Événement

Evening @ the Barn: Warner Bros. Theatres in L.A.

Hollywood Heritage, in partnership with the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation will be presenting an evening of Warner history on Wednesday, November 12th, at 7:30PM at the Lasky-DeMille Barn. The program will include a presentation by the LAHTF on Warner Theatres, focusing on the flagship Warner Hollywood, and a brief presentation by Steve Bingen, who along with Marc Wanamaker of Bison Archives is the author of Warner Bros.- Hollywood's Ultimate Backlot. The museum will also have on display an extensive exhibit of Warner Bros. material for this evening's presentation.

Here's a little backstory: Although there had been experiments with sound movies dating back to Thomas Edison, it took the combination of General Electric and four brothers named Warner to take the risk of applying sound to a feature film. Always seeking to take advantage of new technology, Warner Bros. also pioneered color and were active in radio.

While certainly successful, Warner Bros. was not considered a major studio. They had produced a number of critical and popular successes, such as Ernst Lubitsch's "The Marriage Circle," and had placed John Barrymore under contract starting with "Beau Brummel," but their most successful performer was Rin-Tin-Tin. Warner Bros. became a major studio with their use of sound, beginning with the musical accompaniment and sound effects of "Don Juan" through the milestone musical "The Jazz Singer" to the first all talking feature, "The Lights of New York." In addition to sound, Warner Bros. also popularized the color feature film in tandem with the musical film in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

One of the financial advantages of their success was the ability to purchase and build theatres. Southern California is home to several examples of theatres built by Warner Bros. to exhibit and promote their studio's product. Fans of the Hollywood studio system are sure to enjoy this fascinating look at one of the most iconic studios of them all. As always we will be having our famous raffle, food for sale from Grub Restaurant and much more!