E. B. Derr Headed Three Major Film Companies at One Time (1937) 🇺🇸
We were on our way to meet the man who, at one time some years back, had been the chief executive of three top-notch film companies simultaneously!
Presented by David J. Hanna
Finding Talisman Studios among the dove-tailing, twisting streets that make East Los Angeles a labyrinth, is a trip we hesitate to recommend to even the most seasoned citizen of the City of the Angels. But, should by any chance the object of your visit be E. B. Derr, your pioneering will have been worthwhile.
For, without a doubt, Derr is one of the most fascinating individuals in the motion picture field. He brings to his post as president of Crescent Pictures a background with almost the same amount of drama and interest as the industry itself.
1914 saw his beginning in the business when he became a theatre operator in Pennsylvania. “The days when pictures were just thrown in,” he calls them. “Chaplin was the attraction then. Audiences never seemed to tire of him and many times the supply never met the demand. We had our own way of meeting this problem, however. We merely hied ourselves to the old General Film exchange and a few hours there would net us enough odd bits of film to make a Chaplin two-reeler. Sometimes the picture would open with Charlie stifling in the Sahara and end with him freezing in the Arctic, but the audiences loved it and begged for more.”
Realizing that the production of motion pictures offered more lucrative returns, Derr and his associates took over FBO, which before long was producing thirty-six features and forty-two shorts a year. Mergers and affiliations between FBO, the Keith circuit, the advent of sound and the eventual entrance of RCA into the film world resulted in what is now RKO. Following the merger, Derr became chief executive of Pathé and remained in that spot until it was sold to RKO.
To us, whose only knowledge of mergers and stock and studio transactions is gained on rare visits to a friend in the mountains who long since discovered building fish ponds was more fun than guiding the destiny of a motion picture studio, this sounded somewhat bewildering. However, during that part of the interview we managed to sense a bit of the unusual and jotted it down in a prominent place among our notes.
With the flurry of mergers, affiliations and the purchases of entire studios, a strange situation arose. E. B. Derr was simultaneously the chief executive of FBO, Pathé and First National. Unparalleled in the history of the motion picture industry, it will probably never happen again, since it is unlikely that the bankers will again attempt to monopolize the entire film business.
Derr’s greatest asset has been his unerring ability to develop stars. Ricardo Cortez, Helen Twelvetrees, Ann Dvorak, Ann Harding, George Raft, Robert Ames, Mary Astor, Paul Muni — all were given their first chances in Derr productions. Constance Bennett was brought over from Paris to star in her first talkie, “Sin Takes a Holiday,” and in a short eleven months, Derr had made her such a force in the cinema firmament that Warner Bros. signed her at the unprecedented salary of $30,000 a week!
“One of the chief reasons for the formation of Crescent Pictures,” said Mr. Derr, “is to develop our own stars and keep them. Heretofore I have worked to discover and exploit personalities only to find the Studio sold to someone else, at a profit, of course, and with the sale went the stars.”
This year’s program at Crescent will include four murder-comedy mysteries. A male player will head the cast of this quartette as the smoothing working detective, four exploitation pictures, one of which will be the story of Alcatraz, and eight historical action pictures starring Tom Keene will round out the program.
“In Tom Keene,” the producer continued, “I believe I have another potent box-office personality. Although only two in our series have been released, the response has been most gratifying. It seems we are actually accomplishing what we set out to do, which was to deviate from the run-of-the-mill type of action picture, and, while still retaining the speedy action and suspense so necessary to the success of this type of film, to present the hard riding and fist fights of the hero against a truly interesting background. And what better basis is there than American history?”
And at this point the genial Crescent Picture star, Tom Keene, arrived on the scene. A few minutes for the formal introductions and once more we were off on Derr’s favorite theme of the action picture based on authentic historical facts.
“Do you know that Paul Revere made George Washington’s false teeth?” demanded good looking, rugged Mr. Keene, his six feet towering over us while we murmured our apologies and wished our history teacher had apprised us of the fact.
“Do you know that Mark Twain’s name means ‘that’s safe?’ queried Mr. Derr, as he leaned across the desk and handed us a cigarette. Once more we bowed before the wisdom of these two historians and quietly made our exit, while Keene and Derr discussed the right of France to sell us the Louisiana purchase.
And today we had seen this very same producer enthuse, believe in and trust a new departure in that type of film production. Aside from any commercial angle, we mused, here was one man with the courage and idealism to bring history to the screen under the guise of entertainment. To re-enact the early days of America, not in a single film, but with an entire series of pictures; to glorify on celluloid every State of the Union. “Every town which boasts a statue has a story, and even if we have to wash it to find the inscription, we will,” he had told us. And so with my honest wish of “good luck” to E. B. Derr, we set about the less romantic task of finding our way home.
Addendum
John T. Neville is the historian for Crescent Pictures. On his shoulders rests the burden of research, and in fact much of the writing of the scripts is done by this able ex -professor. Frank Melford is in charge of production, and B. A. Morriarti bears the title of associate producer. These three men, plus Ted Loeff, whose exploitation is a high spot in Crescent Pictures’ campaign to make the action picture educational as well is entertaining, form the crux of the organization behind E. B. Derr.
Collection: Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin, January 1937