If not for inventor Thomas Edison's iron grip over the nascent film industry, and a few defiant trailblazers, movies as we know them might have never come to be.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the story behind the birth of Hollywood?
It's raining out, so you hustle inside. You grab your popcorn with extra butter and your Diet Coke, and you settle into a cozy red leather chair. The lights go down, and there's no place you'd rather be. The movie theater. And today's film has a timeless theme. The underdog who stands up to the bully... You sit through it, and it's okay.
Not gonna win any awards, but perfect for a lazy afternoon when you have nothing better to do. Anyway, who doesn't love a good bully beatdown? But here's the twist. The story of how the movie industry was born is much more interesting than anything we might watch in a theater.
And it came at a time when people made their own rules, and the constant threat of violence created a dangerous vacuum for a few brave souls to step into. This is the story of a group of renegade visionaries, the death and spectacular rebirth of the first movie star, and a battle for supremacy with the most famous and cutthroat inventor in the world.
And all of it came together to shape not only our culture, but the actual geography of our country itself. And this story, this is a real Bully Beatdown. On today's episode, the spectacular and improbable birth of Hollywood. This is a twist of history. It's summer, 1909 in New York City.
Chapter 2: Who was Carl Laemmle and why is he important?
43-year-old Carl Lemley sits on the passenger side of a Ford Model T as one of his employees drives him through a seedy part of town. In the distance, Carl sees Singer Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world, and he's blown away. Carl has recently moved back to New York after living in Chicago for years.
And as somebody who grew up in a small German village filled with centuries-old buildings, Manhattan's new skyscrapers seem like something out of science fiction. Carl tells his employee to pull over. The employee looks scared, but he follows Carl's orders. Carl gets out and tells him to wait there and to be ready to drive when the time comes. Karl turns onto a narrow street.
He walks past a few people scattered on the sidewalk, and they eye him like he might be their next meal. Or like maybe he's a cop. Carl doesn't flinch. He knows he stands out here in his tailored suit. Honestly, he's used to standing out everywhere. Because Carl is only 5'2", and even his friends say he looks like a little elf.
But his size has forced him to learn how to fight people a lot bigger than him from an early age. So he isn't intimidated by anyone. Especially not the people he's passing on this street. He knows why these people are here. To sell goods on the black market.
Some deal in opium, which has just recently become harder to get a doctor's prescription for, and some just sell legal items like liquor and cigarettes at a discount price. Carl spots the man he's come to see, lingering in the shadows near the end of the street. The man approaches, holding a wooden box that's almost too big for one person to hold.
Carl reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of cash. and the man opens the box just enough for Carl to look inside. A huge smile stretches across Carl's face. The object in the box is more beautiful than he imagined. He hands over the cash and grabs the box. It's bulky, but he clutches it close and walks as fast as he can back down the street.
He gets to the corner, climbs into the Model T, and shouts for his employee to drive. A few minutes later, when Carl is sure they're in the clear, he opens the box all the way. He can't believe he had to get this on the black market, but it was worth it. It's not drugs or liquor or anything like that. The object in the box is a brand new movie camera.
It's later that night in a small office building on East 14th Street in New York City. This is the headquarters of Carl's company, Independent Moving Pictures. He calls it IMP for short. Carl pours himself a drink, takes a sip, and studies a budget breakdown for what he hopes will be the first movie he produces. In 1909, silent movies, usually called moving or motion pictures, are still a novelty.
They're not considered works of art. They're cheap to make, and they're often just quick action scenes or clips from a vaudeville show that run a few minutes long. They play at Nickelodeons, which are small theaters that cost five cents, and most are housed in cramped storefronts with cheap instruments used for musical accompaniment.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did early filmmakers face from the Trust?
Luccaro has spent the last three years as owner and operator of several large, high-quality Nickelodeons in Chicago. These are the first family-friendly movie theaters in the United States, and they're making imp-good money. Or at least, they were making imp-good money.
