These are chapters 6 and 7 of my previously unpublished book on the birth of the American popular culture; From This Twisted Root: The Silent Movie Era and the Birth of the American Popular Culture.
CHAPTER 6 – THE BATTLE FOR CONTROL
Edison and his fellow industrialists, who pioneered the motion picture industry, did not realize the power they possessed. They did not realize that an exciting new medium, with unlimited potential for artistic expression, had been placed in their hands. They did not understand that they were the heirs of an unprecedented vehicle for the communication of ideas and philosophies. Nor did they foresee the impact that this new medium would have on the world. How could they? But, long before D.W. Griffith caught the attention of Wall Street, they had figured out that there was big money to be made in the motion picture industry.
Thomas Alva Edison would have been in full agreement with the sophisticates of the day who looked down on this new and surprisingly popular form of entertainment. But, unlike them, the moral content of the films or the atmosphere of the places that showed them were the least of his worries. His only disquiet was caused by the thought that the profits, HIS PROFITS, might somehow find their way into someone else’s pockets. And it was not long before the profits to be gleaned from motion pictures became enormous. In fact, by 1907, the gross income from motion picture production had surpassed that of the legitimate theater and vaudeville combined. This made control of the movies a prize worth fighting for.
Edison’s first effort to reserve all of the lucre for himself was to try, unsuccessfully, to sue his rivals for violating his patents. Failing in this strategy, he decided on another, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” By 1909, Edison had persuaded his ten major competitors to join him in forming a partnership known as the “Motion Picture Patents Company” (MPPC). It was one of the most brilliantly conceived monopolies of the century. The MPPC partners immediately announced that they alone retained the exclusive right, by virtue of the patents they owned and the legal protections they enjoyed because of them, to photograph, develop and print motion pictures.
Not content with a monopoly on the production of motion pictures the partners moved quickly to seize control over the distribution and exhibition of films as well. To this end, they founded a second entity, the “General Film Company” (GFC). Their initial move was to purchase the main film exchanges. Once this had been done, the GFC notified its exhibitors that from now on they would only be allowed to book films which had been produced by members of MPPC. In order to do this, the exhibitor would, of course, need to be licensed. Licenses could be purchased from GFC at the “nominal” fee of $2 per week or $104 per year.
The partners anticipated that through license fees alone they would be able to net $1,250,000 a year. Griffith and Mayer comment: “Their lawyers advised them that MPPC and GFC constituted, between them, an ‘airtight trust’, but that the beauty of it was that they could not be prosecuted under the Sherman [anti-trust] act because their monopoly was firmly based on patent protection. If it worked as designed, competitors would be eliminated, business standardized, and best of all, the ‘riffraff’ in the industry structure would have to pay the partners to continue to exist.”
Edison and his associates had come up with an ingenious plan, no question about it.
It seemed, in the beginning, that the plan was working to perfection. But keep in mind, their patrons, the nickelodeon owners were a bunch of “gypsies and bunko artists.” They knew a rip off when they saw one and were not content to docilely sit by and line the pockets of “the partners”. Their opportunity to rebel came when film distributors, William Fox and Carl Laemmle bulked at the GFC’s over-reaching plan to make their monopoly even more airtight, by buying out independent distributors such as themselves.
The monopoly’s purchase offer came to Fox and Laemmle with an ultimatum: “Sell or get out of the business,” to which they responded by proclaiming their right, in the words of Griffith and Mayer, “to run their businesses as they pleased and to hell with the patent laws.” Their customers, the nickelodeon operators, were only too glad to support them in their battle with the bullies.
