Actors and Actresses who did not obtain speaking skills were practically finished overnight. Producers sought to catch the public's thirst for "talkies".
The people responsible for producing The Jazz Singer were non other than the Warner Brothers. Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack were all well aware of the risk they were taking to pursue sound films. Business could take a turn for the worst very quickly if they were not careful. But just like other pioneers, the Warners" started out in the Nickelodeon business. They finally went out went in their late teens, and had some success in 1918 with its first feature film, My Four Years in Germany. After their move to Hollywood, Jack Warner, the youngest sibling of the family, rented a production facility and se to work. They started producing film after film and in 1922, the company moved into Warner Brothers West Studio, built on a ten-acre site at Sunset and Branson. Moving into this building showed the Warners" serious commitment to the movie production. Here is where the company's first real star and bankable holding were created. Rin Tin Tin was the Warner Brothers" first actual movie star. With the success of Rin Tin Tin, other companies began to see the Warners as competition. In 1923, they produced thirteen features and seventeen were produced in 1924. In 1925, Harry, the oldest of the brothers, let Jack go all out and budget for thirty features that year. Warner Bros. was definitely a unique company and was Hollywood's only family-owned-and-operated provision. Their distinctive style helped them excel in the movie-making business during the early 1920's.
Little did the Warners know that they were going to run into a young writer named Darryl Zanuck, who played a huge part in their company. After hearing his ideas for the Rin Tin Tin series, Harry hired Zanuck to write their scripts. He was a phenomenal writer who knew exactly what the public wanted.
