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Film Booking Offices of America

January 07, 2023

Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), registered as FBO Pictures Corp., was an American film studio of the silent era, a midsize producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began in 1918 as Robertson-Cole, an Anglo-American import-export company. Robertson-Cole began distributing films in the United States that December and opened a Los Angeles production facility in 1920. Late that year, R-C entered into a working relationship with East Coast financier Joseph P. Kennedy. A business reorganization in 1922 led to the company's assumption of the new FBO name. Two years later, the studio contracted with Western leading man Fred Thomson, who within a couple years was one of Hollywood's most popular stars. Thomson was just one of several silent screen cowboys with whom FBO became identified.

Film Booking Offices of America
Logo from 1927
TypeCorporation
IndustryMotion pictures
PredecessorRobertson-Cole Corp.
Founded1922
Defunct1929
FateAssets transferred to Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp.
SuccessorRKO Pictures
Headquarters1922–1925: 723 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY[1]
1926–1929: 1560 Broadway, New York, NY[2]

The studio, whose core market was America's small towns, also put out many romantic melodramas, action pictures, and comedic shorts. Pauline Frederick and Sessue Hayakawa were the major stars of its R-C period. Subsequently, Evelyn Brent and Richard Talmadge were FBO's biggest non-Western stars. From 1925 on, adaptations of the works of Gene Stratton-Porter were consistently among its top box office attractions. In 1926, Kennedy led an investment group that acquired the company; he relocated to California to run it, with considerable success. Exhibitors cited The Keeper of the Bees, based on a Stratton-Porter novel, as the year's most popular film. In August 1928, using RCA Photophone technology, FBO became the second Hollywood studio to release a feature-length "talkie". Two months later, Kennedy and RCA executive David Sarnoff arranged the merger between FBO and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater circuit that created RKO, one of the major studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. FBO's assets were folded into the new company, and it was dissolved in early 1929.

Business history

The R-C years

 
December 1921 Robertson-Cole ad, featuring Pauline Frederick and Sessue Hayakawa

The company that would become FBO began as Robertson-Cole, an importer, exporter, and motion picture distributor with headquarters in London and New York, founded in 1918 by Englishman Harry F. Robertson and American Rufus S. Cole.[3] The company handled American-made trucks, cars, automobile accessories, and Bell & Howell motion picture equipment; its initial film distribution focus was on the Northern European, South Asian, and Latin American markets.[4] From its U.S. office, R-C Pictures, as it was often branded, started American motion picture distribution late in 1918, purchasing film rights from independent production companies and selling them on to Exhibitors Mutual Distributing, a corporate successor of the Mutual Film studio. In November, R-C contracted to serve as the sole provider to Exhibitors Mutual, and its first acquisitions were released the following month.[5][6] For its top-of-the-line "product", it purchased the movies of star actor Sessue Hayakawa, whose films were produced by his own company, Haworth Pictures Corporation.[7] Other companies also made films expressly for R-C distribution: B.B. Features, Jesse D. Hampton Productions, National Film Corporation, Winsome Stars.[8] To accompany its features, Robertson-Cole also acquired a wide variety of serials and other shorts, from Supreme Comedies with Harry Depp and Teddy Sampson to a biweekly series, On the Borderland of Civilization, filmed by adventurer Martin Johnson.[9] Late in 1919, independent motion picture producer Frank Hall acquired Exhibitors Mutual and integrated it into his new Hallmark Exchanges. In January 1920, Robertson-Cole purchased Hallmark, securing the capacity to directly distribute the films to which it owned rights, including the in-house productions then being planned.[10][6]

