The Extras
The Extras
The Last Movie Mogul: Remembering Jack L. Warner
Filmmaker Gregory Orr joins the podcast to discuss the new updated release of his documentary film JACK L. WARNER: THE LAST MOGUL which has been remastered in HD for an all-new digital and DVD release with extras.
We start our discussion with Greg's remembrances of his step-grandfather and the origins of the documentary back in 1992. Greg then details his family history, including how Jack met his grandmother, his silent film star great-grandfather, his parents acting careers, and his father's time as the head of Warner Bros Television.
We conclude our discussion with a review of the updates to this new version of the documentary, some of the new content that has been added, and the extras available on the new DVD.
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Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul DVD
Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul On Demand
Official Facebook Page: Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul on Facebook
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Hello and welcome to the extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies and animation and then release on digital DVD, blu-ray and 4K or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Lager host. As many of you know, we talk a lot about Warner Brothers and Warner Brothers films and television on this podcast, and that's mainly because I worked at Warner Brothers for nearly 14 years. But with this year's celebration of the 100th anniversary of the studio, we've also had a chance to dive into the history of the studio, and a few of you have asked on our Facebook page if we could ever hear from any members of the Warner family. Well, I'm happy to say that today we have the good fortune to have filmmaker Gregory Orr as our guest to talk about the update for a new generation of viewers of his documentary Jack L Warner the Last Mogul, greg. Welcome to the extras.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Tim. It's great to be here. It's great to be with your listeners.
Speaker 1:Well, as I just mentioned, many people have asked like is there anybody still associated with the studio, who is from the original family? And I never had an answer to that. But I knew that there were documentaries out there and that you had done one, obviously a few years back. So it was great to hear from you and that you would be willing to come on the podcast. So I'm very happy about that. But before we dive into a discussion of the documentary, I just wanted to ask you it's obviously the 100th year anniversary of the studio. Just how do you feel about that, knowing that the studio with your family name on it has achieved that centennial mark?
Speaker 2:Well, I am proud and touched that a series of administrations since my grandfather left and his brothers sold their shares and it's moved into a new generation of executives and filmmakers and innovation has continued to be their premature. They want to keep up with audience needs and demands, pushing the envelope, so it's a tough road. The movie business has always been difficult. It's always been catch up or try to get ahead of the audience, as the Warner Brothers did with the jazz singer and subsequent films where they pushed the boundaries. So watching new administrations do that it's impressive and I know the movie industry is in the middle of a tight spot now. I just wish new administration well and let's keep movies here for another 100 years, and Warner Brothers especially. Right, right.
Speaker 1:Well, I know that a lot of our listeners are big Warner Brothers fans and they buy a lot of Warner Brothers movies and Warner Archive movies and I'm sure that many of them have seen the original documentary that released back in 93 for that I guess that would have been for the 70th anniversary year and that's titled Jack-O-Warner the Last Muggle. I rewatched it been a few years and I'm looking there. You're a really young man in it but you're a little bit of the focus or point of view, especially as the piece starts. For the listeners who aren't as familiar, tell me a little bit about the origins of that and what kind of led you to make that.
Speaker 2:Well, jack-warner died in 1978. He was my step-grandfather. Actually, I knew him growing up as my grandfather and he treated me kids as a grandparent. So when he died in 1978, my grandmother remained in this large estate that they had built in Beverly Hills, a nine-acre estate which was beautiful. It had waterfalls and golf course and giant swimming pools, an inlaid octopus on the bottom of the pool. And when my grandmother died in 1990, I knew a whole way of life was disappearing.
Speaker 2:A Hollywood royalty, the castle, the Buckingham Palace of Hollywood, was going to the auction block and my aunt was handling the sale, jack-warner's daughter and I wanted to get up there and preserve it before it was sold. So a friend of mine, don Priest, who later became the editor of my documentary, and I went up there with a video camera and simply shot some things, me wandering around the house itself, the grounds, just to preserve it. And I thought I'd make a short film for my family or something. I had not yet made a documentary. I'd made some TV commercials and promotional films and so forth, and this was something small. But as it grew, as I realized there's obviously a great story here. Let me jump into it. So it became a feature-length documentary, I had to raise money. It became a larger format that took about three years to make. So that was the 1993 iteration and during all that time it was my first documentary and it was well-received.