When they threatened William Fox, he responded by ignoring the threats of the GFC, taking them to court, and winning! While Fox battled them in the courts Carl Laemmle fought them in the newspapers. He began by publishing a series of cartoons lampooning the partners. When they responded by sending letters threatening to boycott exhibitors who did business with him, Laemmle answered by printing their letters. Most significantly, when the trust countered by cutting off his supply of films, he founded the “Independent Motion-Picture Company” (IMP) and began to produce movies himself. The “Gypsies and Bunko artists” at the nickelodeons were delighted to have an opportunity to avoid the GFC license fees and show the films being produced by the independents. Some of them even began to get involved in the film making business themselves. Edison’s perfect monopoly was coming unraveled.
There is, no doubt, at least two other reasons for the success of the new independent film producers: the quality of their product and their respect for their audience. By in large, the folks at the trust never lost their disdain for the medium they controlled or their low opinion of the common folk whose nickels were making them rich. They “believed their films, as well as everybody else’s, were shoddy stuff fit only for illiterates. What then, was the use of trying to improve them?” (A significant exception to this rule was, of course, the films being produced for Biograph, by D.W. Griffith. His films were, no thanks to the company that employed him, the best American films of the era.) On the other hand the early independent film makers had sprung from the unwashed masses themselves. They understood and respected their audience and actually seemed to be developing a love for their new industry. The product they produced reflected these realities.
In addition, the trend begun by Melies continued to develop. Movie making was evolving into an art form as well as a consumer driven industry, as individuals with artistic talent began to discover the great moving canvas. Before long, real artists were doing the directing, writing, and the acting, and the Lamuelles and the Foxes were discovering that they needed them. With a combination of artistic talent, street smarts and business know-how, the independents were soon producing films that were just good or better than those being produced by the MCCP. Naturally, as the quality steadily improved so did the profits. And everyone was happy — except, of course, Edison and his partners.
Thus, the battle for control of the infant motion picture industry was fought; Edison’s airtight trust, with unlimited money and super lawyers on the one hand — the independents with their shoestring budgets and gritty determination on the other. And, when the dust had settled, David had won, Goliath had lost. But in the long run, would the industry be any better off, or the public better served once the medium had passed into the hands of David?
CHAPTER 7 – THE DAVIDS BECOME GOLIATHS
By the middle of the second decade of the century Carl Laemmle and William Fox had pretty much won their battle against the MPPC. In the process they had gained the right to produce and distribute their own films. Laemmle would eventually found “Universal Studios” while Fox established a production company that still bears his name. Along the way, as the money making potential of the motion picture industry began to be obvious, many others joined them in the now lucrative business of making and distributing motion pictures. In time most of these filmakers would fall by the wayside. But some proved remarkably successful, and their names, and the names of the great studios they built, have become legendary.
Laemmle and Fox were joined by men such as Lousis B. Mayer the eventual head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Harry Cohn who founded Columbia Pictures, and Jack and Harry Warner who were, of course, the founders of Warner Brother’s Studios. Perhaps the most ambition and ruthless of them all was Adoph Zukor, the czar of Paramount Pictures.
Each of these soon-to-be moguls were different in style, personality, and temperament; and yet it is their similarities that arrest the attention. They were all Eastern European immigrants or the children of Easter European immigrants. Laemmle, for example, was born in southwestern Germany and immigrated to the United States when he was a teenager. Fox was the son of Hungarian immigrants. Harry Cohn was also the son of immigrants — his father was German and his mother Russian. The Warners were the sons of Polish immigrants, and Adolph Zukor was an immigrant from Hungry. They all emerged from among the poor immigrants in the inner-cities of America. Most of them had had some connection with the lower end of the movie industry before they began to produce and distribute films of their own. Some had owned and operated “peep shows” or nickelodeons, while some had connections with Vaudeville. As a result, they knew well the people who had been the original target audience of the Kinetescope and the first projected motion pictures, for they had once been part of that constituency themselves. This gave them an enormous advantage over the tycoons of the MPPC and was, as we have pointed out, an element in their eventual victory over them. They had one other significant thing in common — they were all Jewish. Many of the men they hired to work for them were also jewish – in fact with their triumph over the MCCP, the entire motion picture industry began to take on a decidedly Jewish flavor. Award-winning author Neal Galber writes: “The storefront theaters of the late teens were transformed into the movie palaces of the twenties by Jewish exhibitors. And when sound movies commandeered the industry, Hollywood was invaded by a battalion of Jewish writers, mostly from the East. The most powerful talent agencies were run by Jews. Jewish lawyers transacted most of the industry’s business and Jewish doctors ministered to the industry’s sick. Above all, Jew produced the movies. ‘Of 85 names engaged in production,’ a 1936 study noted, ’53 are Jews and the Jewish advantage holds in prestige as well as numbers’.”
