Film Booking Offices of America
Encyclopedia
Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) (also known as FBO Pictures Corporation) was an American film studio of the silent era
, a producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began as Robertson-Cole (U.S.), the American division of a British
import–export company. Robertson-Cole initiated movie production in 1920; two years later, a corporate reorganization led to the company's new name. In 1923, the studio contracted with Western
actor Fred Thomson
, who would soon emerge as one of Hollywood's most popular stars. Thomson was just one of numerous screen cowboys with whom FBO became identified.
The studio, whose core market was America's small towns, also put out many romantic melodramas, non-Western action pictures, and comedic shorts
. In 1926, financier Joseph P. Kennedy led a group that acquired the company. In June 1928, using RCA Photophone
technology, FBO became only the second Hollywood studio to release a feature
-length "talkie
." A few months later, Kennedy and RCA chief David Sarnoff
arranged the merger that created RKO, one of the major studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.
The company that would become FBO began as the U.S.-based movie subsidiary of the British importer, exporter, and film distributor Robertson-Cole. From its U.S. headquarters in New York City, R-C Pictures, as it was sometimes known, first entered the American film distribution market. In 1919, the company forged an alliance with Exhibitors Mutual Distributing, a corporate descendant of the Mutual Film
studio. The first of R-C's own feature productions
to be released was The Wonder Man, directed by John G. Adolfi
and starring Georges Carpentier
, which debuted May 29, 1920. With its move into production, Robertson-Cole established a 13.5-acre (5.5-hectare) studio in Los Angeles's fortuitously named Colegrove district, then adjacent to but soon to be subsumed by Hollywood. In January 1921, Robertson-Cole absorbed Hallmark Pictures, which had acquired the Exhibitors Mutual interests the previous year. The first official Robertson-Cole production shot at the new studio was a February 1921 release, The Mistress of Shenstone, directed by Henry King
and starring Pauline Frederick
. That year, the British owners of the studio entered into a working relationship with Joseph P. Kennedy, father of future U.S. president John F. Kennedy
. Joseph Kennedy was then a broker at the New York banking firm of Hayden, Stone, as well as the owner of Maine–New Hampshire Theatres, a small chain of movie houses. Though he failed to arrange the sale R-C's general partners were looking for, Kennedy's involvement with the studio was far from over.
In 1922, Robertson-Cole underwent a major reorganization as the company's founders departed, though the corporation remained under majority British ownership. The flagship U.S. distribution business changed its name to Film Booking Offices of America, a banner under which R-C had released more than a dozen independent productions. The West Coast studio apparently continued to make films under the Robertson-Cole name for some time, but FBO ultimately became the primary identity of the business for production as well as distribution. Between the 1922 reorganization and October 1923, one of the company's new American investors, Pat Powers, was effectively in command. Powers had previously led his own filmmaking company, part of the multiple merger that created the large Universal
studio in 1912. Powers apparently changed the name of Robertson-Cole/FBO to the Powers Studio for a brief period, though there is no record of the company ever having produced or released a film under that banner. In 1923, the studio launched a series of boxing-themed shorts
, "Fighting Blood," starring George O'Hara
. He would become an FBO mainstay, often paired with Alberta Vaughn
, in such comedy series as "The Pacemakers" (1925). Most of O'Hara's and Vaughn's films for the studio were two-reelers—a measure of film length indicating a running time of about twenty minutes.
Now a fully independent businessman, Joseph Kennedy joined the FBO board of directors in 1923, as well. By this time, the studio was owned by Graham's of London, a banking firm, and Powers was succeeded by H.C.S. Thomson, a Graham's operative. Before leaving the board the following year, Kennedy put together a major distribution and production deal between FBO and leading Western
star Fred Thomson
. B. P. Fineman became the studio's production chief in 1924; Evelyn Brent
, his wife, moved over from Fox to become FBO's top dramatic star. In April 1925, FBO vice-president Joseph I. Schnitzer signed Thomson to a new contract paying him $10,000 a week. Thomson was now the highest paid of all cowboy actors, surpassing even the renowned Tom Mix
. The deal also gave Thomson his own independent production unit at the studio.
As a distributor, FBO's roster of films was about half independent and foreign productions, half its own studio output. At the height of its activity (1923–28), it released an average of around 110 features and shorts a year, focusing on distribution to small-town exhibitors and independent theater chains (that is, those not owned by one of the major Hollywood studios). As a production company, Film Booking Offices concentrated on low-budget movies, with an emphasis on Westerns, romantic melodramas, and comedy shorts. From its first productions in early 1920 through late 1928, when it was dissolved in a merger, the company produced approximately 400 films under the brand of either Robertson-Cole Pictures or FBO Pictures. Between 1924 and 1926, several higher-end productions were made under the rubric of Gothic Pictures. The studio's top-of-the-line movies, aimed at major exhibition venues beyond the reach of most FBO films, were sometimes marketed as FBO "Gold Bond" pictures. Without the backing of large corporate interests, nor the security of its own theater chain, the company faced cash-flow difficulties during its earlier years. Short-term loans at high interest rates posed a significant financial drain.
While still at Hayden, Stone, Kennedy had boasted to a colleague, "Look at that bunch of pants pressers in Hollywood making themselves millionaires. I could take the whole business away from them." In 1925, he set out to do so, forming his own group of investors led by wealthy Boston lawyer Guy Currier and including Filene's
department store owner Louis Kirstein and Union Stockyards and Armour and Company
owner Frederick H. Prince
. In August 1925, Kennedy traveled to England with an offer to buy a controlling stake in Film Booking Offices for $1 million. The bid was initially rejected, but in February 1926, FBO's owners decided to take the money. In short order, Kennedy moved his family from Massachusetts to New York City to focus on running his new business. He swiftly addressed the company's perennial cash-flow problems, arranging lines of credit and issuing stock in a business division he established, the Cinema Credit Corporation. By March, he was traveling to Hollywood. The president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association
, Will Hays
, was delighted by the new face on the scene—in Hays's eyes, Kennedy signified both a desirable image for the industry and Wall Street's faith in its prospects. Hays heralded Kennedy as "exceedingly American" (historian Cari Beauchamp explains the connotation: "not Jewish," in contrast to most of the studio heads), while celebrating Kennedy's "background of lofty and conservative financial connections, an atmosphere of much home and family life and all those fireside virtues of which the public never hears in the current news from Hollywood."
