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Chris Yogerst, "The Warner Brothers" (UP of Kentucky, 2023)
01:07:36
An interview with Chris Yogerst
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- [00:00]
Marshall Poe
This episode is brought to you by Avid tv. Where do savvy minds go to find masterful documentaries and hard to find films from across the globe? Try a free month long trial at Ovid and go beyond the mainstream. Indiewire says Ovid is unafraid to program films that matter and the New York Times calls Ovid a terrific streamer for independent film fans. A boutique hand curated streaming service. Yet now with over 2,400 titles, Ovid is the home to films by auteurs from Chantal Akerman to Chris Marker to Wang Bing and has the richest collection of probing, avant garde and provocative films anywhere. Ovid offers many things except conformity. Try Ovid today and get your first month free. Use promo code N B N O V I D. That's Ovid TV promo code N B N O V I D hello everybody, this is Marshall Po. I'm the founder of the New Books Network and if you're listening to this podcast on the New Books Network, I bet you like to read. I know that I do that why I founded the New Books Network so as readers we need to know what to read and I have a podcast to recommend for you. That being the Proofread podcast. Do you have a goal to read more this year? How about a goal to read more of what you love and less of what you don't? The Proofread podcast is here to help you. Hosted by Casey and Tyler, two English professors and avid readers with busy lives, Proofread helps you decide what books are worth spending your precious time on and and what books aren't. They have 15 minute episodes that give you everything you need to know about a book to decide if you should read it or skip it. They offer a brief synopsis, there's fun and witty commentary and there are no spoilers and no sponsored reviews. Life's too short to read a bad book. So subscribe to the Proofread podcast today. And by the way, there's a new season coming soon.
- [01:49]
Chris Yogerst
Get your mother loving ears on because your big time radio DJs got news. PayPal lets you choose how you want to pay for all the stuff. With PayPal, I can pay in store.
- [02:00]
Joel Czerny
Pay online, or pay overtime.
- [02:02]
Chris Yogerst
What's that? You want this translated into song? I hope you're sitting down. You can pay your own way. You keep those ears on, you hear? Don't just pay baby. PayPal. Learn more at paypal.com welcome to the.
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Marshall Poe
New Books Network.
- [02:22]
Joel Czerny
Welcome to New Books and Film, a podcast series on the New Books Network. I'm your Host Joel Czerny. My guest today is Chris Yogurst, author of the book the Warner Brothers, published in 2023 by the University Press of Kentucky. I previously interviewed Chris for new books and film in 2020 for his previous book, Hollywood Hates Jew Baiting, Anti Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures. In addition to being an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Chris, Chris also writes extensively for many academic and popular publications. In his new book, he discusses the founding and rising of one of the great American film studios. He also assesses the four Warner Brothers and their culture and social heritage for the United States. In our talk, we discuss the book in detail and review the studio as it celebrates its 100th anniversary. Welcome, Chris Yogurst. Hi, Chris. Hi, Joel.
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Chris Yogerst
Thanks for having me.
- [03:28]
Joel Czerny
I'm glad you were able to join me. I'm talking with Chris Yogurst, author of the new book the Warner Brothers, published by the University Press of Kentucky. We are actually talking about a month before the book is officially published. September 5th, I think, is the release date. But the good thing is I was able to get Chris in so we could talk about the book early so we have it ready for release date. Chris and I actually talked back in 2020 about his previous book, Hollywood Hates Hitler. It's not a longer title, but I figured that's enough of the title multiple of a subtitle. Yeah, but it was a great book, obviously. And so I'm glad Chris is continuing to stay busy because we got a chance to talk about his new book. He also, if you don't follow Chris on Twitter or whatever it's called these days, he definitely has a lot of writing out there. It just seems like you're constantly writing for public, both popular and academic publications. Seems like see you writing for the Hollywood Reporter and a number of other popular magazines and periodicals, which is great because that means these days academics can sort of hit both sides, which is a wonderful way for us to stay relevant these days. So I'm glad we'll have a chance to talk about the new book. So obviously the title, I mean, just all you have to do is think about this. And there's no subtitle to the book, it's just the Warner Brothers. And the title gives it away that the pretty much says what the book is about. It's not Warner Brothers, the studio, necessarily, although obviously that's part of the story, but it's the Warner Brothers, the brothers. And that was very important to you to try to tell the story through the four Warner Brothers and how they came up to found a studio and how they ran that studio for quite a few years. Obviously it started around 23, but it, the studio itself, they ran it for quite a number of decades during the golden age, quote unquote, of Hollywood. And we're going to talk about all.
- [05:49]
Chris Yogerst
That, but first let's get a little.
- [05:52]
Joel Czerny
Bit more background as to why you felt that this was a book. Obviously, we know it's their 100th anniversary. They're certainly not making it. They're not hiding that fact, the Warner, you know, Warner brothers. But we know them as being one of the big studios that at least is still in existence in some format or form or fashion. But why did you decide to talk about the Warner brothers and write this book, given that, as we know, there's been other written writings about it? So what was your reasoning?
- [06:25]
Chris Yogerst
That's a good question. So this really started, so when I was doing my dissertation is when I really learned a lot about Harry Warner. So I always wanted to write a book about Harry Warner because, you know, when you think about the Warner Brothers, you kind of think of Jack Warner as the Warner brother, right? Like he was the one. And really, when you look at their, their lineage, you know, he. Jack was still alive in the 60s and 70s when kind of this resurgence of interest of Golden Age Hollywood came. And, you know, Bogdanovich was interviewing people and, and all this. And, you know, Harry was long gone. And I, I ended up really kind of how the book came to be is I was. I was pretty much set that I was going to do a biography of Harry. And then I went to a book talk in Milwaukee for Patrick McGilligan's book on Mel Brooks. And I met him. I'd always wanted to meet him. I had never met him. We got to talking. He's like, hey, we should have lunch and talk about writing. I was like, wow, that's fantastic. And it was then he said that I need to do the entire brothers, you know, write all. Write a book about all of them. And if I want to, if I want to, you know, use that as a conduit to give Harry a little bit more historical significance. Great. But really, the Warner Brothers story has not really been told in full. I mean, you've got. There's been a bunch of books, most of which focus on Jack, which was again, part of the impetus for me, like, wanting to recenter Harry. But even other books leave more to be desired. I mean, you have David Thompson's book, which is great, but it's short, it's tiny. Just kind of a snapshot. And then you have cast Warner's kind of family history, which is fabulous, but that's still only, you know, she wrote that when there was only so much access to materials. So it was kind of the perfect time to really take what everything was out there and fill in a bunch of gaps and also kind of reanalyze some of the bigger legends and try to put everything in context. And then really, you know, that was 2018 and I just kind of got lucky that it finished in time for the 100th anniversary. That wasn't really my goal, but kind of a perfect marketing timing.
