The new spirit in the cinema (1930)

ACTUALITIES 117 there were the Warner Brothers, all four with humble beginnings. " Harry M. Warner. Early career, bookkeeper and salesman; entered bicycle business with brothers."1 To-day Warner Brothers are Cinema Magnates of the first order. :' Warner Brothers announce that their net profits for 1929 will reach ^3,200,000. "2 The latest Kings are those of the Western Electric company and its subsidiary companies. There is for instance " Joseph P. Kennedy, Chairman of the Radio Corporation of America. Early career was banking and shipbuilding."3 The Western Electric Corporation Kings promise to dominate the whole world, since it is their Talkie apparatus that is invading cinemas of all countries. D. Foundations Like good business men the early Builders did not fail to lay the foundation of the Cinema Babylon with solid gold. And the story of these first speculators in a virgin field is probably the story of men who staked all in the wild scramble to gain control of the industry in order to have sole right of selling Cinema commodities to the 2,000,000,000 human inhabitants of the earth and thereby to pocket a large share of the world's income of ^33,500,000,000 a year. Starting almost penniless, as time went on they penetrated to the heart of the money world. How deeply involved they became in big finance, the Wall Street crash of 1929 can show. Says a London Cinema trade journal, " An announcement of outstanding importance is made this week in our advertising columns. It sets forth a complete and powerful aggregation of box office requirements offered by the combined force of Warner Brothers and First National-Pathe. Here is a combination of which the dimensions have never been surpassed in cinema history. As a source of everything required to 1 « The Film weekly," November 18, 1929. 2 Ibid. 3 ibid.