In March, the inaugural "convention of the branch managers and field supervisors of the Robertson-Cole Distributing Corporation" was announced.[11] The company currently boasted a slate of twenty-five movies in theaters around the country, with its top films co-branded "Superior Pictures".[12] The first R-C feature productions began to appear, including The Third Woman that same month, directed by Charles Swickard and starring Carlyle Blackwell and Louise Lovely, and The Wonder Man, directed by John G. Adolfi and starring boxer Georges Carpentier, which had a premiere on May 29 and went into general release in July.[13] With its move into production, Robertson-Cole needed its own filmmaking studio: in June, it acquired a lot around fifteen acres (six hectares) in size in Los Angeles's fortuitously named Colegrove district, then adjacent to but soon to be subsumed by Hollywood.[14] For exterior shoots, the company purchased 460 acres in Santa Monica, to be known as the "R-C Ranch".[15] In September, contracts were signed for the construction on the Colegrove property of an administration building with a massive neoclassical façade and eight stages, each occupying nearly a third of an acre.[16] The first film to shoot at the facility, while it was still being built, was the independent production Kismet (1920), directed by Louis J. Gasnier.[17] With the West Coast operation up and running, Hayakawa's production company was absorbed into Robertson-Cole.[18]

Rufus Cole also entered into a working relationship with Joseph P. Kennedy, father of future U.S. president John F. Kennedy and then a broker at the New York banking firm of Hayden, Stone. In December, after lengthy negotiations, Kennedy set up his own wholly owned company, Robertson-Cole Distributing Corporation of New England, to handle the business's films in an area where he had a controlling interest in a regional theater chain (though it was locked out of Massachusetts by the leading exhibitors).[19] In February 1921, the movie heralded as Robertson-Cole's first "official" production came out: The Mistress of Shenstone, directed by Henry King and starring Pauline Frederick, a former headliner with Famous Players-Lasky and Goldwyn Pictures.[20] At the same time, the business was $5 million in debt from the L.A. studio purchase and draining money—banks were reluctant to issue lines of credit to any but the biggest film companies, and R-C was forced to pay interest rates as high as 18 percent to so-called bonus sharks to access working capital. The company's primary investor, the Graham's of London firm, turned to Kennedy to find a buyer, giving him a seat on the R-C board, paying him a monthly adviser's fee, and promising a sizable commission. Though he failed to arrange the sale Graham's was looking for (and his own offer to buy 25 percent of the business was turned down), Kennedy would become deeply involved with the studio in the coming years.[21]

A new identity

 
FBO logo from 1924–25

In 1922, Robertson-Cole underwent a major reorganization as the company's founders departed.[22] The flagship U.S. distribution business changed its name to Film Booking Offices of America, a banner under which R-C had released more than a dozen independent productions.[23] The West Coast studio operation continued to make films under the Robertson-Cole name for some time, but FBO ultimately became the primary identity of the business for production as well as distribution.[24] Between May 1922 and October 1923, one of the company's new American investors, Pat Powers, was effectively in command. Powers had previously led his own filmmaking company, part of the multiple mergers that created the large Universal studio in 1912. During his time in charge at FBO, his brand was added to many of its films: "P. A. Powers Presents".[25] Among its outside suppliers of the period were Chester Bennett Productions, Hunt Stromberg Productions, and Tiffany Productions.[26] In 1923, the studio launched a series of boxing-themed shorts, Fighting Blood, starring FBO newcomer George O'Hara—it was so popular it was often billed above the accompanying feature.[27] O'Hara would become an FBO mainstay, as would Alberta Vaughn, who specialized in shorts: most of her films were two-reelers, a measure of film length indicating a running time of fifteen to twenty-five minutes.[28] (Many feature films of the era were no more than five reels.)[29]

 
Love and Learn (1924) was the tenth installment of The Telephone Girl, Alberta Vaughn's first FBO series of shorts. Not a true serial film, each of its "chapters" was a stand-alone tale.[30]