- [08:39]
Joel Czerny
Yeah, because I obviously there, I noticed that you actually, this is, you know, we, we talked about Hollywood Hates Hitler, but there was actually a book earlier than that that you did for Ronan Littlefield, I think it was about.
- [08:54]
Chris Yogerst
Yeah.
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Joel Czerny
And I assume that came. Was that out of your dissertation or was that just.
- [08:58]
Chris Yogerst
Yeah, it was. That book was expanded for my dissertation. It was called from the Headlines to Hollywood. And really what I was anal analyzing there was, you know, there's, there's always this talk of how Warner Brothers ripped from the headlines, but no one really ever sits down and kind of expands on that idea. It's always just kind of used as a description. So I, I really wanted to take a deep dive into how and where they were really and what headlines they were ripping from. And it was during that project where actually really each project is led into the next. So that project is when I discovered Harry Warner's testimony defending the studio against the Senate, who is going after Hollywood's anti Nazi movies. That sparked my research to do Hollywood's hate, Hollywood Hates Hitler. And then you know, just kind of hanging on Harry Warner there when I, you know, then that blood back into the Warner brothers, where I could revisit this and just expand that narrative. And like you said in the introduction, you know, it's not Warner Bros. It's the Warner brothers. So I wanted to look at, you know, usually anything written about Warner Brothers. It's the studio, it's the stars, it's the directors. And then the brothers kind of fill in along the way where this is inverted, where it's the brothers and the studio and the stars kind of fill in, you know, where necessary.
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Joel Czerny
And of course, there were four Warner Brothers and they were all involved in some way, shape or form. And obviously Jack was the one who made it the longest, but all four, at least at the beginning, it was meant to be a group project. Or a group put together. Now, obviously, we've had studies of previous. I've had a lot of guests that talked about some of the other studios and how they came up. And one of the stories that one of the things that tends to appear pretty regularly with the early studios is how often they were formed by either immigrants or, or people who were children of immigrants, like first generation Americans, and that they started more with the technological side and then eventually got into the other side as well. So obviously, can we talk a little background of the Warner family? They're from Poland, or at least that was. Their heritage was Polish. But it was another one of the situations where they came over at a certain time, the family came over and Kate eventually got into the film industry.
- [11:34]
Chris Yogerst
Yeah, they. You know, one of the things I found, and this is just part of the problem of looking at coverage from well over 100 years ago, you know, there's a lot of. There was a lot of different sources that cite different starting points for the Warner brothers. And I landed on 1905 just because the earliest recollections that are at least as trustworthy as we can find, you know, from the teens and the 20s all the way up to 1930, Variety did a 25th anniversary of the Warner brothers in the industry kind of thing. You know, so it was like, you know, but there's a lot of people who've argued 1906 and up to 1907, maybe 1904, it's all over the place. But they really started, like you said, a lot of these people started in the technical side. And, you know, everyone knows a story of Sam Warner, you know, bringing home this projector and they had a copy of the Great Train Robbery and it blew everyone's mind. And they wanted to show friends in the neighborhood. And then they started, you know, it got more and more popular and they, they rented this space and started in exhibition and they started, you know, charging to see movies. And that's really where they started. They had a couple venues and really over time, you know, during the, you know, 19, you know, from 1905 till into the teens, I mean, they, they got into distribution and they started to. To rent prints of movies and then. And distribute that within their network and, and to other people. And these are the companies that, you know, would then famously get shut down by Edison and his trust and they would have to start over again. But that, that was the order in which it happened. They started showing movies, then they distributed movies. And then in the, in the late teens, mid to late teens, they started making movies and, and Jack and Sam would, you know, travel around with some people and some, some inexpensive cameras and film footage and slap stuff together. And a lot of those movies are lost. But the. Jack has assured us all in his own writing that those movies are all garbage. But, you know, that was really when they learned, you know, all of the tricks of the trade, all the layers of, you know, what became vertical integration in Hollywood. They really learned on the ground, you know, from the ground up. They really, you know, they, they, you know, they had to run theaters, they had to run distribution networks and then they had to make movies and they did all of this and they had all of this kind of perfected long before they incorporated in 1923.
- [14:11]
Joel Czerny
So where did they, where, where did they grow up? I mean, were they, were all the four brothers born in the United States or were.
- [14:17]
Chris Yogerst
No, no, Jack was born in Canada. There's actually some conflicting sources on Sam. The biggest difference is Harry and Albert were born overseas. So they were. And Neil Gabler, Gabler points this out in his, in his great book An Empire of Their Own, that, you know, Harry and Albert being the older brothers were also very much more old world, more traditional. Where you have Jack and Sam were more new world, more rabble rousers, more, you know, buck the system kind of mentality. And then there was also other brothers. There was, there was some, some siblings that died in the late 1800s, but, but more importantly, there was, or more recently rather, there was, there was a David Warner who had special needs and lived with his parents their whole life and they, they took care of him. And then Milton Warner was actually going to join them in their, in the movie business. And when he was in high school in the 1910s, got a, Scott got a, actually got picked up by playing professional baseball. Was going to join, forgetting what team it was now, but was going to play professional baseball for a while and then joined his brothers in the movie business but, but tragically had like a heart attack and just died at like 18, 19 years old, which was just a huge tragedy for the family, one of many that they would endure. But the, the biggest difference is, and it's interesting, you know, there's all these things that would make you, make us think, how would history be different? So how would history be different if Milton was in there? You know, would he have balanced the brothers out a little bit more? Because we all know Sam, you know, died in 1927. And Sam was really this bridge between Jack and his older brothers, mostly Jack and Harry. And you Know, there was always this tension between those two. And Sam seemed to be this bridge between them. And when Sam died, that. That mediator was gone. And this. This conflict kind of boils throughout this entire narrative and kind of explodes towards the end of Harry's life. But there's. There's plenty of drama in it. And it, you know, it makes. It makes it. It's. You know, I find myself writing this. You know, a lot of the history, the film history, the politics is all fascinating, but so much of the family history is just. It's. It's fascinating. And there's some great stuff, but there's also some really, truly sad things, some avoidable, some not that happened to this. This family. You know, Lewis Warner dies, Harry's son, who is going to, you know, also come into the company.