But running Nickelodeons is getting harder every day, thanks to a powerful, cutthroat organization that everybody just calls The Trust. Carl takes another swig of his drink and stares at the budget, doing the math in his head. He has a crazy idea. A dangerous idea. He gets up and goes to the wooden box laying on the floor. He takes out the camera and sets it up on a tripod.
Carl knows that if certain people find out he bought this camera on the black market, there will be hell to pay. Because right now, the Trust runs every aspect of the American film industry. The Trust's official name is the Motion Picture Patents Company. It controls movie making through a number of patents on cameras, lighting, and other film equipment, and through sheer force.
Basically, anyone who wants to make a movie in America or show a movie in American theaters has to fork over a bunch of money to the trust. But Carl hasn't paid the trust a penny, and he doesn't plan to. His idea is to make his own movies with his own equipment and put them in theaters all over the country without charging owners exorbitant fees.
This is why he came to New York, which is the one place in America where movies get made. He wants to beat the Trust at their game, on their turf. Carl walks back to his desk, finishes his drink, and scans his budget one last time. He might be crazy, but the idea of taking on the Trust excites him.
Carl has spent his whole life fighting bullies, and as far as he's concerned, the Trust is run by one of the biggest bullies in the world. It's a man who holds countless patents. He's the wizard of Menlo Park and the inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison. It's months later on October 23rd, 1909 in West Orange, New Jersey, about 20 miles from Carl's New York office.
Patent attorney and president of the trust, Frank Dyer, walks towards a red brick building that's part of Thomas Edison's sprawling laboratory complex. He clutches a newspaper in his hand. In a field nearby, Frank sees remnants of a large wooden structure that used to be the home of Thomas Edison's Black Maria studio, the first movie studio in the world.
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Chapter 4: How did Carl Laemmle challenge Thomas Edison?
Edison and the Trust shut it down years ago to open a state-of-the-art studio in New York City. Frank steps into the brick building and walks towards an office at the end of a long hallway. Not a strand of Frank's dark hair is out of place, and his suit fits perfectly. Frank is always the most neatly dressed man in any room he walks into. And he's almost always the most aggressive.
Frank knocks on the door and hears, come in from the other side. He walks into the office, crosses to a desk in front of a large window and slams down the newspaper. His boss, 62-year-old Thomas Edison says, good morning, Frank, in a soft voice. Looking at Edison, it's easy to think that he's somebody's kindly uncle, or the brilliant absent-minded inventor the press portrays him as.
And those aspects of Edison definitely exist. But Frank knows that just like him, Edison's affable appearance and manner mask his ruthless side. Edison picks up the newspaper, his jaw clenches, his grip tightens, and he throws the paper down.
Right there in bold print is a huge ad for Carl Laemmle's new motion picture that premieres in two days, a 15-minute film called Hiawatha, which is inspired by a Longfellow poem about a Native American hero. Edison doesn't care what's in the movie. He only cares that the movie was produced by somebody other than him.
Back in the late 1800s, Edison used to produce movies himself, putting out some of the earliest films available to the public. Since dismantling his Black Maria studio and opening a Manhattan studio, Edison has completely stepped away from the filmmaking process. But that doesn't mean that he's loosened his grip on the industry as a whole.
So he can't understand how Carl has made a film in secret without paying a dime to the Trust. Frank tells him that Carl must have bought equipment on the black market. It's a practice the Trust has started to catch wind of. Carl has also made deals with theaters behind the Trust's back. And now, It's clear the man is openly antagonizing them with this newspaper ad.
Edison sits at his desk fuming, but he doesn't raise his voice. He calmly demands to know what Frank is going to do to solve this little problem. Frank lays out a plan. They'll go after Carl's film in the press, and they'll remind the public that Edison and members of the trust produce motion pictures with a good moral tone. Taking this moral stance is a move Edison often uses against rivals.
It's seen by many as an appeal to those who believe immigrants, like Carl Laemmle, do not possess the same moral standards as people born in the United States. Frank heads for the door and tells Edison not to worry, he'll take care of it. After all, if the smear campaign doesn't work, the troughs will just have to use stronger tactics.
