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  • What Was Adolph Zukor Doing in 1927?
  • Douglas Gomery (bio)

It was Adolph Zukor who taught the world how to fully exploit feature films with stars and book them everywhere on the planet. By 1921 Zukor had turned his Paramount company into the most powerful and most profitable film making and distribution company in the world. By 1925 he had the largest theatre chain. From his base in New York City, he had defined and invented the Hollywood studio system.1

So what was the inventor of the Hollywood studio system doing in 1927? We know he was not innovating sound as were Warners and Fox. We are fortunate that in March 1927 he was speaking at Harvard University, of all places! Before I begin to address what he was not doing and why, I let him speak to establish first how he was able to move his small company forward, to innovate a studio system and to rise to its top within the space of a decade. Then when Zukor was the leader of the studio system, I shall argue that throughout 1927 - when Warners and Fox threatened Paramount -he reacted skillfully and kept Paramount on top of that system before an outside force - the Great Depression - hit.

Adolph Zukor: the leader & his invention

On Saturday night 19 March 1927, Adolph Zukor journeyed to Cambridge, Massachusetts at the invitation of Joseph P. Kennedy, then head of the FBO studio, to lecture to students and faculty at the Harvard Business School. He surely did not sit with pen in hand and write these remarks, rather he dictated them to an assistant who cleaned them up. But after much research I am convinced he did the best he could to convey his memories of his rags-to-riches struggle and did not make up facts. He wanted to tell his audience what he had experienced, and we are lucky to have this testimony because it was Zukor who had established the first principles of the studio system by that year.

Zukor first reminded his audience of his goal: to dominate this new industry. He remembered how easy it was to get into the business of exhibition, but how hard it was to get the films he wanted because the Patents Trust sought to monopolize exhibition. For a time the Trust was successful, and Zukor rememberedin 1927 how he had suffered as a result:

They were making the best pictures in Europe then, in France and Italy. We did not make very good pictures in this country [because of the Trust]. As luck would have it, the Pathe Company in Paris made a picture, The Passion Play, which was in three reels and hand-colored. That was really the first picture of any consequence that I can recall. When I saw that picture I made up my mind to bring it to America. We arranged for an organ and a quartet to play and sing appropriate music. I did not dare open in New York [because of the Trust]. So we tried it first in Newark. We were on a street adjoining a big department store and opened up Monday morning. A great many of the bargain hunters - I mean the ladies - dropped in early to see and hear the performance. As they walked out, I stood at the door eager and anxious to hear the comments. People with tears in their eyes came over to me and said, 'What a beautiful thing this is'. I felt instinctively [End Page 205] that this was the turning point, that my rent would be paid from now on.2


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Figure 1.

Adolph Zukor at the height of his power in 1927. [Courtesy Quigley Collection, Georgetown University.]

That is, he had seen the feature film, judged its audience and set up a basic tenet of the studio system. He closely watched its revenues, and knowing its costs, calculated its vast profits. According to his memory:

We stayed on with that picture for months and did a land office business. That gave me courage to go into New York and wherever else I had theatres, and we showed that...

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