- [16:59]
Joel Czerny
And.
- [17:01]
Chris Yogerst
You know, they're. They're.
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Joel Czerny
They.
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Chris Yogerst
They had to weather a lot. I mean, this family really had to. I mean, especially today, you. You know, there's. With the writer strike and the actor strike going on, there's all this Talk of the CEOs right now and how much they make and how much they're responsible for and all this kind of stuff. And it's like, when you look at what these founding moguls had to weather to get to where they were, it's. There's just no comparison. You know, there's almost nothing like it today. And it's really just. It's quite a story of survival and perseverance.
- [17:36]
Joel Czerny
So we've got the four brothers who were the Warner brothers, for purposes of our discussion. Did they. One of the things you talk about is their roles, and it's not just you. I mean, these. This has become, in some ways the stuff of legend, what each of them brought to the organization or to the eventual company. Let's talk about that a little bit. Are those roles that seem to be the regular way where they particularly are reasonably correct? Did they each have their own role in the whole company early on?
- [18:11]
Chris Yogerst
Yeah, absolutely. So really, in the beginning, it was a lot of. I mean, Sam really spearheaded this, of course, and then it was. You know, Jack was still pretty young, so it was Harry and Albert really took the reins on the business end of things to really get the structure established for them to operate theaters and distribution networks and that kind of stuff. And Jack was really just kind of along for the ride in the earliest days. Once you get into the teens, you know, there's all these legends of Jack, you know, being the. Being the greeter or ripping tickets or, you know, Singing horrible songs to get people to leave the theater so the next group could come in. You know, so there's a lot of comic antidotes about his, his role early on, but once they got into to production, he was, he was one of. You mean, he's the one that, you know, when people talk about Jack being kind of the showman of the family, I mean he was the one who really took the reins and was really interested in the showmanship part of building this kind of business. But you know, all the, all the descriptions of Sam as the technical genius is, is completely true. You know, Jack the showman Albert really, you know, the business end, you know, really as, as years go on, the distribution whiz and then Harry kind of the, you know, the, the genius for getting loans and, and, and really political management and you know, a lot of the, the really top end stuff. He was, he was really a genius at, from, from start to finish and he learned a lot of that. Actually, some of the stories I found, I mean, you know, really probably no different with, you know, a lot of the other, other moguls. I mean they, they, you know, Those years from 1905 to 1923 weren't all successes. There was tons of failures in there and they, and it wasn't just with, I mean sometimes they lost everything in the film business and then it. Running a grocery store. And there's one story I found in a paper from Ohio from back in the day when they were still living there, where Harry Warner, he had this great idea of buying bulk but then bought too much perishable goods and then it all spoiled before he could sell it all. And then that pretty much bankrupted that project. They ran bike shops and ice cream shops and all kinds of stuff and they really, you know, spent, you know, all this time communicating with, you know, for, for all intents and purposes, communicating with an audience. You know, they saw their customers and they tried to create a culture of what do they want? And Harry really learned a lot of this working with his dad in a shoe repair shop. And they, they, they, they had some success with that. So they really again, these years prior to 1923, there were so many pivotal things that happened and so many things that probably would have sunk, you know, any, any other, anyone else's confidence too. I mean, the times that they got crushed and had to start over, even just in small things in Ohio or if they're getting their, their companies destroyed by Thomas Edison's patent company, they, they were just absolutely fearless in, in starting over. Again, and I think that all of those attitudes and all of those skill together in the 1920s, and that's why really, by. By the Great Depression, really, I mean, that they were so successful, they were able to weather that probably more effectively almost than anyone else because they had. They had seen so much growth in the 20s that really building on each of their individual talents and, you know, Sam bringing the technology in and doing the research and then. And then, you know, convincing Harry to invest in it. And then Jack and Sam being able to manage the studio which by that time they had already managed productions in the Midwest and managed productions in small studios they rented in L. A before they got to the Bronson Studios. So really, by the late 20s, these, you know, they were the kind of the young guns in Hollywood, but really they were old pros by then.
- [22:35]
Joel Czerny
Yeah, I remember interviewing Vonda Kreft about her book about Fox. And now he's somebody that the studio still exists in some form or another. But he was out of it pretty early on. It was the Depression to a large extent that hurt him a great deal. But just discussing. I remember taking a class when I was going to graduate school about the history of the consumer culture in the United States. And this period is where consumer culture becomes so important and the consumer. And doesn't matter what you're trying to sell them. You know, it was more of a matter of let's find something to sell and then we have to figure out, okay, how do we get to our customers? How do we get product? And so virtually every story of at least the successful studios, it almost sounds very alike. You start with distribute, as you just pointed out, first with distribution. Then eventually you get to production and so on. So obviously the Warner brothers followed that same mold. Although the indication is everybody was pretty much working on their own. So everybody came to the same idea. That's sort of why the consumer culture concept is not that different. Where were they located early on? I mean, I know Hollywood ends up become. Or Los Angeles, west coast becomes the place where everybody ends up. Where did they start?
- [23:56]
Chris Yogerst
Well, yeah, so they had. They had some properties near. I'm forgetting how to describe exactly where it was in Los Angeles, but I know it's near where the Selig Zoo was. So this is apparently where the MGM lion was and all this kind of stuff. So they did a lot of filming there. I think it was closer to downtown. And they had a couple different properties. And then they had the Bronson Studios, which is now owned by Netflix. And they were there for most of the 20s. And they had that, that's where they did pretty much all their famous 19, I mean the Jazz Singer. They did a lot there, you know, there and in New York because they had, see what else studios do. They had. So they had the bronze, you know, by the mid-20s they had the Bronson studios and then they bought Vitagraph which had studio in Brooklyn. And that's, that's what, that's the technology that they, they rebranded as Vitaphone, which was the synchronized sound. So that they had the Brooklyn studio, they had Bronson. And then by the late 20s, Harry buys first national which had started building in Burbank and that's where the Warner Brothers studio is today. So they started expanding that by the late 20s, early 30s. And Harry bought First national basically because they had already had a theater chain network. So that was, that was. They didn't necessarily need. Well they probably could have used already by then the production space. But they really wanted, you know, the forward thinking investment there was the, was the distribution network. And if you look in some of the old films too, like, like Showgirl in Hollywood is a great kind of movie about movies from 1930. And if you watch that, they're filming a lot of it on the first national lot and in the background you can see a lot of the, A lot of the sound stages that are still there today, like in the middle of construction. So you could see that in the background which is kind of a fun timestamp. And then they, and then they got the, their. The Warner Ranch out by Calabasas. So they had, you know, by the late 20s they had quite a few.
