Tracing Quotations
Samuel Goldwyn? Humphrey Bogart? Ed Sullivan? Moss Hart? John Ford? Brendan Behan? Harry Warner? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Storytellers often wish to do more than simply entertain. They wish to instruct their audiences via a didactic narrative. Yet, the primary concern of the producers of films and plays is financial success. This tension is illustrated …
Continue reading “All I Want Is a Story. If You Have a Message, Send It by Western Union”
D. W Griffith? Harry Warner? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: D. W. Griffith was the most innovative and important director during the early days of cinema. However, he was unable to foresee the momentous shift away from silent movies. Apparently, he stated that audiences would never wish to hear recorded human voices in films. Is that …
Continue reading “We Do Not Want Now and We Never Shall Want the Human Voice with Our Films”
Harry Warner? Sam Warner? Jack L. Warner? D. W. Griffith? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Four brothers: Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner founded Warner Bros. Pictures which became a powerful long-lived institution in Hollywood. Their extraordinary success did not arise from a pellucid view of the future. In fact, the development of motion pictures with …