Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy d Wilson. Tracy, It's
Speaker 1: time for a little bit of film history, which I
Speaker 1: always love. This is one that seems especially engaging to
Speaker 1: me because of this weird time we're loving through. We
Speaker 1: can't help but look at everything through that lens um.
Speaker 1: We know that this pandemic is impacting virtually every industry
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways, and the film industry is
Speaker 1: no exception. Studios, of course shut down in the spring
Speaker 1: when the pandemic was declared, but so did theaters. Some
Speaker 1: have reopened, some have not. And as we've all seen,
Speaker 1: films that were already made or in post production have
Speaker 1: been all over the place in terms of how they've
Speaker 1: been distributed to consumers. And that, along with some other
Speaker 1: stuff that we will get to as may me think
Speaker 1: about film distribution historically, and so initially I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about the paramount decrees of That is a case
Speaker 1: that's been in the news lately, and it's a good
Speaker 1: example of how things that have happened in the past
Speaker 1: still offer up some surprises decades later. But as I
Speaker 1: started working on it, I really found myself wanting to
Speaker 1: dig a little bit deeper into how things got to
Speaker 1: the point where that particular court case happened, starting with
Speaker 1: how the studios developed, because those two things are inextricably intertwined,
Speaker 1: and because it has roots in very early days of
Speaker 1: the motion picture industry in the US, So just how
Speaker 1: the studio system grew led to what happened legally, and
Speaker 1: this becomes a lot, so we are splitting it into
Speaker 1: two parts. So in this first episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about the people and events that led to the
Speaker 1: establishment of Paramount Pictures as a key player in the
Speaker 1: movie industry. And then in the second episode, we will
Speaker 1: talk about the two court cases against Paramount out as
Speaker 1: well as other defendants in the first half of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. And then we're going to touch on recent
Speaker 1: developments that are related to all of those legal proceedings
Speaker 1: which went on for years and years and recent means recent,
Speaker 1: very weeks ago as of when we are recording this.
Speaker 1: So to really get to the roots of this story,
Speaker 1: we have to start with Adolph Zuker. Zucker was born
Speaker 1: on January seventh, eighteen seventy three and richer Hungary, and
Speaker 1: in Hungarian his last name would be were like Zuker,
Speaker 1: but he seems to have stuck with a pretty Americanized version.
Speaker 1: By the time he was seven, he had already lost
Speaker 1: both of his parents. He never really knew his father,
Speaker 1: who died when Zucker was one, and although his mother
Speaker 1: had remarried, instead of staying with his stepfather, he was
Speaker 1: moved to live with his uncle. And though the family
Speaker 1: had hoped that Adolph would become a rabbi, his fascination
Speaker 1: was studying religious history was really all about the stories
Speaker 1: and much less about the spiritual aspects of Judaism, at
Speaker 1: least as a personal calling. As a teen, at Off
Speaker 1: instead became an apprentice to a shopkeeper, and it was
Speaker 1: through the shopkeeper's daughters that he learned about pulp fiction
Speaker 1: from the United States. The prospect of being a shopkeeper
Speaker 1: was really not any more appealing to add Off than
Speaker 1: becoming a rabbi had been. He eventually convinced his family
Speaker 1: to let him sail to the United States with a
Speaker 1: tiny sum of money it's estimated at forty dollars. Who's
Speaker 1: gonna try to start a new life Yeah, that probably
Speaker 1: didn't seem like a tiny sum at the time, but
Speaker 1: when you think about starting a brand new life somewhere else,
Speaker 1: it doesn't go very far. This whole thing was a
Speaker 1: really arduous undertaking. So first of all, he had to
Speaker 1: book the lowest class of passage for the journey UH
Speaker 1: that came with no amenities. There was a degree of peril.