Speaker 2:It never played in the United States, which is interesting. I could not sell it in the US. Warner Brothers took a cut-down version over for a DVD extra on a release of Casablanca, I think in 2008 or 2006. And so the feature-length version never showed here. It showed overseas. Lots of people bought it internationally.
Speaker 2:So with the 100th anniversary coming, I said I want to update this film because there were things missing. It could have been a fuller film and material was good, but it could have been better. So for years I thought about this and with the 100th anniversary approaching, I said now's the time to do this. So got some resources together and started diving back into the archives and how to do this and actually in 4K, up res everything that couldn't be found in the original. So the interviews are very well done in terms of up res into 4K, a process that somehow makes things look pretty good. But everything else we went back to photos. We went back to archival footage. Warner Brothers provided new film clips all in 4K, and I wanted a film that would last for the next generation and hopefully some future generations, in a pristine manner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just rewatched it, as I mentioned earlier, and I saw how good it looks and what you've redone with the photos and everything and, more than that, the content. It just is kind of a timeless content because it's telling a story about your grandfather and, of course, it's about your whole extended family as well. One thing that you also go into there is the fact that your mom and your dad had a very good career and their career is tied into Warner Brothers and that story is in there, which is fascinating. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your mom, and I think a lot of people will go, oh yeah, as soon as you say what it is that she's probably best known for in terms of Warner Brothers film.
Speaker 2:As I said, Jack Warner is my step-grandfather. My mother is around nine years old when her mother married Jack Warner. My mother's real father and my actual grandfather is a silent film actor named Don Page, who went under the name of Don Avarado, a silent screen star of some note, sort of a Rudolph Valentino knockoff, a Latin lover type. So I was surrounded by sort of movie people, actors and so forth, and I grew up with Jack Warner. My mother grew up in that house with her mother and her stepfather and when she was about 17, she was taking acting classes at Warner Brothers and Sophie Rosenstein, the acting coach, gave her a script to read and a part to read and she read it and Sophie said oh, that's very good, Let me call in the casting director for this film. And that person came in and said oh, that's good, that's going to call in the director. He kept going until they finally said well, I think she could do this part, but her stepfather is Jack Warner. Should we ask the boss?
Speaker 2:And they wanted my mother to go to Jack and say can I do this movie part? Nobody wanted to approach him about it. So someone finally did it and he said okay, she can do it, but we're not putting her under contract. And that role was of a young woman from Bulgaria who goes to Humphrey Bogart in the movie Casablanca to ask for his help and advice in getting letters of transit for she and her husband to leave Casablanca. So at age 17, just out of high school, it was her first film role and it's a stroke of luck in a sense, that you landed in such a film. So that's how she started her career and did not get a contract at Warner's. My grandfather was not crazy about having a family member as an actor, I guess, and she did things at MGM and later came back and did Warner Brothers television.
Speaker 1:I remember I mean, as I'm watching and I see that and I connected the dots to you I was like, wow, that's fantastic, because what movie is more associated with Warner Brothers than Casablanca? But at the time of the filming, nobody, of course, knew that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point. I met the script at home. Her stepfather would bring home scripts and she'd read them at home as a young girl. And she read Casablanca and she said, eh, it's kind of old fashioned, it's a little creaky and I don't know. And that's what she told me. And she said later when she heard that Ingrid Bergman was going to be in it. Then she said, oh, she brings a lot of class, so maybe it'll be a better movie. Right, she ends up in the movie.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, it's a, it's a classic scene that everybody knows. I mean, you see the refugees in that. But in the scene where she is with Humphrey Bogart and she's a newlywed and you can just see that she, you know, she's afraid that her husband is losing all their money and she's going to have to sleep with the commissioner, and you just feel for her.
Speaker 2:And then the fact that that character breaks through that cold exterior, you know, and the bogart, and that's what she's there for as a character, to mirror what Ingrid Bergman's character is possibly going to do. That you know, could you ever forgive a woman for doing something like this? And and that's so. She speaks sort of the debate that has to go on in Bogart's mind as the character Right.
Speaker 1:Well, that was a great role for her and a great role that goes down in film history for Warner Brothers and and to have her so associated with it is so cool. But then I was also just it was great to see in the documentary how important or how active your father, bill Orr, was as well. He was an actor. Tell us a little bit about his career and then how he got kind of brought into the Warner Brothers family.