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Joel Czerny
Properties and of course, as you pointed out. And what did they. Did they, did they have major successes as a studio before the invention, before the beginning of sound film. We know obviously Jazz Singer was released by Warners. We're not going to give them full credit for all the technology in there. That's not fair. But.
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Chris Yogerst
Right.
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Joel Czerny
But we obviously know they were the ones to finally make the switch and pretty. And it happened quickly. Once it started, it didn't take very long.
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Chris Yogerst
And it's worth pointing out the genius there is.
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Joel Czerny
Yeah.
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Chris Yogerst
Because you see that every now and then someone be like, oh, Warner Brothers invented sound. It's like, no, they did not invent sound. Right. They, you know, you know what they, what their genius was was they were the first to successfully bring sound to market. Nobody else could do that properly. Nobody else could could, you know, put together, you know, a day's worth of screenings with sound effectively, you Know, if Thomas Edison thought it was, it was not going to work. Well, a lot of people just didn't have faith in it. And of course there was fear that, right. If you have a silent movie, it's easy to change the inner titles to whatever language, whatever country you're distributing to. If you start recording sound in one language now, you're stuck. So there was a lot of fear, kind of, I think justified fear of moving into the synchronized sound. But what they were able to do is create an event out of a sound movie and market it properly and get people excited about it. And that's really where the Warner Brothers genius was with sound, was really in the showmanship of it.
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Joel Czerny
And of course they weren't obviously that they started it, but it's not like silent movies suddenly just disappeared. Although they did go pretty quickly after that. There are still some films from that period of time that were released in both versions, a silent version and a sound version. And some of the early sound movies, it just seems like there's these long periods, periods of silence in them. I'm thinking of the front page. I mean, the front page was one that, that had that as a, it was sort of a combination. And, and there are periods where, you know, it's very quiet because for technology purposes they probably weren't ready to, to, to completely go over to that side.
- [28:19]
Chris Yogerst
Right. And they didn't have, you know, film scoring, you know, with, you know, the film score was used, you know, in the, in the silent movies. Right. Either either, you know, played along with the movie or. Right. You had, you know, a live accompaniment kind of kind of a thing. And that's why you mean Warner Brothers in 1928. So after the Jazz Singer, they, you know, what's really known as the first feature length synchronized sound movie is Lights of New York, which is a gangster film, which is fitting for Warner Brothers. And that one. It is, yeah, it's, it is comical to watch in a sense. I mean, like, it's incredibly historically significant that sets so many of the foundations of, of what, you know, became kind of the classic gangster film. But there, it's hard not to kind of at least grin at some of the scenes where they're, they're kind of leaning towards a bush to give their line. And it's pretty clear there's probably a microphone in that bush to pick up the sound, you know, so it's, you know, really what you're seeing is the evolution of this art form. You know, they're trying it, they're doing what the best they can with, with really the rinky dink technology that they had to capture this stuff. And that's why, you know, you know, I don't know if you saw Babylon came out last year. You know, a lot of people were back and forth on that, but there's a great scene in that where they are just trying to capture sound in early sound and the frustrations on the set and it's just, it's hard not to feel like there was a lot of those scenes in the late 20s and.
- [29:50]
Marshall Poe
So good, so good, so good.
- [29:52]
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- [30:48]
Joel Czerny
The second Downton Abbey movie used the same concept. The idea that they had to replace the one of the actors because, you know, the whole idea of the sound was coming in at that point in the movie and they had an issue with somebody whose voice just wasn't going to work for sound.
- [31:06]
Chris Yogerst
Right, Right.
- [31:07]
Joel Czerny
And so it's the same idea that they have to come up with, with new ways. And it was a true fact that people lost their jobs because they couldn't make that transition.
- [31:17]
Chris Yogerst
Absolutely. And one of the things that one of the kind of really heartwarming things I discovered that I found in this book with Jack Warner, there's so many negative legends about him, a lot of which are true, and also that nearly as bad as some of the other moguls, but one of the things that I kept coming across was how Jack would support people who helped make the studio. So, you know, we know how he equivocated and made some bad decisions during the, during the, the HUAC years and the big strike years and he just did not know how to weather that. But there's so many reports of, of him keeping on and really all the. I mean, it's not just him, but it's, you know, he was one, you know, first person at the studio there keeping on payroll. A lot of these silent stars that, you know, like big stars we don't really hear about anymore that didn't really transition. You know, Monty Blue and some of these that he kept on payroll. You know, this was an era before, you know, Social Security. And it was just like, you know, these people helped, you know, create this, this massive dream factory and he kept them on payroll. And, you know, I found a lot of other stories where, you know, some worker, I think it was a custodian or somebody, was having a surgery and wasn't sure they could afford it, so he just called the hospital and took care of the bill for them. You know, things like that. Where there was, you know, for this kind of fire breathing, sometimes draconian mogul, there was this, this true appreciation as well, you know, which creates quite the kind of internal conflict for, you know, a lot of the stories we hear about Jack. But, you know, that's. That's the kind of thing I learned a lot in this book too. A lot of the human side of the brothers, the things that they would do and not try to get attention for it, they would just do it. And, you know, kind of the. The truth comes out in, you know, interviews with other people and other stories or, or local coverage that didn't get into the trades. You know, Albert Warner, before he died, funded a big hospital in Miami. And I found a picture of him watching the groundbreaking ceremony not long before he died. Didn't want his name on it. That kind of stuff. You know, there was tons of this kind of stuff. Philanthropy that the brothers did, that. That I found, that was incredibly heartwarming.
- [33:44]
Joel Czerny
So the book, I didn't really say this up front, but I'm hoping it's pretty clear from our discussion. The book is basically chronological, right? So we're going in chronological order. Not. Obviously we can't hit every part of it. Otherwise this podcast would probably go for two hours and we can't do that. But I do want to talk a little bit about the Warner Brothers studio and the brothers and their role in allowing for important films and going into the early. Now that we've got sound, we get into the 30s and we're into the area of time that we're pre. Code. Code exists. Nobody's enforcing it, at least for the first years. And what kind of movies. I mean, we know we have examples of what's Considered a Warner film from that period. But for those who might not know, what kind of movies were they making in the early 30s.