Speaker 1: Their stories about how he sowed his forty dollars into
Speaker 1: the lining of his clothes so that no one would
Speaker 1: rob him when he slept on the boat. And then
Speaker 1: once he arrived in New York, he didn't know anybody
Speaker 1: and he had to start entirely from scratch to try
Speaker 1: to find work. He eventually settled into a position as
Speaker 1: a furrier's apprentice. He first, according to most stories, started
Speaker 1: out just sweeping the floor and then kind of became
Speaker 1: an apprentice, but he was also taking classes at night
Speaker 1: to improve his English, and some stories say he also
Speaker 1: took classes uh in business as well. With then just
Speaker 1: a couple of years, he had become a skilled designer
Speaker 1: and started working as an independent furrier by the age
Speaker 1: of nineteen. He moved to Chicago a year later in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three, when the World's Colombian Exposition was there.
Speaker 1: He wound up staying in the city and becoming a
Speaker 1: partner in the novelty for company with a fifty percent share.
Speaker 1: The business made a lot of money, but after a
Speaker 1: misstep and predicting trends, Zucker really found his fashion career
Speaker 1: on a downslide. And while he moved back to New
Speaker 1: York and got back on his feet thanks to his
Speaker 1: connections in the fur industry, Zucker was already starting to
Speaker 1: think about film. He also got married during this time
Speaker 1: in eight nine seven to a young woman named Lottie Kaufman.
Speaker 1: They stayed married for the rest of their lives. One
Speaker 1: of the four years that Zucker became friends with during
Speaker 1: this time was Marcus Low. That name is familiar to
Speaker 1: you because of Low cinemas. There's a reason Zooker even
Speaker 1: took an apartment across the street from Low, and their
Speaker 1: families remained friends for life. So he had previously mispredicted
Speaker 1: a trend, the opposite happened in nineteen o two. He
Speaker 1: made a small fortune after correctly predicting a trend for
Speaker 1: Red Fox that year, and Zucker wanted to invest all
Speaker 1: this money that he made it was somewhere between a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand and two hundred thousand dollars. His choice for
Speaker 1: this was investing into the entertainment industry at often. Several
Speaker 1: of his friends in the fur industry invested in a
Speaker 1: penny arcade that was opened by Mitchell Mark in nineteen
Speaker 1: o three. It was on Fourteenth Street near Broadway. This arcade,
Speaker 1: nicknamed Automatic Vaudeville, made a hundred thousand dollars in its
Speaker 1: first year. Zucker left the fur business completely soon after
Speaker 1: that to expand his penny arcades into other locations, and
Speaker 1: the next evolution of his entertainment business was to set
Speaker 1: up an arcade with a theater to show motion pictures.
Speaker 1: So the top floor of Zooker's Automatic Vaudeville was outfitted
Speaker 1: with two hundred seats, and for a nickel, customers could
Speaker 1: watch a fifteen minutes show. This shift to showing motion
Speaker 1: pictures required some enticement. Zucker described this change in the
Speaker 1: offerings of the arcade later in his life quote, we
Speaker 1: had this empty floor over the arcade, about forty ft
Speaker 1: by two hundred fifty feet. We put in two hundred
Speaker 1: seats and then began to worry because it seemed like
Speaker 1: an awful lot, especially as most of our customers didn't
Speaker 1: know what moving pictures were and we're used to paying
Speaker 1: one cent, not five. So we put in a wonderful
Speaker 1: glass staircase. Under the glass was a metal trough of
Speaker 1: running water like a waterfall, with red, green, and blue
Speaker 1: lights shining through. We called it Crystal Hall. And he
Speaker 1: well paid their five cents, mainly on account of the staircase,
Speaker 1: not the movies. It was a big success. This is
Speaker 1: like such great packaging, right That staircase sounds pretty cool?
Speaker 1: It does. Zoocker routinely sat in the sixth row of
Speaker 1: the Crystal Hall theater while movies ran, and he would
Speaker 1: turn around and watch the faces of the audience in
Speaker 1: the rooms behind him as they reacted to the movies
Speaker 1: that were being shown. And he noticed the patterns in
Speaker 1: what worked for audiences and what didn't, and he used
Speaker 1: that information to make decisions about what films to offer.
