The Brothers Warner

Cass Warner Sperling, granddaughter of Harry Warner, took on the subject of Warner Brothers Studio and the brothers behind it and has made an excellent documentary. She goes into the history of the family, from its emigration from Russia, the kinds of jobs they could get, and the family finally entering the nickelodeon business. Sperling tells the story with a lot of warmth and a nice lack of formality.

The brothers were as different as any four people could be - the outlandish Jack, the good businessman Harry, the kind-hearted Sam, and the quiet Albert - but the main characters are Jack and Harry.

Naturally, since this is done by a family member, the emphasis is on the positive aspects of the studio - the risk-taking to get into sound, the tough social topics the studio tackled, their work against Naziism before World War II, and their wartime contributions. The difficulties with Sam Warner's widow, Lina Basquette, are soft-pedaled. It is noted that Sam's and Lina's child was taken from her and raised by the Warners. If that strikes people as odd, it's because it's not mentioned how much power and influence the family wielded against an actress. What also isn't mentioned is that the Warners had Lina blacklisted, and she never met her daughter until she reached adulthood.

Another thing left out is exactly how Sam Warner acquired Vitaphone, but it's possible that Cass Warner doesn't know the story. The anti-Semitism was rampant in Hollywood in the '20s, and in fact, Joseph Kennedy was one of the people determined to get the Jews out of the film-making business. Therefore, when Sam, who was a big redheaded guy, went to meet the Vitaphone people, he asked Lina to wear her Catholic cross. Unaware that Sam was Jewish, Warner Brothers was able to acquire Vitaphone.

No words are minced regarding Jack's ultimate betrayal of brother Harry and his whole family, a very shocking and sad page in the family scrapbook.

Some of the people interviewed include Lina Basquette, George Segal, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Debbie Reynolds, Roy Disney, Sherry Lansing, film historian Jeanine Basinger, Dennis Hopper, Tab Hunter, and ex-staff members at Warner Brothers - all very good and insightful.

Jack Warner used to call Raoul Walsh into his office and moan to him that he needed him to direct a film. Who's in it? Walsh would ask, and Warner would answer, "some bum." That's probably what he thought of his actors in general; unfortunately, he seemed to view his family the same way. A fascinating story and highly recommended.

Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner are brothers who created one of the biggest Hollywood studios. The Jewish brothers immigrated from Europe with their parents. None of them were allowed to have an education and the kids all worked. Soon, they are working the nickelodeons in New York City on the road to building the iconic entertainment name.

Cass Warner is the filmmaker and the granddaughter of Harry. Jack is the youngest, the last survivor, and the most famous. It's very compelling to learn about the brothers. It's fun to see a few recognizable faces who talk about the old times with the Warners. I'm not expecting too many deep dark secrets with a family member behind the camera, but there is some juicy family dysfunction. There are moments of interest depending on the viewer. I like the cartoons. Most of the company stuff isn't much to me. The war years including pre-war and post-war are very interesting. The big drama is the family drama. It's interesting to have Jack Warner seeing himself as the James Dean characters. I never considered that. All in all, this is very informative and we finally have a name.

Today the Warner name is just one component in a complicated corporate entanglement that the multimedia era made possible. One of the first and many things that we learn in this documentary is that the Warner Brothers film empire really started like a corner-of-the-street family affair, with the four sons of an East-European Jewish immigrant opening a cinema in Pennsylvania, with an blanket as improvised screen and borrowed chairs, with the wife of one of them playing the piano and nickel entry ticket price. Then when movies became hard to obtain the brothers decided to start making their own, and when the Edison monopoly chased them from the East Coast to California history began.

The four brothers built an empire American style, one of the most successful enterprises in one of the most successful American industry of the 20th century. Yet, their path was not smooth, their life was milestoned by happiness and tragedies as well, and they were no saints. Grand-daughter Cass Warner's film has both the qualities of bringing a lot of information backed-up by original film sequences, and of bringing a personal touch, with interviews of the members of the family, as well as important people in the industry, and film and communication experts. I appreciated the participation of descendants and representatives from the competitor studios like Disney or Paramount who did not hesitate to participate in this homage documentary. All parts are well dosed and the balanced mix takes us through six decades of movie making in parallel with the American history, actually part of the American history of the 20th century.

The documentary is informative, good, and human, and seldom falls into the trap of the blind adoration of its subject. The story of the brothers Warner and of Warner Brothers the corporation is the material for a great feature film, yet to be made in the future. With a bit of luck it will add a few Oscars near the Warner Brothers name.