- [34:41]
Chris Yogerst
So this is where you really get to your ripping from the headlines. I mean, they were, I show in my book that they were really ripping from the headlines as early as the late 19 teens. But when you get into the 30s, they are making movies that are drawing from, from big news stories. You're talking about the Great Depression, movies about struggle, movies about addiction, movies about crime, gangsters. You know, even their musicals have, you know, something like Goldingers in 1933. I mean, these, you know, a lot of the Busby Berkeley musicals all, all deal with, with performers that are struggling and dealing with the Depression. So as opposed to movies being escapist, their movies were. We're looking at the culture head on. And a lot of this stems from. And that's one of the things I try to show in the book, how the content of the movies, even though the brothers weren't necessarily making the movies, writing the movies, but this attitude of being very socially conscious and plugged into the culture had a top down. There was definitely a trickle down influence with that. And Harry gave, it's one of the things I wanted to highlight in the book. Harry gave so many public speeches about taking the world seriously and using movies to not only entertain, but to educate and to get people to think and consider other ideas. And he would do this not only at conventions and big public addresses, but he would, he would hold court on the lot and he would have kind of an afternoon where everybody on the lot would get together and have a meal and Harry would address the entire company. And you know, he wanted to make sure everybody felt that they were a part of doing something good. Not just, you know, the top, you know, above the line people, but everybody working on set, set decorators, painters, custodians, whatever your job was. He wanted to make sure that they, they knew that they were a part of what Warner Brothers was trying to do. So you know, movies like I'm a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, you know, great movie, long title, there's so much of the moment history plugged into that movie. You know, some of the stuff that I, that I found, I, I put in my, my first book as well, but I found a little bit more for this. But they were really, I mean, Robert Burns, who wrote that book, who was a, that the movie was based on, you know, was a real fugitive from a chain gang when he wrote the book. And Warner Brothers was housing him on the lot secretly, which was really, really funny. And I, I found in Mervyn Leroy who directed it, Mervyn leroy's memoir. He wrote a lot about housing Robert Burns and trying to keep it secret on the lot and having him inform the movie and then go on in promotional tours with them and stuff like that. But I mean, this was, this is a perfect Warner Brothers movie just because it's every. Anybody that watched that movie in 1932 could feel the frustrations of the characters in the movie. And that's the kind of thing that they wanted to convey. They wanted to convey to the audience. Basically, we see you and we understand your. And sympathize, most importantly sympathize with the struggle during the Depression.
- [38:04]
Joel Czerny
And of course, moving forward, they also intersect with your second book, Hollywood Hates Hitler because they were they. I keep saying they, and you are welcome to correct me by this point as to who was actually involved. But this is where we get into the situation where the fascism is rising in Europe and there is major controversy going on the United States as far as what America's role should be in the world. And the Warners, the Warner Brothers and the studio was heavily involved in avoiding anything to make it seem, you know, to get away from, as you, as you put in the title of the chapter, fighting Fascism, American firsters in the U.S. senate.
- [38:52]
Chris Yogerst
Right? Yeah. So they are taking on fascism on multiple fronts. You know, they start, they really take the, the, the baton for making anti fascist movies, anti authoritarian movies. You know, people need to remember, you know, the, the reason that there was not anti Nazi movies directly before 1939 when they did Confessions of a Nazi Spy is because there were rules in the code about ridiculing other countries and religions and things like that. So you, even though pretty much everyone in Hollywood was, was not a fan of Nazi Germany, you couldn't outright ridicule Nazi Germany because it was against the Production Code. Now by the by, you know, 1934, the production code was, you know, this is our transition here is actually being enforced. Right. Joe Breen comes in and, and, and now there, there's, there's a much more adherence to this code. So anybody who wanted to make an anti Nazi movie had a hard time doing it. And so they started making movies like Black Legion. And they won't forget these movies that deal with, with authoritarianism that is, is very thinly veiled. So the Black Legion is kind of an anti KKK movie. There actually was a group called the Black Legion in the Midwest that was basically like the kkk. They Won't forget deals with anti Semitism without mentioning Jews. A lot of movies like this and at the same time the brothers in the background. So Harry's, he's, he's traveling to Europe, he's meeting with world leaders. He's very concerned with what's going on. He's concerned that a lot of the world leaders in Europe don't think there's going to be a world war. He comes back here, he's trying to get other studios on board. A lot of the studios are actually thanks to a couple books that came out a few years ago, we now know that the moguls were funding anti Nazi espionage in Los Angeles. So this very much on the forefront of their, their minds. But what Warner Brothers does differently is they're, they're actually putting that on the screen as well. So they, they really take the lead on, on making these kinds of movies. And of course Confession of a Nazi Spy and then in 1939 and the other studios start to jump on board as well. And it's not a, it's not a huge output of any of the studio's movies, but it's certainly draw, drew attention of the Senate. Right. So that was my last book. You know, I chronicle the investigation in late 1941 that the Senate went after Hollywood for warmongering, among other things. But this was, this was a pretty wild time in, in Hollywood. You know, you had the Anti Nazi League going on, you had the first dies hearings going on, looking at extremism in all kinds of sectors, including Hollywood, which is kind of the origins of what HUAC became later. And the brothers were really plugged into this. And one of the things that they started to do, this is where I could get a lot of insight from them is there was, and I think a lot of studios had this kind of thing, but they had a Warner Club and employees could join it and there were perks. If you got married or if you had a kid, there would be a donation from the club to you as a gift. They had parties and they had a newsletter and I've read all of, of what mostly Jack and Harry wrote in the Warner Club News. And they would do updates every so often. They would do yearly up, you know, big, big letters at the end or the beginning of every year. And these letters really, really mirrored a lot of the stuff they said publicly. You know, their, their activism or their, their politics or you know, defending the country during the rise of Nazism and all this kind of stuff. And you know, again, that's the Kind of stuff we see trickle down into the movies.
- [42:54]
Joel Czerny
Yeah, I was going to. Part of what I wanted to talk about today, besides just the book is, and that's where I'm getting myself into a hole by going just straight chronologically is that there are some specifics that I wanted to talk about. So I think I'm going to sort of do that now and then because the book pretty much follows till 1978, which is the period of the time that the book covers. But one of the things that we, and obviously we know Warner's is pretty much in the news over the last year or so because of what they've done to the studio or whatever was Warner's. Now it's not the same anymore as we know, but. And what's going on over on the streaming side and TCM and some of the other major controversies that unfortunately the studio that was Warner Brothers has gotten themselves into. But I wanted to sort of to come into some of this just for you, to give you a chance to give some thoughts about things. Now when they switched over to Max, when HBO Max became Max, they premiered a 100th anniversary documentary, four parts. And I watched it and I felt, okay. My main issue with it was it was let's find everything positive we can say and let's not in any way, shape or form pretend like anything bad ever happened. But there were some good things that came out of the documentary. And most of part one is covering the period we're talking about. But one of the other things that came out was that many of the people they interviewed, most of which are more current people talked about how Warner's as a studio was pro artist, whether it be actors or directors or writers. From your research and what you did for this book, how true is something like that? Is it as cut and dry? Does it seem to be giving in.