Speaker 2:He grew up in New York. His father had had a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, lost everything with the crash, so he had somewhat privileged background, but then a lot of that went away too. So he and his mother came out to Los Angeles when I think he was 16, they drove cross country and at a nightclub an agent, henry Wilson, came up to him and said you know, are you an actor, young man? Because we're looking for people to do some screen tests. And so he spent the summer, part of the summer, doing a screen test. He said it was great, I got to kiss all these actresses. He thought about maybe being a doctor, but so he went back to finish high school and when he came back I said I want to do this movie thing, this movie acting thing. So he came out here and took classes, he did some modeling and then he was in a stage show that was very popular this is all before World War II in the mid late 30s called Meet the People. It was sort of a musical review. Llewela Parsons hosted it, the famous gossip columnist, and everyone in Hollywood came to see it because he had singing and dancing and skits a little bit like Saturday Night Live of its day. So he became known and ended up getting a contract with Warner Brothers as an actor.
Speaker 2:In the documentary he mentions meeting Jack Warner once on the lot and the Jack just said, oh hello, young man, or something like that, and that's, that's the only contact. But he eventually got to meet my grandmother, jack's wife, who invited him up to the house and from that he met my mother and eventually started seeing her. So he married my mother at the end of World War II and went back to the east coast with my mother to go back to doing a nightclub act and possibly do some more acting. It wasn't working out and it's actually Jack Warner who said look, young man, you're not going anywhere. Why don't you come here and be some sort of assistant?
Speaker 2:My father told me that Jack said why don't you come and you can spy on all the actors and other people to see if they're getting in on time. Oh yeah, that's a great job. A lamp dropped on my head one day. So he said to him why don't I go through the scripts and see if there's some nice parts for our young actors, our new, our new hires and sort of fit people into these small roles and that's where he did and then became an assistant for my grandfather and eventually, in mid 1950s I think 1956, he was sent over to run the new, the fledgling TV department and that's where we got the Warner Brothers shows. Cheyenne was the first one, and then Maverick and 77, sunset Strip and Bronco, and all those westerns, yeah, detective shows, surfside Six, the Alaskans, I mean, it went on and on.
Speaker 1:They had the NIF two, nine. Those are all part of his credits.
Speaker 2:All part of his credit which is at the end of the show I think. I've been told he had about nine shows a week on. It's a lot of production but it's sort of say the studio not sort of it did, it, did Right. The lot was very quiet from features through some of that early time so the TV shows were keeping the company going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I wanted to point this out because I did work primarily on the TV side of the home entertainment releases when I was at Warner Brothers and I have great respect for Warner Brothers television In the years that I was there. One Brothers Television was number one worldwide in terms of distribution of content for something like 12 out of 13 years or 12 out of 14 years. In other words, that TV division was just a moneymaker for the studio, and film years are great or poor or average or whatever, but the TV was just cash flow which every studio needs, and it also put out a lot of content, of course, to keep characters or franchises alive, such as the DC franchises or the animation around the world, and it was just a fantastic group. So I have a soft place in my heart for that division that your dad pretty much launched for the studio and added the gate just a great success. So I thought that was pretty special, pretty cool, and then he worked there for quite a few years before before, of course, everything came into an air Unceremoniously.
Speaker 2:let's go.
Speaker 1:Unceremoniously, as it always does, but he had a lot of good years there, also working very closely with Jack Warner.
Speaker 2:He did, and at one point he was put in charge of all production around the time of my Fair Lady and Camelot. I think he may have made the deal for Camelot Jack Warner is, of course, very involved with my Fair Lady Right and then he was asked to step back to television. Jack Webb had been running it for a while and people weren't happy with Jack Webb I don't know if they sold any new shows and it wasn't going well. So my father spent the last year of his career there in television and they weren't the same company in terms of success. They had been.
Speaker 2:My father said in the early days of television you could just call up ABC and sell a show on a few lines. Abc was so desperate for content that they had to defer. In a sense they really needed Warner Brothers to make content. So my father says it was fairly easy to sell a show. You could sell a show on the way to lunch. It's very different, obviously, now. So he got that together and I think there's one producer per show then and one casting agent very small top ranks. Obviously it's much more complicated and more people are needed. Now. Yeah, and they made I don't know what. They made 32, 36 shows a year. At first it's a really big schedule.
Speaker 1:Right, right. Were you of the age where you were able to go to any of those sets or see any of that, or were they more sheltering you from that side of the business?