It's December of 1909, less than two months after the release of Hiawatha. Carl Laemmle walks around a film set in a small studio he's opened in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which happens to be about 20 miles from Edison's lab. Despite the truss' hopes, the attacks against Carl and the press didn't scare him off. In fact, they emboldened him.
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Chapter 5: What was the significance of the film Hiawatha?
Since the premiere of Hiawatha, Carl and his team have been on a tear, releasing 11 more short films. They spend a couple of days shooting one and immediately move to the next. Carl checks the camera in the new mercury vapor tube he's bought. It's the first kind of movie lighting available. Even with this technology, Carl knows IMP is still a small operation.
But standing on set, he can't remember feeling more excited. When he was a kid in Germany, he used to read translations of American dime novels that told stories of cowboys, detectives, and science fiction heroes. For Carl, these books became a window into new worlds. Now, he feels like he's giving people the chance to experience that same thing.
Because as much as Carl wants to challenge Edison and bring down the trust, he also wants to make movies that give people an escape from their lives. Carl checks in with his director and lead actress. They're ready to go, so he gets out of the way. But just as the camera starts rolling, the door to the studio flies open, and three large men in suits burst in. Hired mobsters.
Before Carl knows what's happening, one of the men slams his fist into the director's face. Carl scrambles to try to help, but one of the other men rushes him and knocks him off his feet. Pain shoots through Carl's back and neck. All he can do is lay there and watch as the third man picks up his camera and smashes it on the floor. It's 1910 at the Imp offices in New York.
Carl steps outside into the cold night air. He scans the street and it looks clear. It's been a hard day, a hard month, and Carl is tired and hungry. He walks down the street so he can get some food before he goes home, but his eyes never stop moving.
The run-in with the thugs at his studio a couple of months earlier has not kept Carl from buying more black market equipment and producing more short films. But he knows the trust is gunning for him, so he's had to be smart. He no longer makes movies in the New Jersey studio.
Instead, he leads his crew from location to location, places out in the woods or in abandoned buildings, anywhere the trust won't find him. Still, when he's alone on the street at night, he feels like he's being hunted. Suddenly, Carl hears footsteps behind him. He freezes and tenses up, ready for a fight.
He turns around, and in the dim light of the incandescent street lamps, he sees four men who look like they're in their twenties. Carl braces himself. But one of the young men steps forward and apologizes for stopping Carl on the street. The four of them were trying to catch him at his office. Carl relaxes a little and asks the man who he is.
The man extends his hand, says his name is Harry, and the others are Albert, Sam, and Jack. But most people just call them the Warners. Back at the office, Carl meets with the Warners and realizes they all have a lot in common. The three oldest are immigrants like Carl as well, though they came over from Poland, not Germany. And, just like Carl, they got their start by opening Nickelodeon's.
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Chapter 6: How did Laemmle's partnership with the Warners impact the industry?
Magnesium powder ignites from flashes of the press cameras. The bright lights stun Florence and she feels afraid. Nothing like this has ever happened to a film actor. Carl thanks everyone for coming and quickly rushes Florence back onto the train. Once he's sure Florence is okay, Carl gets a wicked grin on his face because he played a crazy prank and it clearly paid off.
Earlier that month, after Carl had told Florence to lay low, he reached out to New York newspapers and planted a story that Florence Lawrence, the actress who had starred in several motion pictures, died in a streetcar accident. The story got picked up and hit newsstands across the country.
Soon, people who hadn't even known Florence's name became obsessed with this beautiful actress's untimely death. That's when Carl made his next move. He took out an ad in several papers saying the streetcar story was a lie. Not only was Florence alive, she was starring in a brand new motion picture called The Broken Oath that was about to premiere in St. Louis.
And if the press wanted proof that Florence was alive and well, they could meet her when she stepped off the train. Carl had hoped the hoax would drum up interest in the movie and in Florence herself, but not even he had seen attention of this magnitude coming. Back on the train, he stares out at Florence's new rabid fan base.