- [45:02]
Chris Yogerst
That it's yes and no. So of course there, you know, there are the famous spats, right? You know, with, with Cagney and De Havilland and Bette Davis and this kind of stuff. You know, there were, there was the strikes in the 40s, but what I found in a lot of interviews and in books, memoirs, that kind of stuff. At the end of the day, you know, there, yeah, there were spats with artists over contract, over money. I mean, they were, they were the most, you know, tight fisted studio, everybody knows that. But they were maybe more so than anyone else, definitely pro artists. They wanted to make good movies. And, you know, there was a lot of, I mean, you know, one. A lot One of the things where you can. You can find. I don't know if the transcript's available. I found it. So after Jack died, a couple years after Jack died, there was a big celebration remembrance.
- [46:01]
Joel Czerny
When did he die?
- [46:02]
Chris Yogerst
Let's get it in 78.
- [46:04]
Joel Czerny
That's the end of the book. But, yeah, I just wanted to make sure that was clear in what we were talking about.
- [46:08]
Chris Yogerst
And at the end of the book, I talk a little bit about this remembrance. I think it was in 1980, where everybody who was still alive was there, people who had spats with them. De Havilland was there. And they all really, at the end of the day, mentioned his. His support for them. Where there was. Yeah, there. There were times where there was kind of this brawling. But at the end of the day, they. They still had respect for the studio because they wanted to. They wanted to make something good, if not great. And, you know, and I talked to. Towards the end of my book, I finally met Greg Orr, who's Jack's grandson. And that's another great documentary. He updated that for this year. And there's a lot of archival interviews that he got in the late 80s, early 90s, when a lot. Still alive. And he told me, last time I talked to him, he told me a story about showing that first documentary to Olivia de Havilland. And there was lots of. Lots of. She was full of stories, of course, but really one of the big things that validates that she said, that seems to validate a lot of. What I found was that there was no. Because he had asked her was this the studio where there was a lot of casting coach stuff, this kind of stuff. And she was like, absolutely not. There was no time for that. Everybody was so dedicated to the task at hand and trying to make something good, something under budget, all this kind of stuff that there was not a lot of time for bs. Everybody was so focused. And it sounds like even the stories that came out about somebody like Busby Berkeley who could be very controlling and perfectionist on the set, but if he had somebody that he saw started to crack all of a sudden that. That, you know, kind of stone wall would come down. And all of a sudden it was this kind of support, like, all right, do we need to take some time? Let's figure out. Let's get everyone back on track. Rest it up. All right, so your feet are bleeding. Maybe we take a break. And. And. And, you know, it wasn't, you know, not everybody was destroyed at the studio. And I found, you know, even after the Warners died, people Giving interviews where they could have just unloaded on how awful it was. It wasn't really there. So I think there's a lot of truth to the fact that the studio was kind of a cut above in a lot of ways. I mean, they weren't without their problems. They weren't without their controversies. Jack Warner was far from a perfect person. Not a great husband, not a great dad. We know all this stuff, but it doesn't go really past that very far. Like it would with like once Zanuck had his own studio and all the legends of what he was up to or mayor or any of these people, there's none of that stuff comes up with Warner Brothers.
- [48:55]
Joel Czerny
So did the studio, Warner, the Warner Brothers studio fall victim to pretty much the same thing that destroyed the studio system in general, which is they lost the ability to have their own distribution. They had to get away from product, from presentation, and they lost their studios. And just like everybody else in Hollywood, the, the, that, that was the beginning of the end for the, what we would call the studio system.
- [49:26]
Chris Yogerst
Yeah, the, the paramount decrees in 48 really kind of set, you know, really leveled everybody. You know, they, they, they lost a lot. But also with, with Jack in particular, by that time, Harry was getting pretty old. He was about to, you know, he was trying to get everybody retire. That's a whole nother story. But Jack was, he was, he was a really tough sell on television. He was a tough sell on, you know, licensing movies to television, which was a great way to, to get some money out of movies. You're done, you know, you're done exhibiting. So, you know, there was, there was a lot of that, you know, they definitely had some, some big movies. But yeah, I think there was, you know, they, they had the, really, the entire industry had very similar problems once the Paramount decrees came in and they no longer had the same AM.
- [50:20]
Marshall Poe
Over.
- [50:20]
Chris Yogerst
Their product that they once did.
- [50:23]
Joel Czerny
So when, when does Jack Warner basically disappear from Warner Brothers?
- [50:30]
Chris Yogerst
You know, that's a good question because he's still, he's still. I mean, really, it's not long after Bonnie and Clyde, which was 67. Right, right. And there's a lot of stories about his distaste of that movie. And he comes in, you know, he's, he's still. By the late late 60s. He's, he's more or less a figurehead, but he's still there. You know, one of the things that I learned about Jack is he, you know, he was, was very much hands on, watching dailies, working with editors and you know, that, that Jack was one of the big reasons why the Warner brothers films were so tight and punchy because he just knew, you know, he, he would get bored fast. And that's where, you know, you look back in history and there's all the legends of, you know, Jack with Bonnie and Clyde. No, if I have to get up and take a piss during this movie, it's bad. And, you know, it gets over and he's like, oh, it was a three piss picture or whatever it was. It's like that, that, that instinct of, like, how can we tighten this movie up and make it punchier? Not that Bonnie and Clyde lacks any punch, but, you know, I think that's, that's part of his brilliant showmanship that he knew. And so he's still, by the late 60s, he's still there having opinions, all of that, but he eventually leaves. I'm actually forgetting the exact date, but he starts his own production company and he produces a couple movies. His health is declining in the 70s pretty quickly, but he produces 1776, a Billy the Kid movie. He's got his, his fingerprints on a couple other projects, nothing major. He has, he has his own office, you know, not on the Warner brothers lot. And, and he's, he's still, I mean, he's, he's. There was really no quit in this guy, right? He wanted, he was still wanted to, to play around and, and be producer and be Mr. Hollywood and try to get things made. It really isn't to the last maybe few years of his life where he's, he's starting to lose, you know, sight and mobility and this kind of stuff where, where it becomes a pretty quick decline. But he's, I mean, just like the rest of his brothers. They were, I mean, you know, once, you know, the, the, you know, again, the whole other big story of when they were all supposed to retire and Jack didn't, you know, you know, Albert actually got a retirement. Harry did not live long into retirement. And Jack, I really never wanted to retire. I think he just loved being that studio guy and, and trying to get things made. And of course, you know, the papers, you know, calling him for interviews, he absolutely love. One of the things I say in the beginning of my book is that, you know, Jack loved to see his name in the paper, but Harry loved to see his ideas in the paper. And I think that's one of the big differences between the two of them.