Speaker 1: In nineteen o four, the St. Louis World's Fair featured
Speaker 1: a novelty movie experience called Hale's Tours of the World,
Speaker 1: was named for their inventor, George C. Hale. The attraction
Speaker 1: was basically a decommissioned train car that had been set
Speaker 1: up as a theater. The theater attendants dressed as train conductors,
Speaker 1: and once they were inside, customers were shown travel films
Speaker 1: while the car rocked and shook and the bell clanged
Speaker 1: as though the whole thing we're traveling through a u
Speaker 1: a Pean town our countryside. Zooker loved this thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: He bought the rights to offer Hales Tours in New York,
Speaker 1: and then he opened Hales Tours in Coney Island, Newark
Speaker 1: and Pittsburgh after that. And initially they were really huge draws.
Speaker 1: But two things ultimately doomed the Hales Tour to a
Speaker 1: short life. One, once an audience had experienced this, the
Speaker 1: novelty kind of wore off. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: people that wanted to keep going back on the same tour.
Speaker 1: Two new films were not being made, even though Zooker
Speaker 1: is said to have asked the team at the newly
Speaker 1: formed motion picture Patents company that is also known as
Speaker 1: the Edison Trust and will reference that name a bunch
Speaker 1: coming up to make more of them, but they were
Speaker 1: not really interested in going in filming the European Countryside anymore.
Speaker 1: Despite its initial success. Hales Tours ultimately landed Zooker's company
Speaker 1: and six figure debt. While his business partners wanted to
Speaker 1: consider declaring bankruptcy, Zucker would not hear of it. He
Speaker 1: had another idea. Over the next two years, Zucker let
Speaker 1: a project that turned all of the Hales Tour locations
Speaker 1: into regular movie theaters. At the end of those two years,
Speaker 1: the company was out of debt and turning a profit,
Speaker 1: but he still had the problem of not having enough
Speaker 1: new films to satisfy him. In nine, Zooker's company combined
Speaker 1: with that of his friend Marcus Low. Low had also
Speaker 1: been opening successful theaters of his own, and once the
Speaker 1: companies combined under the Low Enterprises name at alf Zookers
Speaker 1: work shifted completely. He focused on movies entirely, not so
Speaker 1: much on the marketing or the locations or building out theaters,
Speaker 1: but just the movies first, by traveling both the US
Speaker 1: in Europe and simply going to the movies and watching
Speaker 1: the audience and kind of tracking their reactions. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk in a moment about how the information that
Speaker 1: Zooker collected led him to develop bigger projects, but first
Speaker 1: we will pause for a quick sponsor break. Adolph Zucker
Speaker 1: wanted to explore the idea of longer form content instead
Speaker 1: of the short films that were being produced in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds. He had a vision that was for
Speaker 1: a movie that was not just something for casual foot
Speaker 1: traffic crowds of a busy city, but a level of
Speaker 1: entertainment that would draw a crowd the same way as
Speaker 1: theatrical play mind and that is how he came to
Speaker 1: found the Famous Players Company, which was named for his
Speaker 1: motto of famous players and famous plays. As that motto suggests,
Speaker 1: Zucker wanted to get talent with established name recognition from
Speaker 1: theater to star in films that were based on well
Speaker 1: known plays. Yeah, in a lot of cases it was, Hey,
Speaker 1: you got famous doing this play on Broadway. Can we
Speaker 1: film that play and make it a movie. Famous Players
Speaker 1: Company was actually set up more as the distributor to
Speaker 1: release Zooker's first movie after production was already completed. That
Speaker 1: movie was Queen Elizabeth, which starred Sarah Bernhardt. The film
Speaker 1: had been shot in France and it was a British
Speaker 1: French production with the title les a mur de la
Speaker 1: Elizabet or simply La Elizabeth, and Zooker secured the U
Speaker 1: S distribution rights for either thirty five thousand dollars or
Speaker 1: forty thou dollars, depending on who you listen to. That
Speaker 1: was considered an absurdly high amount of money, but Zooker
Speaker 1: paid it, and then he had the film premiere at
Speaker 1: Broadways Lyceum Theater on July twelfth, n twelve as a
Speaker 1: huge event. The ticket price was massive for the time,
Speaker 1: it was a dollar. Remember, he had been charging five
Speaker 1: cents for his theaters in the automated vaudeville. But Zooker's
Speaker 1: effort to market this longer length film, trading on Bernhard's
Speaker 1: fame and the fresh concept of a longer form it
Speaker 1: ran more than forty minutes, was ultimately very successful. So
Speaker 1: from there things moved really quickly for Zooker. He got
Speaker 1: more Broadway actors to make films based on plays that
Speaker 1: they were already famous for this time with his company
Speaker 1: actually making the films. He made versions of The Prisoner
Speaker 1: of Zenda and The Count of Money Christo and several
Speaker 1: other films, and less than a year he also left
Speaker 1: low enterprises to focus on famous players company full time.