Fineman and Brent both departed FBO around the time of the purchase. Kennedy appointed Edwin King as the studio's production chief, but the new owner took a personal hand in guiding the company creatively as well as financially. Kennedy soon brought stability to FBO, making it one of the most reliably profitable outfits in the minor leagues of the Hollywood studio system
. Westerns remained the studio's backbone, along with various action pictures and romantic scenarios; as Kennedy put it, "Melodrama is our meat." During this period, the average production cost of FBO features was around $50,000, and few were budgeted at anything more than $75,000. By comparison, in 1927–28 the average cost at Fox was $190,000; at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
, $275,000. One major expense was taken on directly by Kennedy: with several studios competing for Fred Thomson, Kennedy signed him to a personal contract for $15,000 a week. This was the highest straight salary for any actor in the industry, matched only by Tom Mix's new arrangement with Fox. Under the contract, Kennedy struck a deal in early 1927 with Paramount Pictures
for the major studio to produce and distribute a series of four Thomson "super westerns." Kennedy participated in the films' financing (and profits) and the actor's company stayed on the FBO lot. Of the four Thomson features that reached theaters in 1927, three were FBO releases.
The advent of sound film
would drastically alter the studio's course: Negotiations that began in late 1927 with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) on a deal for sound conversion led to RCA purchasing a major interest in FBO in January 1928. Four months later, as part of a strategy conceived with RCA head David Sarnoff
, Kennedy acquired control of Keith-Albee-Orpheum
(KAO), a vaudeville exhibition chain with approximately one hundred theaters across the United States and the Pathé (U.S.)
–De Mille filmmaking operations under its charge. On June 17, 1928, FBO's The Perfect Crime, directed by Bert Glennon
and starring Clive Brook and Irene Rich
, debuted. It was the first feature-length "talkie" to appear from a studio other than Warner Bros.
since the epochal premiere of Warners' The Jazz Singer
eight months before. The Perfect Crime, which went into general release on August 4, had been shot silently; using RCA's sound-on-film
Photophone
system, the dialogue was dubbed
in afterward—a process then known as "synthetic sound." On August 22, Kennedy signed a contract with RCA for live Photophone recording; more importantly, he also tendered the company an option to buy his governing share of FBO. Two months later, RCA had acquired controlling stock interests in both the studio and KAO.
On October 23, 1928, RCA announced it was merging Film Booking Offices and Keith-Albee-Orpheum to form the new motion picture business Radio-Keith-Orpheum
(RKO), with Sarnoff as chairman. Kennedy, who retained Pathé, was paid $150,000 for arranging the merger on top of the millions of dollars in profit he made from selling off his stock. Joseph I. Schnitzer, ranking FBO vice-president, was elevated to president of the new company's production arm, replacing Kennedy. William LeBaron, the last FBO production chief, retained his position after the merger, but the new studio, dedicated to full sound production, cut ties with most of FBO's roster of silent-screen performers. Movies that Film Booking Offices had either produced or arranged to distribute were released under the FBO banner through the end of 1929. The last official FBO production to reach American theaters was Pals of the Prairie, directed by Louis King and starring Buzz Barton and Frank Rice, released July 1, 1929.
The vast majority of FBO/Robertson-Cole pictures, produced during either the silent era or the transitional period of the conversion to sound cinema, are considered to be lost film
s, with no copies now known to exist. Partly in consequence, many of FBO's star actors are barely remembered today. Pauline Frederick
was the major headliner of the early R-C days, and Evelyn Brent
was FBO's most prized non-Western star. Warner Baxter
, Joe E. Brown
, and young Frankie Darro
were among the other prominent FBO players. Anna Q. Nilsson
starred in two of the studio's larger productions, as did Olive Borden
and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. FBO's leading star of action and mystery pictures was Richard Talmadge
. He appeared in eighteen FBO releases, more than half of them produced by his own company. Maurice "Lefty" Flynn starred in over a dozen FBO action films, all directed by Harry Garson, who also ran his own production business. From the studio's pre-Hollywood days in 1920 through 1928, Ralph Lewis starred in more than ten R-C and FBO pictures of various genres. Former model Reed Howes
, renowned as an "Arrow Collar Man
", made his acting debut with FBO after an extensive publicity campaign.
Central to the FBO identity were Westerns and the studio's major cowboy star, Fred Thomson. In both 1926 and 1927, he ranked number two in the Exhibitors' Herald survey of the "Top Stars of the Year," right behind Tom Mix. When Thomson's personal contract with Kennedy expired in mid-1927, he left permanently for Paramount, almost literally next door. FBO's second-biggest long-running Western star was Tom Tyler
. According to a June 1927 report, "With Tom Tyler rapidly taking the place recently vacated by Fred Thomson, F.B.O.’s program of western pictures is taking a place second to none in the industry.... Tyler has made rapid strides during his two years with F.B.O. and with his horse ‘Flash’ and dog ‘Beans’ has become one of the leading favorites on the screen.” In 1928, Tom Mix himself joined the FBO roster. In addition to these three big names there was also Harry Carey, still a major star when he made several films for the studio in 1922–23. The other cowboy stars of FBO included Bob Custer
, Bob Steele, and teenager Buzz Barton. One of the studio's most reliable Western headliners was a dog: Ranger. The fabled Strongheart
starred in FBO's White Fang (1925), and Rin Tin Tin
had one of his earliest roles in My Dad (1922). FBO's many shorts—the popular George O'Hara and Alberta Vaughn series, and scores of others—are largely forgotten. Of particular historical interest are two independently produced series of slapstick
comedies with important performers: FBO put out several shorts in 1924–25 made by Joe Rock
and starring Stan Laurel
, before his famous partnership with Oliver Hardy
. In 1926–27, the company distributed more than a dozen shorts by innovative comedian/animator Charles Bowers
.
