television star Alison Janney?), Claudia Dell, or James Rennie? The stars of tomorrow. Their credits barely suggest anything.

In the other comments on this thread, there are complaints that the brothers Warner failed to use such figures as George Arliss, Richard Barthelmess, or (my God, how could they?!) John Barrymore. Yes, indeed, they did. They also did not bring in their champion man of song Mr. Al Jolson. A song is sung at the end by some well intentioned crooner with a forgettable name, who looks like he's got a great future in half-empty concert halls. He is warbling a slightly passable ditty with words by Mr. Dubin. As I listened to him sing this, and saw Ms Miller was in that room, I wanted to cry. The tune is not a standard, but with a bit of friendly or sexy push it might have been. Or if Mr. Jolson had been around it might have been.

I take it this was done as publicity (to show off some of the big and so-called promising names) for the studio. As such they may have grabbed whoever was available (due to shooting schedules) on that day or two it was shot. So, as a museum piece it is curious enough to merit a "7" out of generosity to Otis and Marilyn in particular. But otherwise I felt like a lot of good film stock was wasted in this work.

Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee, An (1930)

*** (out of 4)

The 25th Anniversary of Warner Bros. is documented here with a party thrown that included many of the studios biggest stars at the time. Loretta Young, Edward G. Robinson, Walter Pidgeon, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Walter Huston, David Manners and Joe E. Brown are just some of the famous faces at the party. Each are introduced and often times their next movie is mentioned for some free press.

You can view this historic short on disc 3 of Warner's The Jazz Singer set.

This 1930 short proclaimed to be Warner's Silver Jubilee (25 years-old, and going strong.) And, indeed, it was. The brothers entered the business in 1906, as theatre exhibitors in a converted store in New Castle, Pa. Okay, close enough. They begun making films in 1912, but their first full-blown movie, "My Four Years in Germany", appeared in 1918. They acquired the 40-acre Beesmyer Ranch, on Sunset Boulevard, in 1919.

Their filing of the certificate of incorporation in Delaware on April 4, 1923 (remember this date)signified the legal birth of the company. They acquired the Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn in 1925, and First National in 1927. (Those who are fond of sticking Vitagraph, Vitaphone and First National on all Warner Bros. films might want to remember the 1925 and 1927 dates.)

And, then, 43 years after their 25th birthday party in 1930 ( listed on this page and can be seen on TCM from time-to-time), Warners tossed themselves a 50th Birthday Anniversary, which, according to most math standards, actually occurred in their 67th year.

Hocus-Pocus and right before our eyes, Warners de-aged themselves seventeen years. And set a bad precedent in doing so, as the current generation in the industry thinks such matters as public records should not be made public and thereby keep them from getting calls to play teen-agers when they are pushing 35.

At least, Warners had 1923 as their incorporation birth-year to back up their claim of only being fifty in 1973. That might be the solution for actors to want to shave years...get incorporated...and then you can play teen-agers when you are only two-or-three years old or, at the worst, get turned down for being too young.

Between the 1930 release of this short and 1934, most of the talent appearing or mentioned in this short were gone from the Warners lot. Grant Withers divorced Loretta Young and soon after worked elsewhere. Loretta stuck around to 1934 before leaving. Richard Barthelmess, who sent a telegram that he was on location(Warners was great at creating telegrams) left in 1934 when Warners did not renew his contract. Marilyn Miller did not last that long before departing. George Arliss also sent a telegram in lieu of making an appearance. Arliss's last movie for Warners was 1933's Voltaire, directed by John Adolfi, who also directed this short. Adolfi's career and everything else ended in 1933, death from a cerebral hemorrhage. In Arliss's next movie after Voltaire, House of Rothschild, his co-star was Loretta Young and the production boss was Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century Pictures. Before he quit Warners in 1933, Zanuck was that studio's production chief.

Samuel Marx said that when Louis B. Mayer ran MGM, he would tell the MGM staff that as long as they did their job well, they had a job for life. And, to a large extent until he was ousted in 1951, Mayer kept his word. The situation at Warners was different, run like a sweatshop, actors constantly put on suspension for refusing to work in pictures they thought would wreck their careers and Jack Warner pinching pennies everywhere except at the racetrack. This short is evidence of the great turnover of talent at Warners. Warners made great pre-code movies in the early thirties, but it was not a nice place to work at, not having much job security. And what happened to Alice White, she starred in 1930's The Widow From Chicago with Edward G. Robinson, who was at the dinner.

This short subject, nominally in celebration of Warner Brothers' silver jubilee -- the only thing I can think of is that they may have opened their first theater in 1905; they didn't go into production for another dozen years -- is an excellent primer for putting faces to names. If you are a fan of old movies, you have seen these actors, but you may not be able to link the faces with the names.

Besides the players, various composers and lyricists are shown. It is amusing, given what happened later, to see Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II -- but they are seated next to, respectively, Lorenz Hart and Sigmund Romberg.

This is not, otherwise, an interesting short subject --the moviegoer was intended to be overwhelmed by the sight of so much talent and probably was. Now it is simply a historical artifact.