Speaker 1: He transitioned Mary Pickford to film, initially paying her five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a week, which was more than two and
Speaker 1: a half times when she was making on Broadway. And
Speaker 1: then Pickford was of course catapulted to stardom, and well,
Speaker 1: she probably could never have anticipated eventually getting paid ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a week just a few years later. That
Speaker 1: is not adjusted. That's ten thousand dollars in nineteen teens money.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixteen, Adolph Sucker merged his company with another
Speaker 1: film company run independently by Jesse Laski. They created famous
Speaker 1: players Laski. While Zucker was establishing himself in film, he
Speaker 1: had also gotten into business with a man named W. W. Hodginson,
Speaker 1: who was working on his own venture in the entertainment world.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about Hodginson for a minute. William
Speaker 1: Hodginson was born in eighteen eighty one in Pueblo, Colorado.
Speaker 1: His middle name was either Wallace or Wadsworth, depending on
Speaker 1: what source you look at. Some sources include both of them.
Speaker 1: The Online Archive of California, for example, which has a
Speaker 1: collection of his papers, even lists him both ways in
Speaker 1: the finding aid that accompanies that collection. There's not a
Speaker 1: whole lot of information about Hodginson's early life. He worked
Speaker 1: on a railroad, telegraph and as a salesman for a
Speaker 1: correspondence school before moving into the entertainment business. In nineteen
Speaker 1: oh seven, he opened one of the first movie theaters
Speaker 1: in the United States. That was in Utah. Uh Yeah.
Speaker 1: He originally started out in Ogden and eventually spread to
Speaker 1: other places. He has some Salt Lake footprints. But Hodkinson
Speaker 1: founded Paramount Pictures in nineteen fourteen. That Paramount Pictures not
Speaker 1: what we think of today. It was strictly a distribution company,
Speaker 1: but Hodginson was completely changing the way films were distributed.
Speaker 1: Up to that point, distribution had to primary models. First,
Speaker 1: there were regional rights, also called states rights. In this model,
Speaker 1: the movie producer would sell their films to a salesperson
Speaker 1: who had a regional distribution network, and then that person,
Speaker 1: who then owned a copy of the film, would take
Speaker 1: that copy to theaters to be played for audiences. The
Speaker 1: salesperson would be paid by the theater owner. This usually
Speaker 1: meant that the same film would be played basically until
Speaker 1: it was unwatchably damaged. Because the regional person wanted to
Speaker 1: make as much money off their investment in purchasing that
Speaker 1: copy of the film as they possibly could. This meant
Speaker 1: money up front for the producer, but then the regional
Speaker 1: salesman made all the money after that. It also meant
Speaker 1: that the producer had no control over the quality of
Speaker 1: their film that the audiences might see. If you were
Speaker 1: seeing it late in the run, it might look terrible.