In its earlier years, the studio did not hesitate to take advantage of scandal sheet–worthy events. After the death of celebrated actor Wallace Reid
, brought on by morphine addiction, his widow, Dorothy Davenport
, signed on as producer and star of a cinematic examination of the sins of substance abuse: Human Wreckage
, released by FBO in June 1923, five months after Reid's death, featured Davenport (billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid) as the wife of a noble attorney turned dope fiend. When the biggest movie star in the world, Rudolph Valentino
, split from his wife, Natacha Rambova
, she was swiftly enlisted by the studio to costar with Clive Brook in the sensitively titled When Love Grows Cold (1925). Under Kennedy's control, studio production shifted away from provocative fare in an attempt to brand the studio's films as suitable for the "average American" and the entire family: "We can't make pictures and label them 'For Children,' or 'For Women' or 'For Stout People' or 'For Thin Ones.' We must make pictures that have appeal to all." Though Kennedy ended the scandal-sheet specials, FBO still found occasion for celebrity casting: One Minute to Play (1926), directed by Sam Wood
, marks the film debut of football great "Red" Grange
.
Kennedy had no illusions about his studio's place in the realm of cinematic art. A journalist once complimented him on FBO's recent output: "You have had some good pictures this year." Kennedy jocularly inquired, "What the hell were they?" In her history of RKO, author Betty Lasky points to the pre-Kennedy Broken Laws (1924), directed by Roy William Neill
and starring Dorothy Davenport (again billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid) as exemplifying the rare "unforgettable picture of the higher caliber" put out by FBO.
Among the studio's action movies, one standout production was a 1927 Tarzan
picture. Author Edgar Rice Burroughs
declared, "If you want to see the personification of Tarzan of the Apes as I visualize him, see the film Tarzan and the Golden Lion
with Mr. James Pierce
." The Film Daily
reviewer wrote that the movie "has a rather new order of thrills and atmosphere that might prove distinctly attractive." The two-reeler
West of Hot Dog (1924), according to historian Simon Louvish, contains "one of Stan [Laurel]'s finest gags," involving a level of cinematic technique that bears comparison to Buster Keaton
's classic Sherlock, Jr.
Some of the studio's most impressive releases were foreign productions. In 1927, FBO picked up for U.S. distribution a celebrated Austrian biblical spectacular made three years earlier: Die Sklavenkönigin (The Slave Queen, aka Moon of Israel) had already won its director, Michael Kertész, a job with Warner Bros. In Hollywood, he would change his name to Michael Curtiz
. Una Nueva y gloriosa nación (1928), the most successful film in the history of Argentine silent cinema, was shot in Hollywood and distributed in the United States by FBO as The Charge of the Gauchos.
One of the two cinematographers
of Una Nueva y gloriosa nación was Nicholas Musuraca, who established his career at Film Booking Offices. With RKO, Musuraca would become one of Hollywood's most respected cinematographers. Among FBO's other offscreen talent, the best known director to work regularly at the studio was Ralph Ince, younger brother of famous filmmaker Thomas H. Ince
. Pulling double duty on occasion, Ralph Ince starred in four of the fourteen films he made for FBO. One production in which Ince served in both capacities was particularly well received: Chicago After Midnight (1928) was described by the New York Times as "[a]n unusually well-acted and adroitly directed underworld story." After The Mistress of Shenstone, Henry King directed two more R-C films with Pauline Frederick, also in 1921: Salvage and The Sting of the Lash. Tod Browning
directed two Gothic Pictures specials in 1924 starring Evelyn Brent: The Dangerous Flirt and Silk Stocking Sal. From 1921 to 1924, William Seiter directed a half-dozen FBO releases, some produced directly for the studio, others independently. Between 1922 and 1926, Emory Johnson produced and directed at least eight films for FBO. Historian William K. Everson
has pointed to Seiter and Johnson as two of the overlooked directorial talents of the silent era. Screenwriter Frances Marion
, who would win two Oscars in the 1930s, penned ten of the FBO pictures starring her husband, Fred Thomson. Editor
Pandro S. Berman
, son of a major FBO stockholder, cut his first film for the studio at the age of twenty-two; he would go on to renown as an RKO producer and production chief. Famed RKO costume designer
Walter Plunkett
was also an FBO graduate.
In addition to the work of Charles Bowers, FBO was a distributor of other significant animated films. Between 1924 and 1926, FBO released the work of John Randolph Bray
's cartoon studio, including the "Dinky Doodle
" series created by Walter Lantz
. From 1925 to 1927, the studio put out approximately three dozen animated adaptations of George Herriman
newspaper comics directed by William Nolan, featuring characters from Herriman's famed Krazy Kat
strip. FBO picked up the Krazy Kat cartoons from the distribution team of Margaret Winkler
and her husband, Charles Mintz
. In 1926, FBO struck a deal with the Winkler–Mintz operation for another series, one that, like Bowers' shorts, involved both animation and a live performer: the "Alice Comedies
," of which FBO would put out over two dozen, were created by two young animators, Ub Iwerks
and Walt Disney
.
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
, a producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began as Robertson-Cole (U.S.), the American division of a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
import–export company. Robertson-Cole initiated movie production in 1920; two years later, a corporate reorganization led to the company's new name. In 1923, the studio contracted with Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
actor Fred Thomson
Fred Thomson
Frederick Clifton Thomson was an American silent film cowboy who rivaled Tom Mix in popularity before dying at age 38 of tetanus.-Birth and athletic achievement:...
, who would soon emerge as one of Hollywood's most popular stars. Thomson was just one of numerous screen cowboys with whom FBO became identified.