Speaker 2:It's a good question, because my father did not want me to be a Hollywood kid. My brother, the sister and I I'm the youngest of three. He did not want us, so I'd love to go into the studio though, so arrangements would be made to go out there and see something being shot and I could sit on a soundstage all day. It's really where I fell in love with movies. Not watching them in a movie theater like most normal people, but the chances of being on a set and watching this group of people to like to play something.
Speaker 2:Imagine it happened right there and everyone cooperating to do it. Of course everyone was nice to me I'm boss's son so they have to be but I really enjoyed it and so I got to see. It, did have a family feel and that was a family that I know is contentious. Just like on the movie side, the TV side had its own problems and stars not getting paid much and wanting more. So it's tough that way and people suing James Garner most famously, I suppose, suing to get out of this contract. But it was a very special place and small in terms of the amount of people who were making these shows. There weren't many of them behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:So growing up then, did you see your grandfather that often when you would go to see your grandmother, or was he famously just always gone and busy, and what you talk about how that had a huge impact, of course negatively, with his family, right?
Speaker 2:When he came along he was slowing down a bit but he still around the studio when every day was involved, saw all the footage being shot, all the printed material from films. But he did not watch the television shows, their footage. He liked it because it made money, but he didn't have an interest in the medium. He didn't like television particularly. My father told me that he didn't allow a TV set to be a prop, you know, a piece of furniture in a lot of the movies. He just didn't want to remind people that this existed. So just don't ignore that box in the corner.
Speaker 2:And I would see him on occasion, not every time I went to the studio, but we'd go to his office and it was always a little chilly down there. I think you stepped down a couple steps to go into his office, so that was a treat to see him to everyone. Again, everyone was nice to me, his assistants, bill Schaefer was very nice to me and I'd go up to the house. But you just didn't show up at grandpa Jack's house uninvited or unignored, you know, without making a reservation in a sense, because the house did have a studio guard at the gate. But you know, you could go. You could go to play tennis on occasion or he'd have screens up there which are great, and little dinners and invite people up to watch movies in the projection room. So I would drop in.
Speaker 2:And then twice in my life I did go to the south of France where he and my grandmother had a house and kept on tea right on the water. You'd walk off the little terrace into five feet of Mediterranean, which was pretty great. So I did get to see him there two summers, but he wasn't someone as a kid who you can get really close to. He was always the entertainer, he was the showman, the ringmaster, and so he did all the talking. He didn't really ask you much how you're doing, but I was included and you're in this show of his.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk a little bit about the documentary. There's so much good footage in that documentary of what you just related. There's footage of you guys in the south of France, I think, maybe, or at least Jack and your dad there, I know. There's home footage of you guys at the Beverly Hills Place. There's other great home footage. Where did that come from? I think that's what makes, of course, your documentary so unique is how personal the storytelling is.
Speaker 2:I did want to tell the history from what I knew, and that's where I began and then included all the footage which I found this was not the 16 millimeter footage that's in the documentary came to me very late and supposedly recovered from trash cans. When the house is being sold oh wow, by one of the studio, one of the guards. He said, look, I found this in the trash. Whether that's true or not, but he gave it to me and that was beautiful color footage from the 1930s and then also when we were kids in the early 60s, late 50s, early 60s. So that was a starting point, the personal family footage, the stuff in the south of France in the 50s. So Getting that transferred and then re transferred recently into high definition it was just transferred to NTSC back in 1990s. So, rounding that out, you begin the search of what's out there and Warner Brothers was nice about providing some photos.
Speaker 2:So USC Cinema Library had a lot of photos and also my grandfather's scrapbooks, which were oversized scrapbooks that he had put together or had an assistant put together For his entire career. There were 50 of them. Wow, he wrote in them and there's everything from, obviously, photos to letters, to Invitations to premieres, to covers from Hollywood reporter and variety that documents his career and his, his personal involvement in things, and so that was great to go through and get material out of that for the update I did. Besides wanting to make it in high definition I I needed more visual material. I knew I there was out there stuff that I did not find in 1992, so went back to all kinds of archives and Was looking for how to tell the story visually in a more compelling way, an entertaining way. So that's where it came across more interesting archival footage and short films that we that we can discuss.
Speaker 1:So do those 50 scrapbooks belong to the family, or are they part of the Warner Brothers archives?
Speaker 2:They're donated to USC. The question? I don't know if they're. I'm not sure they're directly part of the Warner Brothers archives. I think it's a part of the Jack Warner collection at USC cinema library. I see, right.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, that's a treasure. It's obviously not everything, because it's a point of view of of things.