Speaker 1: We have all been to second run theaters and you
Speaker 1: know how it is a different experience, so imagine that
Speaker 1: getting worse and worse and worse. The second distribution model
Speaker 1: at this time was called the road show, and in
Speaker 1: this scenario, the producer would enter into a contract with
Speaker 1: a popular first run movie theater to run their movie
Speaker 1: as a limited run special engagement. So this was treated
Speaker 1: sort of like a special event. Think of it like
Speaker 1: a touring production of a play. And ticket prices reflected
Speaker 1: that the road show approach made a lot of money
Speaker 1: for producers upfront because of the higher cost to the consumer,
Speaker 1: but that also only lasted for a short period of time.
Speaker 1: These two approaches were often used in combination, so the
Speaker 1: producer would have the limited run road show and then
Speaker 1: would sell States rights copies. The road show screenings would
Speaker 1: serve as part of the advertising model to drum up
Speaker 1: interest as the film made its way into other markets
Speaker 1: through this regional rights distribution. But Paramount Pictures was designed
Speaker 1: to get out of that regional approach. Hodkinson thought that
Speaker 1: it would be better to arrange nationwide distribution plans with
Speaker 1: producers getting a cut of the profits from the box office.
Speaker 1: Instead of doing this weird we sell you the movie
Speaker 1: and you sell the movie to theaters. It was we
Speaker 1: arranged for the theaters to do this and we'll all
Speaker 1: make money together. This was so that there would be
Speaker 1: a motivation for production companies to focus on quality. Better
Speaker 1: films would draw more audience and make more money for everybody. Typically,
Speaker 1: Hodkinson took thirty five percent of the profit and the
Speaker 1: producers got and that went on as long as the
Speaker 1: picture played, so a big change from producers giving up
Speaker 1: all rights to profit once they had sold a print
Speaker 1: to a regional distributor. Also, Paramount was providing money to
Speaker 1: filmmakers as part of their deals, so while the company
Speaker 1: wasn't making movies, it was financing them. Hodkinson, with a
Speaker 1: much bigger stake in films, got exclusive distribution rights, so
Speaker 1: he got control over how and where they were shown.
Speaker 1: He would determine what markets and what specific theaters were
Speaker 1: the best match for a given film. He negotiated deals
Speaker 1: with UMAs that he arranged for marketing. This cut out
Speaker 1: the sale of Prince to regional salespeople entirely. Another interesting
Speaker 1: aspect of Paramount was that it wasn't exclusively Hodginson's company.
Speaker 1: The producers who were part of his distribution model all
Speaker 1: owned a piece of the business. They were kind of
Speaker 1: like foundational members. Hodkinson started working on this idea when
Speaker 1: he was working for the General Film Company in nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1: The General Film Company was the distribution company that was
Speaker 1: created by the Motion Picture Patents Company that is, once
Speaker 1: again the Edison Trust. But while Hodginson's test efforts in
Speaker 1: this model did really well, things did not go over
Speaker 1: so well with the Edison Trust. And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk more about the Edison Trust and its practices, but
Speaker 1: first we will take another quick sponsor break. Now. The
Speaker 1: Motion Picture Patents Company had formed in nineteen o eight
Speaker 1: in an effort to get the film industry, which was
Speaker 1: kind of all over the place in terms of technology
Speaker 1: and stability, to homogenize and settle on one standard. We've
Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit on previous shows, like
Speaker 1: when we talked about the Lumire brothers and and some
Speaker 1: others and how everybody was developing like their own films,
Speaker 1: their own cameras, etcetera. But this trust involved a lot
Speaker 1: of companies, some of which you have also heard of
Speaker 1: on the show before. So obviously Edison, Vitograph, Biograph S
Speaker 1: and a Sellig Lubin, Callum path A, Melliaise, and Gaumont.