The studio, whose core market was America's small towns, also put out many romantic melodramas, non-Western action pictures, and comedic shorts
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
. In 1926, financier Joseph P. Kennedy led a group that acquired the company. In June 1928, using RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
technology, FBO became only the second Hollywood studio to release a feature
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
-length "talkie
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
." A few months later, Kennedy and RCA chief David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
arranged the merger that created RKO, one of the major studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Foundation and identity
Mutual Film
Mutual Film Corporation was an early American motion picture conglomerate best remembered today as the producers of some of Charlie Chaplin's greatest comedies....
studio. The first of R-C's own feature productions
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
to be released was The Wonder Man, directed by John G. Adolfi
John G. Adolfi
John G. Adolfi was an American silent film director, actor, and screenwriter who was involved in more than 100 productions throughout his career.-Biography:...
and starring Georges Carpentier
Georges Carpentier
Georges Carpentier was a French boxer. He fought mainly as a light heavyweight and heavyweight in a career lasting from 1908-26. Nicknamed the "Orchid Man", he stood and his fighting weight ranged from...
, which debuted May 29, 1920. With its move into production, Robertson-Cole established a 13.5-acre (5.5-hectare) studio in Los Angeles's fortuitously named Colegrove district, then adjacent to but soon to be subsumed by Hollywood. In January 1921, Robertson-Cole absorbed Hallmark Pictures, which had acquired the Exhibitors Mutual interests the previous year. The first official Robertson-Cole production shot at the new studio was a February 1921 release, The Mistress of Shenstone, directed by Henry King
Henry King (director)
Henry King was an American film director.Before coming to film, King worked as an actor in various repertoire theatres, and first started to take small film roles in 1912. He directed for the first time in 1915, and grew to become one of the most commercially successful Hollywood directors of the...
and starring Pauline Frederick
Pauline Frederick
Pauline Frederick was a leading Broadway actress who later became known for her motion picture work.-Early years:...
. That year, the British owners of the studio entered into a working relationship with Joseph P. Kennedy, father of future U.S. president John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. Joseph Kennedy was then a broker at the New York banking firm of Hayden, Stone, as well as the owner of Maine–New Hampshire Theatres, a small chain of movie houses. Though he failed to arrange the sale R-C's general partners were looking for, Kennedy's involvement with the studio was far from over.
In 1922, Robertson-Cole underwent a major reorganization as the company's founders departed, though the corporation remained under majority British ownership. The flagship U.S. distribution business changed its name to Film Booking Offices of America, a banner under which R-C had released more than a dozen independent productions. The West Coast studio apparently continued to make films under the Robertson-Cole name for some time, but FBO ultimately became the primary identity of the business for production as well as distribution. Between the 1922 reorganization and October 1923, one of the company's new American investors, Pat Powers, was effectively in command. Powers had previously led his own filmmaking company, part of the multiple merger that created the large Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
studio in 1912. Powers apparently changed the name of Robertson-Cole/FBO to the Powers Studio for a brief period, though there is no record of the company ever having produced or released a film under that banner. In 1923, the studio launched a series of boxing-themed shorts
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
, "Fighting Blood," starring George O'Hara
George O'Hara (actor)
George O'Hara was an American motion picture actor and screenwriter of the silent film era.- Biography :...
. He would become an FBO mainstay, often paired with Alberta Vaughn
Alberta Vaughn
Alberta Vaughn was an American actress in silent motion pictures and early Western sound films. She appeared in some 130 motion pictures.-Career:...
, in such comedy series as "The Pacemakers" (1925). Most of O'Hara's and Vaughn's films for the studio were two-reelers—a measure of film length indicating a running time of about twenty minutes.
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
star Fred Thomson
Fred Thomson
Frederick Clifton Thomson was an American silent film cowboy who rivaled Tom Mix in popularity before dying at age 38 of tetanus.-Birth and athletic achievement:...
. B. P. Fineman became the studio's production chief in 1924; Evelyn Brent
Evelyn Brent
Evelyn Brent was an American film and stage actress.-Early life:Born Mary Elizabeth Riggs in Tampa, Florida and known as Betty, she was a child of 10 when her mother Eleanor died, leaving her father Arthur to raise her alone...
, his wife, moved over from Fox to become FBO's top dramatic star. In April 1925, FBO vice-president Joseph I. Schnitzer signed Thomson to a new contract paying him $10,000 a week. Thomson was now the highest paid of all cowboy actors, surpassing even the renowned Tom Mix
Tom Mix
Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features...
. The deal also gave Thomson his own independent production unit at the studio.
As a distributor, FBO's roster of films was about half independent and foreign productions, half its own studio output. At the height of its activity (1923–28), it released an average of around 110 features and shorts a year, focusing on distribution to small-town exhibitors and independent theater chains (that is, those not owned by one of the major Hollywood studios). As a production company, Film Booking Offices concentrated on low-budget movies, with an emphasis on Westerns, romantic melodramas, and comedy shorts. From its first productions in early 1920 through late 1928, when it was dissolved in a merger, the company produced approximately 400 films under the brand of either Robertson-Cole Pictures or FBO Pictures. Between 1924 and 1926, several higher-end productions were made under the rubric of Gothic Pictures. The studio's top-of-the-line movies, aimed at major exhibition venues beyond the reach of most FBO films, were sometimes marketed as FBO "Gold Bond" pictures. Without the backing of large corporate interests, nor the security of its own theater chain, the company faced cash-flow difficulties during its earlier years. Short-term loans at high interest rates posed a significant financial drain.
Kennedy takes command
Filene's
Filene's was a Boston-based department store owned by Federated Department Stores , and May Department Stores . It operated throughout New England and in New York.-Early years:...
department store owner Louis Kirstein and Union Stockyards and Armour and Company
Armour and Company
Armour & Company was an American slaughterhouse and meatpacking company founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1867 by the Armour brothers, led by Philip Danforth Armour. By 1880, the company was Chicago's most important business and helped make the city and its Union Stock Yards the center of the...
owner Frederick H. Prince
Frederick H. Prince
Frederick Henry Prince was an American stockbroker, investment banker and financier.He was born in Winchester, Massachusetts, the son of Frederick O. Prince, former Mayor of the city of Boston and Helen Henry Prince. He studied at Harvard University, but left in his sophomore year to get an early...