Speaker 2:But but reminding me how sent and people talk about Jack. You know there's plenty of negative about Jack, sure, and I think a lot of it's true. But he didn't seem to show a lot of sentimental feelings, although he could be sentimental about certain people old actors He'd keep on the payroll at times, silent film actors He'd work with he'd cast again. But when he comes to scrapbooks you realize how much his story and the people in it mattered to him and he writes these little notes a good time was had by all, or these are the good old days, and so this is something, maybe privately for him. I don't know if he ever showed it to anybody. He had a trophy room at the studio. They definitely showed off to people, you know, with all these awards the studio and he had gotten, but the scrapbooks may have been just for him to look through. So you get an insight into some emotional depth in terms of his, his life and the people in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's no mystery the story of how he treated his brothers and Basically took the studio away from them in the 50s or whatever. I mean that's a well-known story.
Speaker 2:Yes, and one of the things I was not able to do, even in the in the update, was going to it more fully. At the time I didn't have the information. I only started getting that after the film, the update had been done, and so on the DVD that's gonna be coming out, we did a little extra segment about that sale in 1956. That is illuminating in terms of what Jack knew, what the brothers knew, what actually happened in terms of the sale. Someone has told me that he cheated his brothers. I Always. I say now he fooled his brothers into keeping his job and Buying back some shares, but he didn't cheat them. Everyone's paid, everyone was paid for their shares and Harry Warner and an Albert Warner stayed on the board of directors of Warner Brothers after the sale.
Speaker 2:But Jack had gone behind their back in terms of staying and they were all supposed to sell and get out of the business. And he was younger. He was 11 years younger and I don't want to go on about a whole defense of him, but I just think it's sort of the nuance of it that what he did was it says. It says how bad the relationship was at that point With the brothers that he really couldn't talk to them and say look, I want to stay Right. You know I'm younger and I'm happy at this job, and the new owners, or the main investors, wanted him to stay too.
Speaker 2:There's another man. They wanted, cy Fabian, who ran the Stanley Warner theaters. His family owned those theaters and he was supposed to be the next president of the company, and the Justice Department would not let him Take on that job and keep owning theaters. You know there had been the consent decrees Separating the studios from the exhibition. So when, when their first choice could not take the job, they turned to my grandfather and said we'd like you to run the studio you have, you know how to do this and we have confidence in you and the stockholders will have confidence in you, and that's that's how he got that job to be head of the whole company.
Speaker 1:So that's one of the extras that are gonna be on the and is it gonna be? You said it's gonna be a 4k release, correct?
Speaker 2:No, it's an HD release. It's an HD release. Okay, so we're not doing it at this point. They're not doing a UHD, you know, I'll try a definition for him and that'll be one of the extras on there.
Speaker 1:And then do you have any other extras that are gonna be part of this release?
Speaker 2:we added a little Short news reel about the launching of the s s Benjamin Warner, as the last Liberty ship launched at the end of World War two. Benjamin Warner was the brother's father, who had come from Poland with his wife, and so that's sort of sweet to see them all there at the shipyard launching the ship. And then we have a long excerpt from the HUE Act hearings, the House of American Activities Committee's hearings in 1947, with Jack as a witness at his testimony During that, and that's that's also a high definition from the National Archives. So I thought, okay, here's a way to people watch that you know big chunk of those those hearings in his testimony.
Speaker 1:Well, I saw on the credits that our good friends George Feltonstein and Jeff Briggs had some help with this new version, or updated version. What, what did they do with you to help Pull this together?
Speaker 2:Well, I am very fortunate that George and Jeff are at the studio because they love the history, they know the history, they want to preserve the history and so when I went back after 30 years, the original people From 30 years ago just weren't there. Judy Singer, who had, who had done the clip licensing back in 1990s, had passed away and so approaching a new administration, a new group of people, and they couldn't have been nicer about it and more helpful and I'd have questions about I am looking for this film. Is that something Warner Brothers owns or is that at UCLA or where is that in? George would look it up, you know, on their database. Same with Jeff finding photos and Helping me navigate their their collection and pointing me in the right direction and just being general sort cheerleaders being curious.
Speaker 2:They like the history and they were happy that I was delved into it and they were happy to help. I mean I you know they didn't work for this film, but they did spend some time and I definitely appreciate it. And Julie Heath over clip licensing also was enormously helpful Because they could have said look, you made the film 30 years ago, just stick with that were we're busy and they were busy because they were getting ready for the hundred, the hundredth anniversary they were making. Helping with the documentary, the Warner Brothers made the four-part series, so I was very fortunate and I'm very grateful to all of them for making this film a reality.
