Leaders All — Charles C. Burr, Advertising Producer (1924) 🇺🇸
Leaders All — Charles C. Burr
Because he has had educational advantages which were of material help in securing an early start in life; because in his newspaper career he met many men and secured a knowledge of the world and its ways; because through his advertising and selling he learned the art of merchandising and in his new field he quickly capitalized it.
Here’s another man who has come to the production side of the motion picture business through the mill of the newspaper, with the added experience of the advertising desk: Charles C. Burr, known to the trade as C. C.
Mr. Burr was born and raised in Brooklyn. He has come back to it after going away for a period, and is now a resident of Flatbush, a suburb of that borough.
He was educated mainly in Pennsylvania, in Nazareth and Bethlehem and at Penn Charter School, and at three Pennsylvania colleges: Lafayette, Lehigh and Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the latter institution, of the class of ‘11.
Mr. Burr’s first work after graduation was as a reporter on the Philadelphia North American. Then he went to the Baltimore Sun, remaining long enough, as he expressed it on one occasion to a friend, to accumulate carfare to get to Kansas City where he intended to seek employment on the Star of that city.
He gained his temporary ambition, and remained on the Star for half a year. From there he went to San Francisco, securing work on the Examiner. The next journal in the course of his mounting newspaper experience was the Denver Herald.
Then in order came periods of employment in Seattle and Chicago and then to the Atlantic Coast, where in New York he worked on the Times.
Following a dip into the advertising world through the medium of the Allen Advertising Agency he went to the McCall Pattern Company as advertising manager. That was in 1914. Then he returned to The Times in the advertising department.
The lure of the motion picture seized him, and for two months he worked in the laboratory of the Vitagraph Company. From there he secured employment in the business department of Paramount Pictures Corporation, at that time a young if not exactly a struggling concern.
His work here was of an all-around nature, a more important part of it being in the advertising department, in which he inaugurated the campaign in national advertising. It was the initial essay of a motion picture company into that realm and there were no precedents.
He was assisted in the work by the Lesan Advertising Agency, but a little later he returned to the Famous Players offices as a sort of pinch hitter in several departments. Part of his many duties was assisting Ben Schulberg, who among other things supervised the advertising and scenario departments.
In December, 1920, Mr. Burr resigned from Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, where he had been advanced to the office of assistant general manager, in order to become a producer on his own.
His first product for the examination and approval of exhibitors was the Torchy Comedy, featuring Johnny Hines, releasing through Educational. Twenty-six of these were made, and it will be recalled they were signally successful.
Among the players who were introduced to the screen by means of this series are several who since have become well known in feature work. Among the number are Jacqueline Logan, Dorothy Mackaill, Billy Dove, Norma Shearer, Clara Bow and Jobyna Ralston.
Following the Torchy Comedies Mr. Burr began a series of feature subjects starring his comedian. These included “Burn ‘Em Up Barnes,” “Sure Fire Flint” and “Luck.”
In 1922 in association with Edwin Carewe, Bennie Zeidman and Bernie Fineman [B. P. Fineman] he produced “I Am the Law,” which in spite of the litigation which followed did a big busmess, one that mounted to unusual proportions for a state rights production.
Mr. Burr also produced a series of twelve Charley Murray comedies, which were released by the Hodkinson Company.
Through the state rights field Mr. Burr also has distributed his productions of “Three o’Clock in the Morning,” “The New School Teacher,” “Restless Wives,” “Average Woman,” “Lend Me Your Husband” and “Youth for Sale.”
Just now Mr. Burr is in the throes of completing “The Speed Spook,” in which the old-time Burr star, Johnny Hines again is featured, and which will be distributed through the independent market.
The producer is preparing to make for the screen last year’s Wilbur Daniel Steele prize story of the “The Shame Dance,” as well as three other subjects, all for the state rights market.
Mr. Burr is a strong partisan of the value of the two-reel comedy as a school for actors, but more especially for directors. He believes this form of entertainment is an unusual vehicle for the development of talent.
He is strongly of the belief that it is the best production school in the world because of the necessity for putting over an idea quickly and surely.
Also he is convinced that the motion picture business every day is becoming more and more like the theatrical industry, one in which real estate interests will be the dominating factor of the production side.
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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 19 July 1924
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