An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee

I am not a huge fan of short films from the 20s and 30s unless they are comedies. However, when I saw this on TCM, I still watched it because I was excited about seeing a film that was essentially a commercial extolling the wonders of Warner Brothers. That's because I wanted to see their stars and see how they looked when they were young. Well, unfortunately, I noticed that in 1930, they had very few stars anyone would recognize today. I am really good at film trivia and there were several I simply didn't recognize and many who I did recognize but knew them only as small-time actors. Plus, three of their biggest stars weren't in this short and they simply showed photos of them and inserted fake letters from them to the audience. Not having John Barrymore, George Arliss and Richard Barthelmess was a real disappointment and the audience had to be content to watch a few small-time actors (with the exceptions of Loretta Young, Walter Huston and a couple lesser stars, who were in the film). The film's structure was also something I myself didn't like--having the film star a small child called "Miss Vitaphone". Yes, I understood the significance--Vitaphone was the new unit from Warners responsible for sound pictures. But, I'm not much of a fan of precocious children.

All-in-all, this is a curio and that is all--and not a very interesting one at that.

A Silver Jubilee would imply 25th anniversary and this was made in 1930 but Warner Bros. Pictures wasn't incorporated until 1923. How can that be? Well, according to many of the comments here, the actual brothers Warner started in the movie business when they rented a movie theatre in 1905. Okay! Anyway, it's a formal party with many of the studio's stars in attendance, well, except for George Arliss, John Barrymore, or Richard Bartheness. What, no Al Jolson, the one who put Warners on the map with The Jazz Singer? And it puzzles me why this was on TJS DVD when he's not even mentioned. Oh, and the little girl introing the stars is playing Miss Vitaphone, the sound process that also helped put the studio on the map. One more thing, among the songwriters at the tables are Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II but they're both with their then-partners of Lorenz Hart and Sigmund Romberg, respectively. In summary, An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Jubilee was an interesting curio and nothing more.

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.

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.

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.