- [53:26]
Joel Czerny
And actually that is one of the story of Jack Warner never retiring. And that whole thing actually does make it into that hundredth anniversary documentary a little bit. So.
- [53:36]
Chris Yogerst
Right. But we do get a little of that. Officer Century City.
- [53:40]
Joel Czerny
Right. Of course, by this point, the studio itself has already gone through its beginnings of its changeover into, you know, big business. And, you know, by this point, Seven Arts and so on, on and so forth. And of course, sometimes the history of Warner Brothers can be watched just by looking at, you know, when you watch a Warner Brothers movie. Okay. What does it say at the beginning as far as where the movie is?
- [54:07]
Chris Yogerst
Yeah, what's under the, what's, what's under the shield? Who owns it today?
- [54:12]
Joel Czerny
Now, let, let's briefly talk about your sourcing because obviously, as you said, it's getting interviews at this point with participants is, is very tough. But what kind of source. And you mentioned right at the beginning that some of the work that you did is because you were able to do it because of the availability of sources that might not have been available in the past. I always like asking about that part. Where did you get your sources and what helped you the most as far as putting this together?
- [54:44]
Chris Yogerst
Absolutely. So, I mean, so the big obvious ones are obviously the Academy archive in Beverly Hills. They have just a massive collection of, of stuff. And the USC archive has the, you know, the Warner Brothers, one of the biggest collections of Warner Brothers stuff besides the Wisconsin Historical Society, which also has a ton of Warner Brothers stuff. So that's production files, legal files at usc. There's actually a big folder where it's just Warner Brothers, like just history, general history stuff. So, you know, that's where I found a lot of early twenties, some of the, you know, some of the, you know, some of these contracts and, and things, you know, or just updates about the studio that were handwritten.
- [55:25]
Joel Czerny
And.
- [55:26]
Chris Yogerst
But there's, but a lot of other stuff there. There's an oral history collection at, I think it's at. Is it Texas Christian University, University in Texas has a huge oral history collection where there's just tons of interviews with people that, that have stories and updates and anecdotes. I found a lot of good stuff in there. You know, some, some of the things I found actually at USC were, were articles written by a journalist in Youngstown, Ohio, where the brothers were. And she would kind of grew up with, you know, you know, was kind of came of age with them and kind of chronicled their career as they were out in Hollywood. You know, she was kind of the local, the local reporter, the hometown reporter that was covering, you know, the, the famous people from town. So I got a Lot of stuff from there. Also, there's a ton of interviews and things now archived in the Media History Digital archive, which is run through the University of Wisconsin. There's the Lantern search engine that a lot of people are familiar with. Now. There's just a treasure trove of stuff waiting to be discovered in there. And that's where I actually found a lot of interview. Some pictures of early offices that have never been found, but also interviews and some words from Albert Warner, who is particularly difficult to track down throughout history because he just avoided the press expertly. So he was really hard to find. So anytime I could find, you know, especially in the early days when he was one of the older, you know, more established brothers, he would. He would be one of the ones in the teens and early twenties that would give interviews, him and Harry, you know, once Jack and Sam were older, they would. They would get more. More space. But Albert was particularly difficult to track down. But another thing that was really fun and I'm incredibly grateful for. So I mentioned Cass Warner, Harry's granddaughter, wrote a book with. With some of her family members in the early 90s called the Brothers Warner. And she had done a, you know, so many interviews. She. She's kind of been the steward of Warner family history for so long. And on her website, she has just uploaded a ton of interviews that she's done with people over the years, stuff that didn't get into that book. So I was able to find, you know, I was able to learn a lot from Harry Warner's secretary, who she interviewed towards the end of her life, things like that.
- [57:53]
Joel Czerny
Always look for the secretaries. They know more than anybody, and.
- [57:59]
Chris Yogerst
And little gems. I mean, there's. There was. I found. So there was this script girl who worked at Warner Brothers from 1930 to 1960. Her name was Alma Young. And there's an interview of her at the Academy library. But this is like the only proof of her existence. We can't find anything. I've had. I've asked other. Other pros to help me. You know, librarians in Los Angeles, other historians. How can I find stuff about her? And it's like she didn't exist. So I'm working on an article about her to hopefully get some. Some info. But, I mean, she had stories about the brothers. I mean, she was there when they incorporated. She was there when they transitioned to sound. She had opinions on the brothers and how they interacted. So there's a lot of this kind of stuff that you can just. It's easier to track down now because Things are cataloged and you can search and you just, you still got to do that. You still got to sift through everything. You still got to look at everything, but at least you can make a master list of stuff. And when a lot of these previous books were written, you didn't have that digital assistance. So now you can put together a bigger catalog of material to really create, hopefully, a definitive narrative which will fill in gaps, question legends, all that kind of stuff.
- [59:19]
Joel Czerny
I know from teaching students, non historian students who have to take a history class. The whole concept of primary sources just is a total mystery to them because it never occurs to them to even think about that part of it. Where do we. And then I give them examples. Well, you know, accountants use primary sources too. It just so happens instead of them being articles and interviews and things, it's data from the company, you know, the financial stuff. And then they put together the same way. And primary sources are great, but you've got to find them. And you've got, I mean, I've been, you know, anything else that I do, it's the same thing trying to find some of this material. You hope it's out there, but finding it sometimes can be so difficult. So.
- [60:03]
Chris Yogerst
Right. And I teach, I use lantern. In one of my classes, I have students, you know, do a review of one magazine from Hollywood's Golden Age, and they, they usually kind of roll their eyes at first, and by the end of the project, they, they, they're in disbelief of how fun it was to, to try to get a sense of what it was like looking at a primary source. And I, you know, I always tell them a lot of times when I pick up a book, if it's, especially if it's from an author I'm not familiar with. One of the first things I do is I go to the back and I look at the research. You know, is it primary source? Did they, did they go into archives or are they just citing other people's stuff? And that usually kind of opens their eyes, like, oh, this, you know, so now we're looking at a layer of quality here. And you kind of give the, give them a sense of the importance of it.