This documentary is about the Warner Brothers and their studio. However, unlike other documentaries about film studios, this was more like a home movie in many ways--with one of the granddaughters of the original Warner Brothers narrating and talking with some family members about their recollections (in addition to all the film historians who comment). This gives it a rather intimate feel but also made you wonder how objective the production was. For example, I often find that autobiographies are FAR less interesting than biographies because they tend to tell the tale from a far from neutral point of view. Now I am NOT saying this film does this exactly. There is quite a bit of dirt in the film about the animosity between Jack and Harry--making Harry sound like a swell guy and Jack akin to Satan. But I did wonder about the film at times--especially concerning Harry Warner's adoption of his niece, Lina. What would a neutral party say about all this?

There were a lot of neat facts about the studio. I loved learning how the KKK sued Warner for their depiction in "Black Legion"! Or, how the studio was the first to refuse to sell movies in Germany and made the first anti-Nazi film from Hollywood--even when the nation was firmly in the isolationist camp. Interestingly, the film really didn't focus so much on the stars of the day--but more on the day to day behind the scenes events. I liked this, as if you want to see more about Cagney or Bette Davis, a documentary about them would make a lot more sense.

Overall, this is the sort of film that movie lovers like myself love--especially those who adore Hollywood during the classic years of the 1920s-40s. Fascinating--as it's filled with wonderful little stories and facts that film buffs will love. My only real problem with the film is that there is just too much material for a film that's just a bit over 90 minutes long. A mini-series would really due more justice to the history of this amazing studio.

Oddly, while the documentary was filled with a lot of film clips, some of them were of pretty poor quality--particularly the grainy and washed out one from "Giant". I am really not sure why this was the case.

Come on. It's important to keep in mind that this doc was made by Harry Warner's granddaughter, so that bias seeps through from the first minute. She has managed to make her grandfather sound the best out of the four brothers. In the beginning when she's introducing the brothers, each one has a flaw but her grandpa. Even Sam who passed away at a young age (40) gets poor treatment in this. His wife is totally disrespected in this and I bet if she said what she really thought of what his family did to her, she wouldn't be in this documentary. In Jack's intro, she low key implies through her mother that Harry thought little brother Jack was a loser with no direction. Which is ironic since Jack is the Warner anybody knows.

As Harry's granddaughter, completely whitewashing how he and his wife came to "win custody" of Sam and Lita Warner's daughter tells you everything you need to know. He did it because Sam's wife was not Jewish, she was Catholic. The documentary never makes you aware of this. I can't believe this documentary goes so far to include Sam's daughter saying she had a better life than she would have and then another line with the mother saying she was young at the time. Everything you can read about the situation seems to indicate that she was harassed and bullied into giving up her child by the domineering Harry (who also hated Jack's second wife) so that left a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I expected a report on the family drama, but even a Google search of them will reveal what Cass W tries to sanitize about Saint Harry. There's a whole segment on his courage about calling out the N azis. He was Anti-Hitler but was bigoted towards Catholics in his own family. Mmkay. It would be like leaving Marilyn Monroe out of a profile of JFK that calls him a devoted family man. It just rings hollow and false. Also if you listen, her mother never mentions Sam's daughter even though they were raised as siblings. There's no family photo shown with her included so you kind of just get the sense that it was about control and not what was best for the child. This documentary reminds me of the the book and movie about The Temptations spearheaded by Otis Williams. Everything wrong was David, Eddie, and Paul. Otis never ever made a mistake. This has the same vibe.

Another critique I have is this documentary is not organized very well. It jumps back and forth between the family and the studio but not in a cohesive way all the time. I did skip through at least twice. What Cass Warner adds in the narration you have to take with a grain of salt bc...grandpa. You're actually learning more from the film historians and the interspersed actors and executives who definitely understand the business better than her. And who knew and worked with Jack. He was responsible for so many classics.

She never explores why Jack Warner went behind his brothers' backs with the deal to sell and then rebuy the company. Surely that didn't occur in a vacuum? Surely someone was alive around the time of this doc to share some insight? No internal papers? There's also so little on Albert. I believe his grandson was interviewed, but he didn't seem as if he knew much more than he maybe heard from his father.

It was gross and appalling to hear Cass say that had Jack come to Harry's funeral, he would not have been in the car crash that landed him in a coma. Disgusting. I had to rewind it to make sure I heard correctly. Who says that? Not to mention she never ever approaches her grandfather with any criticism much less saying garbage like this about anything he'd done. Maybe Jack stabbing him in the back was karma for what he did to Sam's wife? She honestly sounds like she's taking jabs at Jack for her grandfather. It's petty.

The only worthwhile parts of this are the video clips and audio of the brothers. I'm in my 30s and while I love classic movies, my introduction to the "WB" was Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon and Tiny Toons after school. It was cool finding out (years ago at this point) that they were real. I enjoyed seeing the footage of them all. And to see films that TCM doesn't air often or at all. Other the original footage, the only thing interesting to me about Cass is her son is married to an actress who was in one of my favorite tv shows growing up.

It's WB month for their 100th anniversary on TCM and I've been enjoying the films being shown. While current WB is a mess (and ironically not a family business anymore), I only checked out this documentary believing it would be something better.