. In August 1925, Kennedy traveled to England with an offer to buy a controlling stake in Film Booking Offices for $1 million. The bid was initially rejected, but in February 1926, FBO's owners decided to take the money. In short order, Kennedy moved his family from Massachusetts to New York City to focus on running his new business. He swiftly addressed the company's perennial cash-flow problems, arranging lines of credit and issuing stock in a business division he established, the Cinema Credit Corporation. By March, he was traveling to Hollywood. The president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
, Will Hays
Will H. Hays
William Harrison Hays, Sr. , was the namesake of the Hays Code for censorship of American films, chairman of the Republican National Committee and U.S. Postmaster General from 1921 to 1922....
, was delighted by the new face on the scene—in Hays's eyes, Kennedy signified both a desirable image for the industry and Wall Street's faith in its prospects. Hays heralded Kennedy as "exceedingly American" (historian Cari Beauchamp explains the connotation: "not Jewish," in contrast to most of the studio heads), while celebrating Kennedy's "background of lofty and conservative financial connections, an atmosphere of much home and family life and all those fireside virtues of which the public never hears in the current news from Hollywood."
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
. Westerns remained the studio's backbone, along with various action pictures and romantic scenarios; as Kennedy put it, "Melodrama is our meat." During this period, the average production cost of FBO features was around $50,000, and few were budgeted at anything more than $75,000. By comparison, in 1927–28 the average cost at Fox was $190,000; at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, $275,000. One major expense was taken on directly by Kennedy: with several studios competing for Fred Thomson, Kennedy signed him to a personal contract for $15,000 a week. This was the highest straight salary for any actor in the industry, matched only by Tom Mix's new arrangement with Fox. Under the contract, Kennedy struck a deal in early 1927 with Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
for the major studio to produce and distribute a series of four Thomson "super westerns." Kennedy participated in the films' financing (and profits) and the actor's company stayed on the FBO lot. Of the four Thomson features that reached theaters in 1927, three were FBO releases.
Sound enters the picture
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
would drastically alter the studio's course: Negotiations that began in late 1927 with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) on a deal for sound conversion led to RCA purchasing a major interest in FBO in January 1928. Four months later, as part of a strategy conceived with RCA head David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
, Kennedy acquired control of Keith-Albee-Orpheum
Keith-Albee-Orpheum
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit, Inc..-History:...
(KAO), a vaudeville exhibition chain with approximately one hundred theaters across the United States and the Pathé (U.S.)
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
–De Mille filmmaking operations under its charge. On June 17, 1928, FBO's The Perfect Crime, directed by Bert Glennon
Bert Glennon
Bert Glennon was an American cinematographer and film director.He was nominated for three Academy Awards in Best Cinematography categories for the films Stagecoach , Drums Along the Mohawk , and Dive Bomber .Glennon worked as a cinematographer on over a hundred films for directors including John...
and starring Clive Brook and Irene Rich
Irene Rich
Irene Rich was an American actress who worked in both silent films and talkies.-Career:Born Irene Luther in Buffalo, New York, Rich worked for Will Rogers, who used her in eight pictures, including Water Water Everywhere , The Strange Boarder , Jes' Call Me Jim , Boys Will Be Boys and The Ropin'...
, debuted. It was the first feature-length "talkie" to appear from a studio other than Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
since the epochal premiere of Warners' The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
eight months before. The Perfect Crime, which went into general release on August 4, had been shot silently; using RCA's sound-on-film
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
Photophone
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
system, the dialogue was dubbed
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
in afterward—a process then known as "synthetic sound." On August 22, Kennedy signed a contract with RCA for live Photophone recording; more importantly, he also tendered the company an option to buy his governing share of FBO. Two months later, RCA had acquired controlling stock interests in both the studio and KAO.
On October 23, 1928, RCA announced it was merging Film Booking Offices and Keith-Albee-Orpheum to form the new motion picture business Radio-Keith-Orpheum
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
(RKO), with Sarnoff as chairman. Kennedy, who retained Pathé, was paid $150,000 for arranging the merger on top of the millions of dollars in profit he made from selling off his stock. Joseph I. Schnitzer, ranking FBO vice-president, was elevated to president of the new company's production arm, replacing Kennedy. William LeBaron, the last FBO production chief, retained his position after the merger, but the new studio, dedicated to full sound production, cut ties with most of FBO's roster of silent-screen performers. Movies that Film Booking Offices had either produced or arranged to distribute were released under the FBO banner through the end of 1929. The last official FBO production to reach American theaters was Pals of the Prairie, directed by Louis King and starring Buzz Barton and Frank Rice, released July 1, 1929.
Headliners and celebrity casting
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
s, with no copies now known to exist. Partly in consequence, many of FBO's star actors are barely remembered today. Pauline Frederick
Pauline Frederick
Pauline Frederick was a leading Broadway actress who later became known for her motion picture work.-Early years:...
was the major headliner of the early R-C days, and Evelyn Brent
Evelyn Brent
Evelyn Brent was an American film and stage actress.-Early life:Born Mary Elizabeth Riggs in Tampa, Florida and known as Betty, she was a child of 10 when her mother Eleanor died, leaving her father Arthur to raise her alone...
was FBO's most prized non-Western star. Warner Baxter
Warner Baxter
Warner Leroy Baxter was an American actor, known for his role as The Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona , for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1928–1929 Academy Awards. Warner Baxter started his movie career in silent movies...
, Joe E. Brown
Joe E. Brown (comedian)
Joseph Evans Brown was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. In 1902 at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville...