- [60:49]
Joel Czerny
Yeah, I'm going to nerd out completely and say, I like the books where the acknowledgments are up front rather than at the back. Because when I start to read a book, I mean, sometimes I'll go back and I'll read the acknowledgement first because I want to know, okay, where's the information coming from? And your acknowledgments in your case they are at the end, but that's okay. Who cares?
- [61:08]
Chris Yogerst
I didn't get a choice. That's usually the post decides where that all goes.
- [61:11]
Joel Czerny
Yeah, whatever. But it's where you start to say, okay, what did this author do to get their information? I mean, because most everybody, most of the books that I've done interviews for, even though they're all film, you know, basically film related, I'd like to go on the history part and those are the kind of things that are important to me is sourcing. And where did you get the concepts? Because I think listeners who might also be writers or interested understanding what's out there is always such a great thing that there is a lot of material out there, particularly depending on the topic. But film related, there is quite a.
- [61:52]
Chris Yogerst
Bit and there's so much out there. Well, and I think I mentioned, I mean if anyone goes back and listens to the talk we did on Hollywood Hates Hitler, I mean I, I reached out to the National Archives to see if there was anything on this and they, they wrote back and they said, yeah, there's about a thousand pages and it's all out of order because nobody has looked at it yet, you know, since that was all just dumped in there in 1941 or whatever. Dumped in somebody's office and then, you know, sent there eventually. Yeah, there's, you know, anybody who has spent time in an archive knows that there are still so many stories to tell and so much that can be, you know, chronicled and you know, contextualized and you know, there's, there's going to be no end to it. Which is fun for me because, you know, some people find the research part of it to be kind of a pain in the ass for me. I, I absolutely love it. That's just one of, I, it's, it's so fun every day because you just never know what you're going to discover.
- [62:48]
Joel Czerny
Yeah, the government loves to archive, so don't ever. If it's a government related thing you're looking for, the chances are good it's out there, especially if it's in the right period of time.
- [62:56]
Chris Yogerst
Anything.
- [62:57]
Joel Czerny
You know, it's just unbelievable how much certain events, historical events are well documented, especially if it was somewhere related to the government. There's a lot of stuff and we only can get access to the easy stuff, but there's plenty of out there for those kind of things. So what are you now that obviously this book is out, although you're just starting, like I Say we're talking before the book actually is out and you're starting your publicity work. But what's next on the agenda for you or what are you working on during this period?
- [63:32]
Chris Yogerst
I have a couple books in the works. I just finished a book on the man who Shot Liberty Valance. So there's a new series out of University New Mexico Press called Real west, which is basically like the BFI Film Classics series, but it's for just for Western. So there's a couple books out on that. Alan Rody has one on Blood on the Moon and I think Kirk Ellis has one on Ride Lonesome. And I finished, you know, I'm working just final edits on the Manish at Liberty Valance, which I think is a very underrated John Ford movie, a very underrated John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart movie. So, so I'll be excited to talk about that movie a little bit more. But really the other project that's probably furthest as long is some dabbling in a book about James Cagney and his family in Hollywood.
- [64:23]
Joel Czerny
That sounds good. By the way, before I forget, and I don't want to forget this because I've interviewed a number of authors whose books were published by the University Press of Congress, which is where I actually live in Kentucky. This book is part of their screen classics series. And I suspect if I went through the list of the books and it's in the book, actually the list of their various books. I know I've interviewed a number of folks who have written for that series. So it's great that they are. There are so many studio publishers, academic publishers now who are trying to get these film related and arts related books out there, there. So it's great that they're there and.
- [65:06]
Chris Yogerst
Actually to bring this full circle. So I mentioned the very beginning that Pat McGilligan wanted to talk to me and convince me to do the whole Warner Brothers. And that's one of the reasons the Screen Classic series he's the editor for. So he's a famous biographer in his own right. And that's one of the reasons I had the confidence to take on kind of a daunting project because I knew I would have the advice and the feedback of someone who's written so many absolutely amazing biographies that I, I, I could get some good direction and I, I definitely did. He definitely saved me quite a few headaches when I didn't know what, you know, because there's certain things where it's like, oh, what do I do when I get to like something like Casablanca Right. Like, because there's so much to say about it. But he would say, like, well, you know, however much the brothers were involved is all you need to talk about. So it's like, okay, I don't have to dedicate all this time to Casablanca. I can talk about a little bit of the. The how. How it came about, and then kind of skipped to when Jack Warner stole the Oscar from Hal Wallace, which was awesome. And then it helps keep the narrative going, because in something like this, there are so many rabbit holes you can go down. Every movie you mention is its own story and its own history. So, you know, having that guidance was. Was instrumental in helping me make this truly like the Warner Brothers and not every other side story that they're connected to.
- [66:28]
Joel Czerny
Well, and there's no question, from looking through the lists in the book to some of the films that they did come out from the Warner brothers, that there are a lot of books that still can be written about some of the work they did. Well, as I say, I know you're just getting started with your publicity, but the book is done and will be out at the date around or about the day that this publishes. So this interview publishes. So I'm glad we were able to talk early on in the process. Hopefully, it gave you enough information to get yourself back into the book. Now, given that it's been come. I mean, I think I. You first mentioned it months ago, and I saw it, and I think I reached out to you right then saying, well, we're going to need to talk. That was quite a while ago. And so I appreciate your help in getting me a copy of the book and getting everything ready.
- [67:20]
Chris Yogerst
So good luck with your support, good.
- [67:23]
Joel Czerny
Luck with your publicity and with the book and your future work. As I say, there's just so much in there. And frankly, I think given that Warner Brothers is so much in the news right now, for good and bad, I think we can all celebrate their hundredth anniversary with this book. And it's definitely a good place to get a better sense for readers.
- [67:46]
Chris Yogerst
Thank you.
- [67:47]
Joel Czerny
So, thanks for your help, and thanks for appearing with me.
- [67:52]
Chris Yogerst
Absolutely. Thanks again. Always a pleasure. Experience the sequel everyone's been waiting for.
- [68:09]
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With Sideline 2 intercepted, join Drayton and Dallas as they navigate the challenges of.
- [68:14]
Chris Yogerst
College life while trying to stay true.
- [68:16]
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To themselves and each other.
- [68:17]
Chris Yogerst
Catch all the drama, and watch Sideline.
- [68:20]
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2 Intercepted, starring Noah Beck and Sienna Agudong for free on Tubi this Thanksgiving.