H.C.S. Thomson of Graham's, already chairman of the board, became the business's managing director with the departure of Powers.[31] Before leaving the board in 1924, Kennedy put together a major distribution and production deal between FBO and leading Western star Fred Thomson.[32] B. P. Fineman became the studio's production chief that year; Evelyn Brent, his wife, moved over from Fox to become FBO's top dramatic star.[33] In April 1925, FBO vice-president Joseph I. Schnitzer signed Thomson to a new contract paying him $6,000 a week—roughly $92,710 in 2021 dollars.[34] Behind only the enormously popular Tom Mix, Thomson was now the second-highest paid of all cowboy actors; his horse, Silver King, beloved by audiences, was covered by a $100,000 insurance policy. The deal also gave Thomson his own dedicated production unit at the studio.[35] In December 1925, the Exhibitors Herald published its first annual list of the biggest box office films of the preceding year (ending November 15) based on a national survey of theater owners. FBO's top five attractions were led by A Girl of the Limberlost, an adaptation of a novel by bestselling author Gene Stratton-Porter, who had died the previous December; this was followed by Broken Laws, an issue-driven melodrama detailing the dire consequences of not spanking naughty children, and three Fred Thomson "oaters": The Bandit's Baby, The Wild Bull's Lair, and Thundering Hoofs.[36]

As a distributor, Film Booking Offices focused on marketing its films to small-town exhibitors and independent theater chains (that is, those not owned by one of the major Hollywood studios).[37] As a production company, it concentrated on low-budget movies, with an emphasis on Westerns, action films, romantic melodramas, and comedy shorts.[38] From its first productions in early 1920 through late 1928, just before it was dissolved in a merger, the company, as either Robertson-Cole Pictures or FBO Pictures, produced more than 400 features.[39] The studio's top-of-the-line movies—"specials", in industry parlance—aimed at major exhibition venues beyond the reach of most FBO films, were sometimes marketed as FBO "Gold Bond" pictures.[40] Between 1924 and 1926, seven of Evelyn Brent's star vehicles as well as two other high-end films were produced under the label of Gothic Pictures or Gothic Productions.[41] With neither the backing of large corporate interests nor the daily money generator of its own theater chain and far from its London owners, the company faced persistent cash-flow difficulties. The significant financial drain of its reliance on short-term, high-interest loans continued.[42]

Kennedy takes command

 
FBO distribution logo from 1926

While still at the Hayden, Stone investment firm, Kennedy had boasted to a colleague, "Look at that bunch of pants pressers in Hollywood making themselves millionaires. I could take the whole business away from them."[43] In 1925, he set out to do so, forming his own group of investors led by wealthy Boston lawyer Guy Currier, Filene's department store owner Louis Kirstein, and Union Stockyards and Armour and Company owner Frederick H. Prince. In August 1925, Kennedy traveled to England with an offer to buy a controlling stake in Film Booking Offices for $1 million. The bid was initially rejected—Graham's had poured $7 million into the company—but in February 1926, FBO's owners decided to take the money.[44] From the studio's New York City headquarters, Kennedy swiftly addressed its perennial cash-flow problems, setting up a new business, the Cinema Credits Corporation, to provide FBO with reliable financing at favorable terms.[45] By March, he was traveling to Hollywood, where one of his first steps was to cut loose the various independent producers resident at the studio.[46] The president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, Will Hays—the industry's future censor in chief—was delighted by the new face on the scene; in his eyes, Kennedy signified both a desirable image for the film trade and Wall Street's faith in its prospects.[47] As renowned journalist Terry Ramsaye wrote in Photoplay the following year, Hays had been seeking "to endow the febrile motion picture industry with an atmosphere of Americanism and substantiality. Kennedy is a valuable personality from this point of view. He is exceedingly American" (historian Cari Beauchamp explains the connotation: "not Jewish", in contrast to most of the studio heads). Ramsaye went on to celebrate Kennedy's "background of lofty and conservative financial connections, an atmosphere of much home and family life and all those fireside virtues of which the public never hears in the current news from Hollywood."[48]

 
Publicity photo of Fred Thomson, FBO's biggest box-office draw during the mid-1920s