, and young Frankie Darro
Frankie Darro
Frankie Darro was an American actor and later in his career a stuntman. He began his career as a child actor in silent films, progressed to lead roles and co-starring roles in adventure, western, dramatic, and comedy films, and later became a character actor and voice-over artist.-Early life:Darro...
were among the other prominent FBO players. Anna Q. Nilsson
Anna Q. Nilsson
Anna Quirentia Nilsson was a Swedish born American actress who achieved success in American silent movies.-Background:...
starred in two of the studio's larger productions, as did Olive Borden
Olive Borden
Olive Borden was an American actress in silent and early talkies. Nicknamed "The Joy Girl", Borden was known for her jet-black hair and overall beauty.-Early life:Olive Borden was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1906...
and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. FBO's leading star of action and mystery pictures was Richard Talmadge
Richard Talmadge
Richard Talmadge was a Swiss-born American actor, stuntman and film director....
. He appeared in eighteen FBO releases, more than half of them produced by his own company. Maurice "Lefty" Flynn starred in over a dozen FBO action films, all directed by Harry Garson, who also ran his own production business. From the studio's pre-Hollywood days in 1920 through 1928, Ralph Lewis starred in more than ten R-C and FBO pictures of various genres. Former model Reed Howes
Reed Howes
Reed Howes was a model who later became an actor in silent and sound films.He was born as Hermon Reed Howes in Washington, D.C. in 1900. He served in the US Navy in the closing stages of World War I. After the war Howes attended the University of Utah where he graduated...
, renowned as an "Arrow Collar Man
The Arrow Collar Man
The Arrow Collar Man was the name given to the various male models who appeared in advertisements for shirts and detachable shirt collars manufactured by Cluett Peabody & Company of Troy, New York...
", made his acting debut with FBO after an extensive publicity campaign.
Central to the FBO identity were Westerns and the studio's major cowboy star, Fred Thomson. In both 1926 and 1927, he ranked number two in the Exhibitors' Herald survey of the "Top Stars of the Year," right behind Tom Mix. When Thomson's personal contract with Kennedy expired in mid-1927, he left permanently for Paramount, almost literally next door. FBO's second-biggest long-running Western star was Tom Tyler
Tom Tyler
Tom Tyler was an American actor in silent and sound motion pictures, best known for his portrayal of superhero Captain Marvel in the acclaimed 1941 movie serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel.-Biography:...
. According to a June 1927 report, "With Tom Tyler rapidly taking the place recently vacated by Fred Thomson, F.B.O.’s program of western pictures is taking a place second to none in the industry.... Tyler has made rapid strides during his two years with F.B.O. and with his horse ‘Flash’ and dog ‘Beans’ has become one of the leading favorites on the screen.” In 1928, Tom Mix himself joined the FBO roster. In addition to these three big names there was also Harry Carey, still a major star when he made several films for the studio in 1922–23. The other cowboy stars of FBO included Bob Custer
Bob Custer
Bob Custer was an American film actor who appeared in over 50 films, mostly Westerns, between 1924 and 1937, including The Fighting Hombre, Arizona Days, The Last Roundup, The Oklahoma Kid, Law of the Rio Grande, The Law of the Wild and Ambush Valley...
, Bob Steele, and teenager Buzz Barton. One of the studio's most reliable Western headliners was a dog: Ranger. The fabled Strongheart
Strongheart
Strongheart was the screen name of Etzel von Oeringen , a German Shepherd that became one of the earliest canine film stars. After being trained in Germany as a police dog, he was brought to the United States by husband and wife filmmakers Laurence Trimble and Jane Murfin, who had previously worked...
starred in FBO's White Fang (1925), and Rin Tin Tin
Rin Tin Tin
Rin Tin Tin was the name given to a dog adopted from a WWI battlefield that went on to star in twenty-three Hollywood films. The name was subsequently given to several related German Shepherd dogs featured in fictional stories on film, radio and television.-Origins:The first of the line Rin Tin...
had one of his earliest roles in My Dad (1922). FBO's many shorts—the popular George O'Hara and Alberta Vaughn series, and scores of others—are largely forgotten. Of particular historical interest are two independently produced series of slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
comedies with important performers: FBO put out several shorts in 1924–25 made by Joe Rock
Joe Rock
Joe Rock was an American movie producer, director, actor and screenwriter best remembered today for producing a series of 12 two reel comedies starring Stan Laurel in the 1920s....
and starring Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
, before his famous partnership with Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
. In 1926–27, the company distributed more than a dozen shorts by innovative comedian/animator Charles Bowers
Charles Bowers
Charles R. Bowers was an American cartoonist and slapstick comedian during the silent film and early "talkie" era. He was forgotten for decades and his name was notably absent from most histories of the Silent Era, although his work was enthusiastically reviewed by André Breton and a number of...
.
Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid was an actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".-Early life:Born William Wallace Reid in St...
, brought on by morphine addiction, his widow, Dorothy Davenport
Dorothy Davenport
Dorothy Davenport was an American actress, screenwriter, film director, and producer who appeared in silent film for Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith.-Early career:...
, signed on as producer and star of a cinematic examination of the sins of substance abuse: Human Wreckage
Human Wreckage
Human Wreckage was an independent silent film production by Dorothy Davenport, widow of actor Wallace Reid, who died on 18 January 1923 from complications of morphine addiction.-Production background:...
, released by FBO in June 1923, five months after Reid's death, featured Davenport (billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid) as the wife of a noble attorney turned dope fiend. When the biggest movie star in the world, Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
, split from his wife, Natacha Rambova
Natacha Rambova
Natacha Rambova was an American silent film costume and set designer, artistic director, screenwriter, producer and occasional actress. Later in life she worked as a mildly successful fashion designer and Egyptologist....