Ever since the heavy Jewish presence in the motion picture industry was first noticed, it has made them the objects of malicious attacks by anti-semites and those individuals who are given to conspiratorial theories. Their presence and dominance within the industry was and is seen by some as proof of some sort of “international Jewish conspiracy.” There is actually a much more simple explanation for the fact that Jews came to dominate the motion picture industry — with the exception of the tycoons at MCCP the gentiles didn’t want any part of it.
When the industry began providing entertainment for the urban poor, it was not the sort of enterprise that respectable middle or upper middle class businessmen of the time sought to involve themselves in. After all, who would have ever imagined that there was so much money to be made from nickels of the poor inter-city immigrant population? As a result the businesses that catered to the urban poor were usually run by the immigrants themselves. The Jews were a well-represented presence among the immigrant population, but they had an additional strike against them. Not only were they poor immigrants, they were also Jewish, and America at the turn of the century was not a place where it was to one’s advantage to be Jewish.
Persecution had brought many Jews to the shores of the New World; discrimination met them at the docks. It did not take a Jewish immigrant long to learn that even in “the land of opportunity,” they were to be denied certain privileges such as working in respectable gentile occupations. Instead they were forced to make a living in traditional Jewish vocations. The garment industry was open to them, as were pawn shops. They were also allowed to own and operate peep shows, nickelodeons or any other business that their more respectable gentile neighbors felt too good to be a part of. As a result many Jews found a places for themselves on the lower tiers of the entertainment business, in theaters as writers, directors and actors. Others enriched the vaudeville stage with their considerable talents. Some with less-refined talents made a living in burlesque.
Had gentiles realized how much money the urban poor were willing to pay to be entertained they would no doubt have been involved in the movie industry themselves. Had this happened Jews might never have come to dominate the entertainment industry; but the gentiles did not get involved in the industry. Instead they sat back and criticized the shabby entertainment which was amusing the urban poor. They moralized and talked about cleaning up the nickelodeons and the movies that were being shown in them, while the Jews who ran them were quietly making a fortune one nickel at a time.
These movie-making Jews were remarkable men — but, no, they were not a part of some international Jewish conspiracy. The very idea that the infant movie business would be the target for some great conspiracy is ludicrous on the face of it. For one thing, when the “Hollywood Jews” became in involved in the motion picture industry no one realized the culture-shaking impact the movies would have. In addition, the men in question didn’t even get along that well among themselves. It is true that they were involved in conspiracies from time to time. But those conspiracies were aimed at undermining their completion not taking over the world.
Actually, the saddest thing about the Jews who came to dominate the motion picture industry was not their Jewishness, but the lack of it. Yes, they were Jewish, but, in an effort to be assimilated into the American mainstream, they had left the faith of Abraham in the old country, or with their parents. These men were not religious Jews, at least not openly. They realized that their Jewish heritage would only get in the way of an ambition they all shared; assimilation. They were secular men concerned with making a dollar and gaining the acceptance of their adopted country.
They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Their special knowledge of their industry and audience gave them the ability to do battle with the tycoons of the MPPC and win. In less than a decade they seized dominant control of the motion picture industry and before they were through they had left a mark on the industry that would never be erased.
