Albert Warner - Film Career

Film Career

As a young man, along with his brother Sam, Albert Warner entered the nickelodeon business, and started displaying copies of The Great Train Robbery from a Kinetoscope at carnivals in Ohio and Pennsylvania in 1903; Sam ran the projector and Albert sold tickets. In 1905, Harry agreed to join his two brothers' business and sold his Youngstown bicycle shop. During this time, the three brothers purchased a building in New Castle, Pennsylvania; with their new building, the brothers established their first theater, The Cascade Movie Palace. The theater was so successful that the brothers were able to purchase a second theater in New Castle as well. This makeshift theatre, called the Bijou, was furnished with chairs borrowed from a local undertaker. In 1907, the three brothers acquired fifteen addiional theaters in the state of Pennsylvania, and named their new business The Dusquesne Amusement Supply Company. The three brothers then rented an office in the Bakewell building in downtown Pittburgh. Harry then sent Sam to New York to purchase, and ship, films for their Pittsburgh exchange company, while he and Albert remained in Pittsburgh to run the business.

In 1909, the brothers sold the Cascade Theater to open a second film exchange company in Norfolk, Virginia; through this second film exchange, younger brother Jack joined his three brothers' business. Afterwards, Sam and Jack went to Norfolk, while Harry and Albert stayed in Pittsburgh. However, one serious threat to the Warners film company was the advent of Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company (also known as the Edison Trust), which charged distributors exorbitant fees. In 1910, the Warners sold the family business to the General Film Company, for "$10,000 in cash, $12,000 in preferred stock, and payments over a four-year period for a total of $52,000". After selling their business, the brothers found work distributing films for Carl Laemmle's Independent Motion Picture Company in Pittsburgh. In 1912, Sam Warner would help the brothers earn a $1,500 profit with his film Dante's Interno. In the wake of the success Dante's Interno gave the brothers, Harry Warner, seeing Edison's monopoly threat growing, decided to leave Laemmle and establish an independent film production company for himself and his three brothers, Warner Features; Albert and Harry opened an office in New York, while Sam was sent to operate the company's new Los Angeles film exchange division, and Jack was sent to run the company's new San Francisco film exchange division. In 1918, thanks in part to a loan from Ambassador James W. Gerald, the brothers expanded operations and established a studio near Hollywood, California Sam and Jack moved to the West Coast to produce films while Albert and Harry remained on the East Coast to handle distribution.

Between the years 1919 and 1920, the studio was not able to garnish any profits. During this time, banker Motley Flint helped the Warners pay off their debts. Shortly afterwards, the four brothers then decided to relocate their studio from Culver City to Sunset Boulevard. The studio rebounded in 1921, after the success of the studio's film Why Girls Leave Home. As a result of the financial success of the film, its director, Harry Rapf, was appointed the studio's new head producer. On April 4, 1923, following the studio's successful film The Gold Diggers, Warner Brothers, Inc. was officially established. Albert remained in New York, where he ran the company's distribution and finances.