Warner Bros.

Warner Bros., name commonly applied to the first film production company to use sequences of synchronized sound in a silent feature film. The founders were four American brothers born at the end of the 19th century: Harry M(orris) Warner, Albert Warner, Samuel L(ewis) Warner, and Jack L(eonard) Warner.

The three oldest brothers were born in Poland and the youngest, Jack, was born in London, Ontario. By 1903 they had opened a nickelodeon in New Castle, Pennsylvania. In 1912 the Warners began to produce films in New York. They opened their own studio in Hollywood, California, in 1918, and five years later founded Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. In the mid-1920s the brothers acquired the Vitagraph Company, enabling them to distribute their films directly to theatres. In 1926 they purchased Vitaphone, a process by which sound could be synchronized with silent film. The first use of the Vitaphone system in a feature film was Don Juan (1926), which, with its music soundtrack and some sound effects, such as clashing swords, cauesd a considerable stir. However, it was their first talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson, which sealed the fate of the silent film and revolutionized the film industry (incidentally saving the Warners from imminent bankruptcy).

Early in the 1930s the brothers purchased the Stanley Company, owner of 250 theatres, and First National Pictures, with huge studios in Burbank, California. Among the stars developed in the 1,500-plus films produced at Burbank were James Cagney, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. Warner Bros. films ranged from topical melodrama through elaborate musicals to large-scale historical epics. A few examples of the classic films bearing the WB imprint are Little Caesar (1930), 42nd Street (1933), Casablanca (1942), and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). The company is now part of Time Warner Inc., which, since the merger of America Online Inc. and Time Warner Inc., is the world’s largest media company.