An intimate portrait and saga of four film pioneers--Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack who rose from immigrant poverty through personal tragedies persevering to create a major studio with a social conscience.
Writer/Director: Cass Warner (as Cass Warner Sperling)
Cass is granddaughter of Harry, and is telling mostly the story of the brothers, not of the studio. Since they all worked at that family business, some milestones of the studio are mentioned, but the only musical that was referenced was the last one that Jack produced, Camelot ('67).
According to this, the story in my mind about Sam's death is conflated with the death of Lewis, Harry's son. Lewis is the one who died from complications of an infected tooth at age 23. Sam died shortly before the debut of The Jazz Singer ('27) from a brain hemorrhage at age 40.
Fascinating that Sam's wife, who was working on-camera at Paramount, wanted Sam to bring the sound technology he had pursued to Paramount instead of his own family's firm. Or
Jack and Harry were at odds, with Albert being peace-maker, until Jack crossed the line and sold the company, only to buy it back a few days later.
Interesting, but not fascinating. These are important characters in the history of film, and the era which is most interesting to me, but this is more about personalities than about the films. For instance, this never mentions the short film(s) that were done with sound before The Jazz Singer ('27). (IMDb may be highly inaccurate in this era, but it lists more than 50 non-silent titles released by Warner before TJS was released.)
Rated 7.4 (363)
distr. PBS, dir. Warner; 7-