He promises Florence the next time they do this, and there will be a next time, he'll hire security. By the time Carl and Florence get back to New York a couple of days later, Florence's name and photo are all over the American papers, and she is the world's first movie star.
Florence's natural appeal and Carl's decision to make an actor the biggest attraction of the movie will soon completely change the way films are advertised. And for now, Florence has helped make Carl and Imp bigger than ever. In 1910, the company was on pace to release a staggering 125 films. And finally, Carl believes Imp is now big enough to make the Trust give up their fight.
It's January 1911 in Thomas Edison's office in West Orange, New Jersey, 10 months after the premiere of The Broken Oath. Edison stands in front of several members of the Trust and all of them look as angry as he feels. Edison picks up a newspaper off his desk and waves it in the air.
He says not only does he have to read about the success of Carl's Renegade Film Company, now he has to read direct attacks on the trust that Carl regularly gets published in the papers. Edison looks at the men in the room. He's had enough. It's time to end this. He sits down and motions to attorney Frank Dyer, who takes the floor. Frank doesn't waste time.
He tells the room that since smear campaigns in the press and even violence on set don't seem to work on Carl, there's only one option. Legal action. Before anyone can interject, Frank cuts them off. He knows the trust has unsuccessfully sued Carl before, but that's when they thought that he would be a pushover.
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Chapter 7: What were the consequences of competing against the Trust?
It's summer 1912 at the Trust's New York headquarters at 85th Avenue. 39-year-old Adolf Zucker sits on a chair outside of an office, looking between the closed door and his pocket watch. Adolf is here to meet with Jeremiah Kennedy, the man who handles New York operations for the trust. But the meeting was supposed to start three hours ago. Adolf closes his watch and slips it back into his pocket.
All he can do is wait. This is the biggest meeting of his life. Finally, the doors open. Jeremiah's assistant walks out and tells Adolf he can go in. Adolf steadies himself, steps into the room and sits down across from Jeremiah at a massive desk. Jeremiah bluntly asks Adolf why he's here, and Adolf launches into his pitch.
Adolf says that he has a vision for the future of movies, and he's ready to share it with the world. He believes movies can be so much more than what they are. They can be works of art with complex stories and fleshed out characters like Broadway plays. And they shouldn't be just 10 or 15 minutes long. They should be feature films that run two hours.
Adolf takes a breath, but Jeremiah still doesn't react. Adolf takes that as a cue to bring his pitch home. He says he's just gotten back from Europe, where he produced his first movie with a French company. Now he wants to show this movie that he believes will change the industry in America. Jeremiah smiles politely and says, no. The time is not right for feature films, if it ever will be.
Adolf steps outside onto Fifth Avenue and starts walking. Jeremiah's message is clear. If Adolf shows his film in America, the Trust will consider him an outlaw, just like Carl Laemmle. But Adolf has spent a lot of his own money getting this film made. More than that, he believes it will be the beginning of something new, something important. He runs through his options in his head.
He knows a wildly successful movie theater owner, William Fox, who might help him. William has started to transform the old Nickelodeons into what people will soon call movie palaces. He's charging more money and attracting wealthier audiences. Like Adolf, William believes the film industry needs to evolve. But Adolf knows that William has his own issues with the trust.
And William has never been an easy man to get along with himself. Frustrated, Adolf keeps walking. He looks up at the rows of billboards that have started to spring up around town, advertising all kinds of entertainment, including shows on Broadway. Something clicks. New York is already the center of theater, which is one of the most respected art forms in the world.
So Adolf decides to spend some more of his own money, use what the city has to offer, and dare the trust to come after him. It's July 12th, 1912 at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway, one of the crown jewels of the American stage. Adolf huddles in his seat surrounded by wealthy New Yorkers who are watching the premiere of his first movie, Queen Elizabeth.
It's not quite everything Adolf has envisioned. The runtime is 44 minutes, not two hours, but he knows it's unlike any silent film Americans have seen. He listens to the live music accompanying the action on screen, and he feels a rush. This is one of the first films with an orchestral score that was composed specifically for it.
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