They gained the capital they needed to build their industry through their hard work and enterprise. But it was their unique vision that gave them the ability to dream of a time when the movies would be respectable, viewed by the middle and even the upper-class in palatial movie palaces. Their business skill, determination and, yes, even their ruthlessness enabled them to make their dreams come true.
Perhaps the most visionary of them all was Adolph Zukor. Zukor was perhaps the first to “catch the vision.” He instinctively realized that the public would be willing to pay to see feature films as well as “shorts.” He also recognized that if the quality of the films and the atmosphere of the places they were shown could be improved the middle class would want to see them too.
When the chance came for Zukor to test his theory by purchasing the American rights to a French film featuring the great stage actress, Sarah Bernhardt, starring in Queen Elizabeth, he jumped at the opportunity. Through Zukor’s brilliant marketing Queen Elizabeth not only drew in an audience but a more respectable audience than had ever attended the movies before . This was only the beginning.
For some time Zukor had been thinking about producing a series of films featuring famous stage actors appearing in filmed versions of their most famous plays. Encouraged by his success with Queen Elizabeth he teamed up with one of Broadway’s leading producers, Daniel Frohman, to bring his dream to life. By the summer of 1913 his new company, which he called “Famous Players in Famous Plays” or “Famous Players” for short, had completed its first five feature films. Zukor was well on his way to becoming one of the motion picture industry’s greatest film makers.
Zukor was well on the way to achieving his goal of elevating movies to respectability too. This goal was given a significant push forward when he teamed up with another Jewish filmaker, Jesse Laskey, and managed a takeover of Paramount Pictures. To create a steady demand for their product, they began to purchase and build movie houses all over the country. In a very short period of time Paramount built and owned a string of over 300 theaters. But unlike the “peep shows or the nickelodeons” these were stylish theaters in respectable neighborhoods, the sorts of places Zukor supposed that the middle class would want to patronize. He was right, they did.
Zukor’s competitors, as they often did, followed his lead and invested in theater chains of their own. The result of all this theater building was that the new masters of the industry gained control over virtually every aspect of the motion picture business. They produced the films, using actors under contract to their studios, and they distributed the films and created a demand for them by showing them in their own theater chains. In a few short years they had created an even better monopoly than the one they had replaced.
Volumes could and have been written on each of these movies pioneers. Separately each of them made his own unique contribution to the motion picture industry. But more importantly, in less then a decade the enterprise of Zukor and his competitors succeeded in making the movies respectable. When they wrested control of the industry away from Edison and his pals motion pictures were the favorite entertainment of the common man. When their illustrious careers were finished the movies were most popular form of entertainment in America.
In the process they also changed America. Neil Gabler argues, very effectively, that they re-invented it. In his much acclaimed book, An Empire of Their Own Gabler makes the point that since the “Hollywood Jews” were,
“proscribed from entering the real corridors of gentility and status in America, the movies offered and ingenious option. Within the studios and on the screen, the Jews could simply create a new country – an empire of their own, so to speak – one where they would not only be admitted, but would govern as well. They would fabricate their empire in the image of America as they would fabricate themselves in the image of prosperous Americans. They would create its values and myths, its traditions and archetypes. It would be an America where fathers were strong, families stable, people attractive, resilient, resourceful, and decent. This was their America, and its invention may be their most enduring legacy.”
Gabler concludes that the amazing thing, “is the extent to which they succeeded in promulgating this fiction throughout the world. By making a ‘shadow’ America, one which idealized every old glorifying bromide about the country, the Hollywood Jews created a powerful cluster of images and ideas – so powerful that, in a sense, they colonized the American imagination. No one could think about this country without thinking about the movies…American values came to be defined by the movies the Jews made. Ultimately, by creating their idealized America on the screen, the Jews reinvented the country in the image of their fiction. (emphasis added)”
No doubt this is true. But, since they were secular men, the America they invented, like the empire they ruled, was a secular place where God, at least the God of the Bible, and the value system He represented, were irrelevant memories of an age that was already receding into history.