Speaker 1: All of these different players had been involved to some
Speaker 1: degree in the patent wars around the various technologies that
Speaker 1: had been developed in this new industry. But by assembling
Speaker 1: as a trust, they had almost all of the industry's
Speaker 1: patents and they were in a position to demand that
Speaker 1: anyone showing a motion picture had to pay the Trust
Speaker 1: a licensing fee for the technology that was involved. Eastman
Speaker 1: Kodak was under contract to only sell film to licensees
Speaker 1: of the Trust. Film length was limited by the Trust
Speaker 1: to ten to twenty minutes, and actors were not credited
Speaker 1: per their rules. Yeah, the Edison Trust was like, don't
Speaker 1: credit actors because famous actors will start asking for more money.
Speaker 1: We're going to create a financial problem. Also, like they
Speaker 1: just wanted to control everything. Rolled my eyes really hard.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, independent filmmakers and small theater owners
Speaker 1: were not big fans of the Trust. And we mentioned
Speaker 1: before that you know, there was a desire for longer films,
Speaker 1: but if they weren't letting enough film be sold to
Speaker 1: make longer films, that couldn't happen either. Some of these
Speaker 1: creators opted to import film and equipment from Europe to
Speaker 1: try to get around the trust's monopoly, and the Trust
Speaker 1: was really not keen on Hodkinson's ideas, which shifted things
Speaker 1: around in a way that would change their model of
Speaker 1: extracting licensing fees for everyone along the line in a
Speaker 1: film's production and distribution and ultimately mean that they made
Speaker 1: less money. The us In Trust was eventually undone through
Speaker 1: lost legal battles and legislation. In nineteen thirteen, the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruled in Bower and Ce versus O'Donnell that
Speaker 1: a patent holder couldn't fix pricing related to use of
Speaker 1: that patent. The following year, Congress passed the Clayton Antitrust Act,
Speaker 1: which was designed to regulate businesses and prevent monopolies, and
Speaker 1: its regulations meant some of the trust's practices were illegal.
Speaker 1: There was also a nineteen seventeen case of mp PC
Speaker 1: versus Universal Film Manufacturing Company, in which the court ruled
Speaker 1: in Universal's favor that once a patent was licensed, the
Speaker 1: licensey was not legally bound to the licenser for any
Speaker 1: other reason. By the time all of these paddles played out,
Speaker 1: most film producers had migrated to Hollywood to get away
Speaker 1: from the Edison Trust and do things their own way. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to Hodginson, he approached this issue of wanting to
Speaker 1: convince his bosses that he was onto something important really methodically.
Speaker 1: At the end of nineteen twelve, he made two charts
Speaker 1: that compared the projected future of the film industry with
Speaker 1: this method in place, versus the continuation of the States
Speaker 1: rights and road show approach. He took these charts and
Speaker 1: all of this data to New York to meet with
Speaker 1: General Film Company leadership, but he was ultimately unsuccessful. Hodginson
Speaker 1: had already implemented his distribution model in northern California as
Speaker 1: part of his nineteen eleven testing, and his bosses told
Speaker 1: him to change it back to the old way. He
Speaker 1: refused and was fired in May of nineteen thirteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for the record, like The theater owners in in the
Speaker 1: San Francisco area loved this model. They were completely good
Speaker 1: with it. But Hodginson did not leave the industry. He
Speaker 1: believed in his new approach, and so he formed a
Speaker 1: company to distribute films for independent producers. That company, the
Speaker 1: Progressive Company, got distribution deals with Famous Players Company and
Speaker 1: Lasky Feature Play Company, which became founding members of Paramount.