Studio chief Fineman departed around the time of Kennedy's purchase to work at the larger First National Pictures.[49] The new owner appointed Edwin King to replace him, but took a personal hand in guiding the company creatively as well as financially.[50] His brand, "Joseph P. Kennedy Presents", would proceed to appear on over a hundred films.[51] Kennedy soon brought stability to FBO, making it one of the most reliably profitable outfits in the minor leagues of the Hollywood studio system. The focus was on films with Main Street appeal and minimal costs.[52] "We are trying", he declared, "to be the Woolworth and Ford of the motion picture industry rather than the Tiffany."[53] Westerns remained the studio's backbone, along with various action pictures and romantic scenarios; as Kennedy put it, "Melodrama is our meat."[54] Gene Stratton-Porter, then, was the gravy: according to the 1926 Exhibitors Herald survey, The Keeper of the Bees, for which shooting was completed while the novel was still being serialized in McCall's, was the number one picture in the entire country that year. The remainder of FBO's top five comprised, once again, three Fred Thomson pictures, along with another Stratton-Porter adaptation.[55]

During this period, the average production cost of FBO features was around $50,000, and few were budgeted at anything more than $75,000.[56] By comparison, in 1927–28 the average cost at Fox was $190,000; at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, $275,000.[57] In a broad economization move, in 1927, FBO ended the long-term contracts with writers that were an industry standard, shifting story assignments to a freelance basis.[58] One major expense Kennedy didn't spare: with the powerful United Artists and Paramount studios circling Fred Thomson, Kennedy kept him at FBO for $15,000 a week (assigning the contract to a newly created corporation, Fred Thomson Productions, "for tax purposes"). The actor now had the second-highest straight salary in the entire industry, surpassed only by Tom Mix again, whose new arrangement with Fox paid $17,500.[59] Thomson's were among those few FBO films budgeted at or above $75,000, but they could be relied on to gross in the quarter-million-dollar range.[60] And Kennedy found an angle to make himself even more money. Under the new contract, Kennedy struck a deal in early 1927 with Paramount for the major studio to produce and distribute a series of four Thomson "super westerns". Kennedy participated in the films' financing, recouping his stake plus $100,000 in profits each; Paramount covered Thomson's weekly salary; and the actor's production unit stayed on the FBO lot.[61] Given the lag time between production and exhibition, of the four Thomson features that reached theaters in 1927, three were FBO releases.[62] The studio put out fifty-one features in total that year; for the twelve-month period ending November 15, theater owners judged FBO's top three films to all be Gene Stratton-Porter adaptations, with two Thomson oaters following.[63]

Sound enters the picture

 
FBO logo from 1928

The advent of sound film would drastically alter the studio's course: Negotiations that began in late 1927 with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) on a deal for sound conversion led to the January 1928 announcement that RCA, parent company General Electric, and allied shareholder Westinghouse had purchased a major interest in FBO.[64] Four months later, as part of a strategy conceived with RCA general manager David Sarnoff, Kennedy and associated investors acquired control of Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO), a vaudeville exhibition chain owning approximately one hundred theaters across the United States, affiliated with many more, and with two small studios under its control: Pathé Exchange and Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC), Cecil B. DeMille's former boutique outlet.[65]

FBO's The Perfect Crime, starring Clive Brook and Irene Rich, opened on August 4, 1928, at the Rivoli movie palace in Manhattan's Theater District.[66] The first film directed by admired cinematographer Bert Glennon, it was also the first feature-length "talkie" to appear from a studio other than Warner Bros. since the epochal premiere of Warners' The Jazz Singer ten months before. The Perfect Crime had been shot silently in anticipation of a silent release. Using the RCA Photophone sound-on-film system, dialogue and "mystery sound effects" were dubbed in afterward.[67] Savaging it as a "jabberwocky of inane incidents", the New York Times review concluded, "What it is all about can be called only an open question. A guess at the solution, however, would be that FBO had a mystery story, and in an effort to keep up with the times had synchronized it.... The synchronization is faulty in many, many places, and several vocal selections are added in curious out-of-the-way scenes."[68] A trade paper report described the studio's plans to add "synchronized music, sound effects and dialogue" to five other silently shot films.[69] To date, FBO's experiments with sound had all been funded by RCA; on August 22, as Kennedy was crossing the Atlantic for a European vacation, Variety announced that he had finally signed a formal licensing agreement to pay for his studio's use of Photophone recording.[70] While Kennedy traveled, RCA launched a bid to acquire control of and combine the Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain with FBO, as talks began between Sarnoff and the lead investment firm behind KAO. After his return in late September, Kennedy ultimately agreed to the plan, which would involve his divestiture from both businesses.[71]

