Leaders All — Albert Warner, Diplomat (1924) 🇺🇸
Leaders All — Albert Warner
Because like many other successful motion picture men he has been through the mill and through each succeeding step: because of the wide acquaintance he has established in the course of his nineteen years in the motion picture business; because of the evenness of his disposition, his geniality and his upstanding frankness and straightforwardness and his established reputation for probity he is looked upon as a man whose word is his bond.
One of the most popular personalities in the motion picture industry is Albert Warner. That will be conceded by every man of wide acquaintance in the motion picture business, whether he be exhibitor, producer or distributor.
Mr. Warner is one of the quartet which makes up the firm of Warner Brothers. In that group he sometimes has been referred to as the governor on the engine. He is a man of most equable disposition, one who faces bad news with the same outward calm that he does good news. One of his associates said he had never seen “Abe” Warner lose his temper but once, but he admitted the particular occasion was one to be remembered.
In the very compact quartet to which we have alluded he is the one usually delegated to take care of diplomatic tasks. That duty is not assigned to him because he can assume such a disposition, but rather because it is the natural thing for him to bear a serene manner. He is what may be described as a born diplomat.
Mr. Warner was raised in Youngstown, Ohio, and is one of a large family. He attended Rayne High School in that city. In 1903 he went to Chicago and entered the employ of Swift & Co. A year later he was transferred to Pittsburgh. It was in that city in the course of another twelve months that he was inoculated with the motion picture bug. So in 1905 he resigned and returned to Youngstown.
He bought a copy of Edison’s two reel Great Train Robbery as well as one or two other single reel subjects, and an acetylene gas machine and ran shows in the “opera houses” in the nearby small towns. The places he obtained were the not unfamiliar “ten, twenty and thirty.”
He did not long follow this rather lively career. He wanted to settle down. So it was in the latter part of 1905 that he bought the Cascade Theatre in Newcastle, Pa.
A small store with an altered front was the scene of the initial exhibiting venture. There were accommodations for ninety-nine persons — that is, there was sufficient space for that number of chairs.
After otherwise outfitting the house, however, there was remaining no money with which to buy these. The emergency — and it was a real one — was surmounted by hiring that number of chairs from a local undertaker.
The man of the black garb was a cautious chap, and imposed the proviso that as his supply was limited it would be necessary for him to reclaim the chairs if it so happened there should be a funeral at hours which conflicted with those of a show.
On more than one occasion the owner of the Cascade might have hung out his S. R. O. sign when there was abundant space for patrons — but not a single chair on which to sit!
Before the firm was able to buy its own chairs the undertaker had collected $150, which was considerably more than his equipment was worth, and he still owned the chairs.
It was not a great while before Mr. Warner faced the same handicaps encountered by others who opened motion picture theatres in those days. He experienced difficulty in obtaining films. Again he did the logical thing. He went to Pittsburgh and started the Duquesne Amusement Supply Company and conducted it successfully until it was bought by the General Film Company in 1910.
In the same year he started the Pittsburgh Photoplay Company, handling the output of the Motion Picture Sales Company, an independent distributing concern. In 1911 Mr. Warner sold out this business and came on to New York to obtain a larger field of operations. At that time the trend was toward the longer subject.
The firm of Warners’ Features was established and the company was one of the first to issue subjects longer than two reels. In the beginning attention was concentrated on distribution, but eventually the company went into production. One of the first subjects that went over in a large way was My Four Years in Germany. This was followed by School Days and others.
More recently the Warner name has been associated with such outstanding pictures as The Marriage Cheat and Beau Brummel. The coming year the firm has completed arrangements for twenty pictures to be made at the remarkably complete plant at the West Coast known as the Warner Studio.
Mr. Warner is a born athlete. In his school days and later he was a football player, having played right guard on the Youngstown team. Even at the present time he is always “in condition.” He is of powerful physique and as hard as the proverbial nails, that condition being just natural with him.
He was one of the three founders of perhaps the most popular function in the film industry, the semi-annual golf tournament. The inception of what has brought such a hearty response occurred at a table at which were seated Mr. Warner, Felix Feist and Joe Dannenberg. The tournament is growing in popularity with each succeeding year.
Mr. Warner is now on a short business trip through the mid-west. Among the cities he will visit will be Chicago, where he will look in on the opening of Beau Brummel at Orchestra Hall.
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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 5 July 1924
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