Speaker 1: Before those two companies merged together. Hodginson and Zooker had
Speaker 1: actually meant when Hodginson had gone to New York to
Speaker 1: plead his case with the heads of General Film. The
Speaker 1: story behind the switch to Paramount from Progressive is that
Speaker 1: Hodginson discovered on a visit back to New York there
Speaker 1: was already a Progressive Pictures. It was in the New
Speaker 1: York phone Book. This is also when he has said
Speaker 1: to a first doodle the sketch of a mountain and
Speaker 1: stars that has been the basis of the Paramount Pictures
Speaker 1: logo ever since. Yep, they're still using it. Uh. In July,
Speaker 1: Paramount took out a two page ad in the periodical
Speaker 1: Moving Picture World touting the distributor partners throughout the US
Speaker 1: that they had arranged with a map of the United
Speaker 1: States showing how almost every part of the country could
Speaker 1: be reached through Paramount, with the call to action to
Speaker 1: local exhibitors quote, get in touch with our distributor in
Speaker 1: your territory and procure the finest motion pictures the world
Speaker 1: has ever seen. Famous Players Film Company, Jesse Alaski, Feature
Speaker 1: Play Company, and bos Were Incorporated are all called out
Speaker 1: as producers of Paramount distributed films in the ad, and
Speaker 1: to ensure that potential customers knew that foreign pictures could
Speaker 1: be obtained through Paramount as well. Along the bottom of
Speaker 1: the spread was the phrase quote and the cream of
Speaker 1: the world's market. In addition to the above manufacturers. Once
Speaker 1: the Famous Players Last Ki Corporation was formed from the
Speaker 1: two existing companies, it became the primary supplier of films
Speaker 1: to Paramount as a distributor, making up an estimated seventy
Speaker 1: of their distribution titles. There had been a bump in
Speaker 1: the road early on in the relationship among these businesses. Zooker,
Speaker 1: Laski and other producers had all signed five year contracts
Speaker 1: with Paramount, but because of the entirely new nature of
Speaker 1: the distribution model they were agreeing to, they didn't really
Speaker 1: grasp how much power it gave Hodginson until later, and
Speaker 1: that was problematic, even though producers were then making more
Speaker 1: money than ever thanks to his changes to the business.
Speaker 1: Zucker try to get out of his deal because of it,
Speaker 1: and Hodkinson would not have it and his anger, Zooker
Speaker 1: saw a bigger opportunity and made a move. On March first,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, Zucker renegotiated his deal with Paramount, and this
Speaker 1: was not as you might expect a situation to get
Speaker 1: out of his existing deal early. No, it was instead
Speaker 1: to extend the contract to twenty five years. That sounds kooky,
Speaker 1: but man was he thinking eighteen steps ahead of everyone else,
Speaker 1: because over the next two months, Zooker and his friend
Speaker 1: Jesse Laski sold of their companies to Paramount. This also
Speaker 1: sounds a little crazy, but it was part of a
Speaker 1: multi layered plan to gain power for themselves. They used
Speaker 1: the money from the sales as well as alone to
Speaker 1: start buying Paramount stock on the down low until they
Speaker 1: had accumulated a combined controlling share of Paramount. On June
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, W. W. Hodkinson was forced to resign, as
Speaker 1: well as the Paramount treasurer, who was loyal to him.
Speaker 1: That was Raymond Pauli. Zoocker was in charge of the
Speaker 1: reorganized company and Famous Players last Kie Corporation merged with
Speaker 1: Paramount Pictures. The Paramount name was still used for distribution,
Speaker 1: while Famous Players Laskie was still the production entity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that's always a little
Speaker 1: confusing whenever you're reading like business histories. It still goes
Speaker 1: on today. Right a business will get purchased by another,
Speaker 1: or they'll merge, but they'll still keep using the separate names,
Speaker 1: and that can get a little confusing. That's kind of
Speaker 1: what was going on here. We have been part of
Speaker 1: deals like that before, and we've tried to sort it out.
Speaker 1: I was gonna sarcastically say, we've never had that happen
Speaker 1: to us. Yeah, we know exactly what that's about. As
Speaker 1: for Hodkinson, who was adamantly against the vertical integration of production,
Speaker 1: distribution and exhibition that Paramount was now working with, he
Speaker 1: went on to work in a number of new distribution companies,
Speaker 1: some of which he founded for about a decade after
Speaker 1: he was ousted by Zooker, and he moved into the
Speaker 1: Dasian industry and out of entertainment in and that is
Speaker 1: where we are going to pause for this episode. Next
Speaker 1: time around will cover how Zookers newly combined entertainment Powerhouse
Speaker 1: started using this massive footprint to push competitors to the side.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for a little listener mail? I sure am.