Speaker 1:And I think you mentioned that there were a few clips or a few films or some segments that you put into the documentary, that maybe they assisted with. What are a few of those that you want people to be sure to know about?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a great moment in the documentary where we cut to a young woman driving up in a big like Duesenberg on the studio lot and Lyle Talbott's at the wheel, the actor and he says well, here we are at the Warner Brothers Studios and this young woman who's wearing some sort of sash you can't quite tell what it is says gee, I've never been so excited in all my life. We go into sort of about Warner Brothers and that's from a short film called and she Learned About Dames, which was to promote the movie Dames, and it was about a young woman who wins a contest and comes to Warner Brothers to see how movies are made and maybe she'll get an acting part. So they go around the studio and watch Busby Berkeley making the film and it was a pristine print that we got from UCLA's archives and had it transferred to 4K. So it's those kinds of moments that bring that past alive.
Speaker 2:And there's a costume test for Humphrey Bogart in there with Lauren Bacall for a film that he was planning to make but did not live to make. It called Melville Goodman at the time in 1956. And the movie later became Top Secret Affair with Kirk Douglas. So you see them together and they're sort of clowning around a little bit. So there's these moments from the time that I think bring it alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a very amusing little clip because the two of them are just having fun. I mean, she's kind of referencing his height compared to her and everything and it's just a moment that you think, oh wow, where was this footage? This is great behind the scenes stuff and there were so many moments like that in this one. I love the four-part documentary that has just been released by Warner Brothers, but your documentary is very different. It's really the story of Jack Warner. It really focuses on his life and, of course, pretty much his whole life intersects with Warner Brothers, the studio. But it gave you the opportunity to show these little moments and show these little clips and get more intimate into the storyline and I think that's the charm of your documentary.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I wanted that so you'd have a sense of him. I will let historians, film experts, talk about all the movies and Jack's history in running that company. I certainly get into it. It's not just about him at home, that's for sure. There is a sense of, oh, jack Warner. I see what kind of guy he was and his energy and what made him a good studio boss and then. But also talk about I don't hide from his Peccadillos, his faults. They're there. We talked to a mistress of his. We talked to his son, jack Jr, who does become almost an ex son. He's inherited, and that's a very painful interview but very honest. So I wanted an honest look at Jack, because the truth mattered to me, but a balanced one too, that you really got a sense of a man. My father loved him. Jack fired my father but my father still loved him. So there were a variety of views you could put into this and I wanted that to preserve that.
Speaker 1:And I think that the documentary shows the complexity of who Jack Warner was. We, you know, most people have heard the bad and everything, but some of the intimate moments, some of the footage, some of the discussion from the family, that is just really honest. You know, people are very honest. I thought Jack's very honest about the fact that he and his dad were estranged and how painful that was, and you know the fact that they tried to kind of reconcile and when he was overseas doing the work as a you know, it's a Colonel in the military that they were able to reconnect. But then as soon as he came back to Hollywood, it just it just fell apart again and I thought that was very fascinating.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a toll that it takes on a person to be in that kind of a role that Jack Warner was in. I mean we could make excuses or we could try to examine it, but it's not necessary. I don't think you just, it's just a fascinating, fascinating story. So you're bringing this out now and I think it's great for a kind of a new generation, because there's a whole group of people who, as you said, never really got to see the full length feature. So now it's available. I sell on Amazon Prime. It's, in other words, it's already available on streaming right.
Speaker 2:Yes, video on demand right now. We eventually go to other platforms, but for now it's Amazon Prime and Apple and YouTube and other platforms for rental or sale.
Speaker 1:Right, so folks can access that right away. And then when's this new high definition version of the movie coming out on physical media?
Speaker 2:That will be on August 2nd, which is Jack Warner's birthday, so I thought that was an appropriate time to release it and that'll have the DVD extras and I hope people who are true film fans have it in their collection and I think it's a good teaching tool for film courses too, of a sort of an overview of what the early American pioneers were like. And I don't know I don't want to push aside any of the other film pioneers because they're obviously enormously important from Lemley on. But I think in the dictionary someday when you look up the definition of movie mogul, I have a sense it's going to be a picture of my grandfather. He embodied so much of what we think of as a cigar chopping, fast, talking, flamboyant executive, and that's what he was, and so it's a part of American history. And he ran a company that had enormously talented people and sometimes they made unbelievably wonderful movies, and I wanted to preserve a little bit of that system too, of what it was like to be at the studio during those times.