, she was swiftly enlisted by the studio to costar with Clive Brook in the sensitively titled When Love Grows Cold (1925). Under Kennedy's control, studio production shifted away from provocative fare in an attempt to brand the studio's films as suitable for the "average American" and the entire family: "We can't make pictures and label them 'For Children,' or 'For Women' or 'For Stout People' or 'For Thin Ones.' We must make pictures that have appeal to all." Though Kennedy ended the scandal-sheet specials, FBO still found occasion for celebrity casting: One Minute to Play (1926), directed by Sam Wood
Sam Wood
Samuel Grosvenor "Sam" Wood was an American film director, and producer, who was best known for directing such Hollywood hits as A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and The Pride of the Yankees...
, marks the film debut of football great "Red" Grange
Red Grange
Harold Edward "Red" Grange, nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost", was a college and professional American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and for the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League...
.
Notable films and filmmakers
Roy William Neill
Roy William Neill was a film director best known today for directing several of the Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, made between 1943 and 1946 and released by Universal Studios....
and starring Dorothy Davenport (again billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid) as exemplifying the rare "unforgettable picture of the higher caliber" put out by FBO.
Among the studio's action movies, one standout production was a 1927 Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
picture. Author Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
declared, "If you want to see the personification of Tarzan of the Apes as I visualize him, see the film Tarzan and the Golden Lion
Tarzan and the Golden Lion (film)
Tarzan and the Golden Lion is a Tarzan film based on the 1923 novel of the same title written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of the Tarzan character. The film starred James Pierce as Tarzan, Frederick Peters as Esteban Miranda, Dorothy Dunbar as Jane, and Edna Murphy as Betty Greystoke. The film...
with Mr. James Pierce
James Pierce
James Hubert Pierce , of Shelbyville, Indiana, was the fourth actor to portray Tarzan on film.-Early life/College/Early film career:...
." The Film Daily
Film Daily
The Film Daily was a daily publication that existed from 1915 to 1970 in the United States.For 55 years, Film Daily was the main source of news on the film and television industries...
reviewer wrote that the movie "has a rather new order of thrills and atmosphere that might prove distinctly attractive." The two-reeler
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
West of Hot Dog (1924), according to historian Simon Louvish, contains "one of Stan [Laurel]'s finest gags," involving a level of cinematic technique that bears comparison to Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
's classic Sherlock, Jr.
Sherlock, Jr.
Sherlock, Jr. is an American silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton and written by Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez and Joseph A. Mitchell...
Some of the studio's most impressive releases were foreign productions. In 1927, FBO picked up for U.S. distribution a celebrated Austrian biblical spectacular made three years earlier: Die Sklavenkönigin (The Slave Queen, aka Moon of Israel) had already won its director, Michael Kertész, a job with Warner Bros. In Hollywood, he would change his name to Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz was an Academy award winning Hungarian-American film director. He had early creditsas Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész...
. Una Nueva y gloriosa nación (1928), the most successful film in the history of Argentine silent cinema, was shot in Hollywood and distributed in the United States by FBO as The Charge of the Gauchos.
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
of Una Nueva y gloriosa nación was Nicholas Musuraca, who established his career at Film Booking Offices. With RKO, Musuraca would become one of Hollywood's most respected cinematographers. Among FBO's other offscreen talent, the best known director to work regularly at the studio was Ralph Ince, younger brother of famous filmmaker Thomas H. Ince
Thomas H. Ince
Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film actor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line"...
. Pulling double duty on occasion, Ralph Ince starred in four of the fourteen films he made for FBO. One production in which Ince served in both capacities was particularly well received: Chicago After Midnight (1928) was described by the New York Times as "[a]n unusually well-acted and adroitly directed underworld story." After The Mistress of Shenstone, Henry King directed two more R-C films with Pauline Frederick, also in 1921: Salvage and The Sting of the Lash. Tod Browning
Tod Browning
Tod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
directed two Gothic Pictures specials in 1924 starring Evelyn Brent: The Dangerous Flirt and Silk Stocking Sal. From 1921 to 1924, William Seiter directed a half-dozen FBO releases, some produced directly for the studio, others independently. Between 1922 and 1926, Emory Johnson produced and directed at least eight films for FBO. Historian William K. Everson
William K. Everson
William Keith "Bill" Everson was an English-American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector and film historian. He often discovered lost films.-Early life and career:...
has pointed to Seiter and Johnson as two of the overlooked directorial talents of the silent era. Screenwriter Frances Marion
Frances Marion
Frances Marion was an American journalist, author, and screenwriter often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the twentieth century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos.-Career:...
, who would win two Oscars in the 1930s, penned ten of the FBO pictures starring her husband, Fred Thomson. Editor
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...
Pandro S. Berman
Pandro S. Berman
Pandro Samuel Berman , was an American film producer.-Biography:His father, Henry Berman, was general manager of Universal Pictures during Hollywood's formative years. The younger Berman, Pandro Samuel, was an assistant director during the 1920s under Mal St. Clair and Ralph Ince...
, son of a major FBO stockholder, cut his first film for the studio at the age of twenty-two; he would go on to renown as an RKO producer and production chief. Famed RKO costume designer
Costume Designer
A costume designer or costume mistress/master is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered an important part of the "production team", working alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The...
Walter Plunkett
Walter Plunkett
Walter Plunkett was a prolific costume designer who worked on more than 150 projects throughout his career in the Hollywood film industry....
was also an FBO graduate.
In addition to the work of Charles Bowers, FBO was a distributor of other significant animated films. Between 1924 and 1926, FBO released the work of John Randolph Bray
John Randolph Bray
John Randolph Bray was an American animator. He produced the second animated film in color, The Debut of Thomas Cat , in Brewster Color, developed by Percy D. Brewster of Newark, New Jersey...
's cartoon studio, including the "Dinky Doodle
Dinky Doodle
Dinky Doodle was a cartoon character created by Walter Lantz for Bray Productions in 1924. Dinky was standard boy character, sporting a flat cap, a striped shirt, and dark shorts...
" series created by Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz
Walter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.-Early years and start in animation:...