Speaker 1: This is from our listener, Dan, who wrote, Dear Holly
Speaker 1: and Tracy, I'm very behind in my podcast listening. Dan,
Speaker 1: me too, three he said, I have only reached late
Speaker 1: May in my playlist, and I consequently missed your June
Speaker 1: twelve deadline. I'm writing because you said that you missed
Speaker 1: hearing from fans during your tours. While we might never
Speaker 1: have met, I am a total fan of you both.
Speaker 1: I love your episodes. I've been a long time listener
Speaker 1: of the podcast, going back to the days of Candice
Speaker 1: and Josh. I should know what happened to Candice. But
Speaker 1: I'm also a longtime listener stuff you should know with
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck. I'm a Massachusetts resident and enjoy hearing
Speaker 1: about Tracy's Boston adventures during COVID nineteen. I especially missed
Speaker 1: the street festivals in the North End and getting a
Speaker 1: Java Barry at Dairy Joy in Weston. Holly, I feel
Speaker 1: a special connection to you. My family are big Disney
Speaker 1: and Star Wars fans. My wife is a runner, ran
Speaker 1: the Kessel Run at Run Disney in TV and her
Speaker 1: first marathon at Walt Disney World in eighteen. I admit
Speaker 1: to checking for your bib at that later race. If
Speaker 1: you had entered, I would have asked you to meet.
Speaker 1: She's also a stitcher and used to craft costumes for
Speaker 1: Halloween adventures for our nieces and nephews. My favorite was
Speaker 1: a toy story takeoff when she made an Emperor's or
Speaker 1: costume for my son and he got to deliver the
Speaker 1: line buzz I am your cousin when he was unmasked.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed listening to your drawing, the story of animation podcasts,
Speaker 1: his avatar work as Phineas Jay whoopee again. Best wishes
Speaker 1: do you both stay safe and thank you for all
Speaker 1: the joy you bring. I won't suggest a topic for
Speaker 1: an episode because I have always been delighted with whatever
Speaker 1: you present. Dan, Dan, that's so sweet. That is so sweet.
Speaker 1: I love it. I just wanted to read it because
Speaker 1: it's such a delightful and nice email, and I like
Speaker 1: knowing that there are people who have very overlapping universes
Speaker 1: of fandom with mine. Yeah, I have not run a
Speaker 1: marathon's it's the one I ran in because that was
Speaker 1: a lot and I didn't want to do it again.
Speaker 1: I ran a lot of halves after that still, but
Speaker 1: I haven't run in a while. But uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a super fun. It's one of those things. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know how these things are going to work
Speaker 1: going for at all. So I hope that your wife,
Speaker 1: you know, finds a way through uh and and is
Speaker 1: able to do events that are interesting to her in
Speaker 1: the future, because I have no idea what running events
Speaker 1: will look like in another five years. Even I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have any idea. But thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing this with us. It makes me
Speaker 1: so happy. And I'm always delighted when anyone listens to
Speaker 1: drawing because I really loved doing that show. Um yeah, thanks, thanks,
Speaker 1: thanks Dan for all the things. And also because I
Speaker 1: know that some people did miss that June twelve deadline
Speaker 1: to post questions and because they like me and you
Speaker 1: are I can't keep up with everything that they have
Speaker 1: to listen to. And there is no shame in that.
Speaker 1: All the things that I used to listen to podcasts
Speaker 1: during are not are not happening? Don't happen anymore? Yeah,
Speaker 1: not so much. Also just so much going on. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us about all
Speaker 1: the things going on them may or may not be
Speaker 1: keeping you from keeping up with your usual podcast listening,
Speaker 1: you can do that at History Podcast at iHeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us on social media
Speaker 1: as Missed in History, and you can subscribe to the
Speaker 1: podcast on the I heart Radio app, at Apple podcast
Speaker 1: or wherever it is you listen. Stuff you Missed in
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.