Speaker 1:And the Warner Brothers because of the word brothers in there, has a different look than a few of the other studios that had the one mogul for years or whatever that we associate, but he was the longest lasting of the brothers. He was the mogul within the group that endured, for was it 50 years or so that he was? It was 50 years.
Speaker 2:I mean he's the face, at least to the public. Harry Warner did unbelievably great work in terms of his own causes, promoting motion pictures as a force for good, and so he was out there speaking too. But Jack really had a certain, had both the energy and a personality that loved to go out and and glad hand and go to premieres and talk to people and have dignitary. People were constantly coming to the studio, dignitaries were coming by and he'd be happy to meet them, show them the trophy room, give them a tour. So he loved being a movie mogul. I understand he didn't need a lot of sleep, he had enormous energy and he loved he was in the people business. If you really think about it that he loved show biz from as a kid. He loved Vaughnville. He joined his brothers as the kid brother. They set up the business. The older brothers did everything initially and that he was told what to do, which I think over time really bothered him being told by your older brothers and wanted to get out from under them. But he just loved show business and he loved the people who made show business. So as somebody in the people business he developed a shrewd understanding of talent and he'd come back to New York several times a year to look at shows and meet with people. And you know he brought all those talented people to Warner Brothers and he was willing to fight with them.
Speaker 2:He always got the last word, although, if you read the memos, not everyone listened to him. He was always frustrated at some point. You see, why don't people do what I asked him to do? You know it's funny. He wouldn't fire you over that, but he would just say that's it. We're finishing production today. So what? We have another six days on the schedule. Nope, we have enough footage and we're done. That's it. Turn off the lights. This is your last day.
Speaker 2:So he was in charge of it all and the youngest brother became the head of the studio and he took over a job that he wasn't really trained to do when young. The youngest is not the same as the oldest and he was the fun loving brother. That's how he became the harsh businessman at times too, but it's all there in the documentary of his change, of how people perceived him, and you watch him do it, because you have the footage and the still photos and excerpts from his book. He wrote a book right around the time I, fair Lady, came out. So, even though there's a lot of stuff that's either made up or embellished his attitude about things, is we quoted and have to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's a. It's a very American story too, which I love. The immigrant in one generation that goes from nothing to being, you know, part of American history and as, as one of the the historians I think that you interview in there says the movie studios in the in the course of the last hundred years have done so much to influence American culture, the way we think, the way we perceive things. It's so now ingrained in the fabric of of our society. And the Warner Brothers movies, specifically in the US here, because they were the studio of the kind of the common man, so to speak, and we can't disassociate it anymore. It's just so now intertwined.
Speaker 1:I mean, of course, what I do is talk about movies all the time and TV and everything, but just for the average person you can't get away from the influence that the industry has had, and to have all that happen in one generation is astounding. What a life and what a story, and your documentary is terrific. So, thank you, I recommend it highly. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast and and just sharing your stories.
Speaker 2:It was my pleasure to be here. The Extras is a great podcast and I encourage people to keep listening. You always have good guests and George is always wonderful when he. When he's on, he's so knowledgeable. So I always learned something from listening to you to chat.
Speaker 1:Well, I feel like we have a similar mission, which is to promote these wonderful movies and TV shows and all of the entertainment that comes out of Warner Brothers and the other studios as well, Though we just happen to focus a lot on the Warner Brothers, as I mentioned there in the open. So well, it's been terrific and I look forward to the reaction from people as they see the new version of the movie.
Speaker 2:Thanks very much, it's a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did. I have seen the update to Greg's movie and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in learning more about Warner Brothers' history in the life of Jack L Warner. It is currently available on digital for rental or purchase and now on DVD with the Extras. You can find purchase links and more information in the podcast show notes. If you're on social media, be sure and follow the show on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to continue the conversation and to be a part of our community. And check out our YouTube channel, as we are posting more videos there all the time, including my conversation with Greg, in case you wanted to check that out. And if you're a fan of Warner Brothers, you're invited to our Facebook group called the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog Group. So look for that link on the Facebook page or in the podcast show notes as well. Until next time you've been listening to Tim Mellard Stay slightly obsessed.