. From 1925 to 1927, the studio put out approximately three dozen animated adaptations of George Herriman
George Herriman
George Joseph Herriman was an American cartoonist, best known for his classic comic strip Krazy Kat.-Early life:...
newspaper comics directed by William Nolan, featuring characters from Herriman's famed Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
strip. FBO picked up the Krazy Kat cartoons from the distribution team of Margaret Winkler
Margaret J. Winkler
Margaret J. Winkler was one of the key figures in silent animation history, having a crucial role to play in the histories of Max and Dave Fleischer, Pat Sullivan, Otto Messmer, and Walt Disney...
and her husband, Charles Mintz
Charles B. Mintz
Charles B. Mintz was an American film producer and distributor, who took control over Margaret J. Winkler's Winkler Pictures after marrying her in 1924....
. In 1926, FBO struck a deal with the Winkler–Mintz operation for another series, one that, like Bowers' shorts, involved both animation and a live performer: the "Alice Comedies
Alice Comedies
The "Alice Comedies" are a series of animated cartoonscreated by Walt Disney in the 1920s, in which a live action little girl named Alice and an animated cat named Julius have adventures in an animated landscape....
," of which FBO would put out over two dozen, were created by two young animators, Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks, A.S.C. was a two-time Academy Award winning American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, creator of Mickey Mouse, and special effects technician, who was famous for his work for Walt Disney....
and Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
.
Sources
- Beauchamp, Cari (1998). Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press). ISBN 0-520-21492-7
- Buehrer, Beverley Bare (1993). Boris Karloff: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press). ISBN 0-313-27715-X
- Christgau, John (1999). The Origins of the Jump Shot: Eight Men Who Shook the World of Basketball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press). ISBN 0-8032-6394-5
- "Cinemerger" [anon.] (1927). Time, May 2 (available online).
- Corneau, Ernest N. (1969). The Hall of Fame of Western Film Stars (Hanover, Mass.: Christopher Publishing House). ISBN 0-8158-0124-6
- Crafton, Donald (1993). Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898–1928 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press). ISBN 0-226-11667-0
- Crafton, Donald (1997). The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926–1931 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons). ISBN 0-684-19585-2
- Ellis, Don Carlos, and Laura Thornborough (1923). Motion Pictures in Education: A Practical Handbook for Users of Visual Aids (New York: Thomas V. Crowell).
- Everson, William K. (1998). American Silent Film (New York: Da Capo). ISBN 0-306-80876-5
- "F.B.O. Announces Tom Tyler as ‘Surprise' Western Star” [anon.] (1925). Moving Picture World, August 8.
- Fenton, James W. (2002). Edgar Rice Burroughs and Tarzan: A Biography of the Author and His Creation (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland). ISBN 0-7864-1393-X
- Finkielman, Jorge (2004). The Film Industry in Argentina: An Illustrated Cultural History (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland). ISBN 0-7864-1628-9
- Finler, Joel W. (1988). The Hollywood Story (New York: Crown). ISBN 0-517-56576-5
- Goodwin, Doris Kearns (1987). The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga (New York: Simon & Schuster). ISBN 0-671-23108-1
- Hall, Mordaunt (1926). "'Red' Grange's First Film," The New York Times, September 6 (available online).
- Hall, Mordaunt (1928). "An Irish Mother. Bootleggers and Night Clubs," The New York Times, March 6 (available online).
- Heritage Vintage Movie Poster Signature Auction #603 (Dallas: Heritage Vintage Movie Posters, 2004a). ISBN 1-932899-15-4
- Heritage Vintage Movie Poster Signature Auction #607 (Dallas: Heritage Vintage Movie Posters, 2004b). ISBN 1-932899-35-9
- Heritage Vintage Movie Poster Signature Auction #624 (Dallas: Heritage Vintage Movie Posters, 2005). ISBN 1-59967-004-6
- Jewell, Richard B., with Vernon Harbin (1982). The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House/Crown). ISBN 0-517-54656-6
- Kemp, Philip (1987). "Curtiz, Michael," in World Film Directors, Volume 1: 1890–1945, ed. John Wakeman (New York: H. W. Wilson), 172–181. ISBN 0-8242-0757-2
- Koszarski, Richard (1990). An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915–1928 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press). ISBN 0-520-08535-3
- Langer, Mark (1995). "John Randolph Bray: Animation Pioneer," in American Silent Film: Discovering Marginalized Voices, ed. Gregg Bachman and Thomas J. Slater (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 2002), pp. 94–114. ISBN 0-8093-2402-4
- Langman, Larry (1998). American Film Cycles: The Silent Era (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press). ISBN 0-313-30657-5
- Lasky, Betty (1989). RKO: The Biggest Little Major of Them All (Santa Monica, Calif.: Roundtable). ISBN 0-915677-41-5
- Louvish, Simon (2001). Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy: The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy (New York: St. Martin's). ISBN 0-312-26651-0
- Lyons, Timothy James (1974 [1972]). The Silent Partner: The History of the American Film Manufacturing Company, 1910–1921 (New York: Arno Press). ISBN 0-405-04872-6
- Sandburg, Carl (1925). "White Fang," in The Movies Are: Carl Sandburg's Film Reviews and Essays, 1920–1928, ed. Arnie Bernstein (Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 2000), pp. 270–71. ISBN 1-893121-05-4
- Schaefer, Eric (1999). "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1959 (Durham and London: Duke University Press). ISBN 0-8223-2374-5
- Sherwood, Robert Emmet (1923). The Best Moving Pictures of 1922–23 (Boston: Small, Maynard).
- Sullivan, Jack, ed. (1986). The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and The Supernatural (New York: Viking). ISBN 0-670-80902-0
External links
- The Silent Films of FBO Pictures comprehensive listing of silent features produced by FBO/Robertson–Cole and released between 1925 and 1929—see also The Early Sound Films of Radio Pictures for FBO sound productions released in 1928 (the list does not clearly indicate the several FBO sound productions released in 1929); both part of Vitaphone Video Early Talkies website