Jack L. Warner

You know, there's a very famous story about Bonnie and Clyde, which, yes, I am too young for her, before I was born.

But Bonnie and Clyde, Jack Warner, the head of the studio, thought it was awful.

And the picture came out, and a very famous critic in the New York Times, a man named Bosley Crowther, saw the movie and he hated it.

And he wrote that it was garbage.

But anyways, ends up in Hollywood for a short period of time, is writing for Warner Brothers.

Then Jack Warner says, I don't want any N-words in my writer's room, and he's gone.

So this guy could have let that be the end, but he just kept going and he kept writing and eventually some of his work did make it to the big screen, albeit through his novels.

Yeah.

As I was saying, ladies and gentlemen, tonight you didn't expect to meet...

Whom, Fred? Well, right in back of this radio studio on the Warner Brothers lot here, Harry, there's a gentleman who operates a lunch wagon.

Day and night he is a veritable tornado of chopped meat and onions, for he is a genial Merlin who assembles hamburgers at an instant's notice for his customers.

And his customers, Harry, are only movie and radio celebrities.

Why should I advertise a competitor?

You're right, Willie.

Well, tell me, has your lunch wagon ever been in any of the Warner pictures?

Yes.

That was also during the studio system, the golden age when...

A lot of the voting was block voting because, you know, Jack Warner said, vote for this guy.

Right.

I will say, again, the people vote, the things are tallied, and that's it.

No.

So anyway, as early as December of 1954, there is a letter to Jack Warner that's found in the PCA files.

And he basically tells Warner the property violates the spirit and the letter of the code.

Now, according to a further memo from January of 1955 in the PCA files, Sherlock's office sent letters to several studios, among them Paramount, Columbia and Universal, even though they had not even inquired about the property to caution them against it.

Yes, sir, is there...

Well, it's Jack Warner of the Warner Brothers Studios.

Hello, Jack.

Hello.

You fluff over lines.

Now, look, Jack.

Jack Warner, I want to tell you something.

All of that about the hornblows admit I was not my fault.

And Porter did say, if they wanted Cary Grant to play you in a film, would you correct them? But yeah, he did that as a joke.

And Jack Warner was like, sure thing.

Get Cary Grant.

Noted astute person Jack Warner.

Exactly.

This

was a huge, huge Jack Warner-driven project.

He just loved the songs.