On October 23, 1928, RCA announced it was merging Film Booking Offices and Keith-Albee-Orpheum to form the new motion picture business Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), with Sarnoff as chairman.[72] Kennedy, who retained Pathé and the PDC assets it had absorbed, made more than $4 million in profit from converting and selling off his stock in the deal.[73] Joseph I. Schnitzer, ranking FBO vice-president, was elevated to president of the new company's production arm, replacing Kennedy.[74] William LeBaron, the last FBO production chief, retained his position after the merger, but the new studio, dedicated to full sound production, cut ties with FBO's roster of silent screen performers.[75] In its final year of operation, of FBO's top five box office films according to theater owners, three were again Gene Stratton-Porter adaptations, including The Keeper of the Bees, first released in October 1925 and making its fourth appearance in the annual balloting; the others were the Austrian import Moon of Israel and The Great Mail Robbery.[76] During the transitional period, the first RKO feature release, Syncopation in March 1929, was packaged to exhibitors with two FBO low-budget "programmers".[77] Movies that Film Booking Offices had either produced or arranged to distribute were released under the FBO banner through the end of the year. The last official FBO production to reach American theaters was Pals of the Prairie, directed by Louis King and starring Buzz Barton and Frank Rice, released July 7, 1929.[78]

Cinematic legacy

 
In an age when popular films might run for years in different locations around the country and many hundreds were released every exhibition season, The Keeper of the Bees, according to theater owners, ranked 64th nationally in 1925, 1st in 1926, 34th in 1927, and 71st in 1928.[79]

A large majority of FBO/Robertson-Cole pictures, produced during the silent era and the transitional period of the conversion to sound cinema, are considered to be lost films, with no copies known to exist. Much of FBO's cinematic legacy thus endures only in still images, other publicity materials, and written accounts. All told, just 30 percent of American silent feature films have been preserved (25 percent more or less complete, plus another 5 percent in incomplete versions). The overall survival rate of features produced by R-C/FBO is similar: of 449 movies identified by the National Film Preservation Board as R-C/FBO productions, 125 are known to survive in some form—28 percent, though with only two (0.4 percent) in a legacy studio archive.[80] The losses, moreover, were not equally distributed, and one of FBO's most successful franchises has disappeared entirely: not even a fragmentary print of any of the six Gene Stratton-Porter films put out by the studio has been found. Due to its zeal for cost cutting, FBO was reputed to be especially meticulous in the execution of a practice then common among distributors: rounding up its release prints at the end of a picture's run and melting them down to recover the silver in the film emulsion.[81]

As for FBO's biggest star, among America's biggest at the time, of the twenty films Fred Thomson made for the studio, for years just a single one was known to remain intact in a US archive: Thundering Hoofs. About three reels' worth of the five-reel Galloping Gallagher (1924) were also known to survive.[82] In 1982, film scholar Bruce Firestone wrote that "the disappearance, through loss or destruction, of virtually all of his films [has] turned Thomson into one of the least-known cowboys in the history of American movies."[83] According to the Library of Congress's American Silent Feature Film Database, to this tiny corpus may now be added complete prints of The Dangerous Coward (1924) and A Regular Scout (1926) at the George Eastman House. Seven more Thomson features are held by archives abroad.[84]

Headliners and celebrity casting

 
Publicity photo of Evelyn Brent, star of fourteen FBO releases between 1924 and 1926[85]

Sessue Hayakawa, the first star of any magnitude associated with the Robertson-Cole brand, made a total of twenty films released by the studio, from A Heart in Pawn in March 1919 to The Vermilion Pencil in March 1922.[86] Hayakawa was regarded as one of the finest screen performers of his time, but as anti-Japanese sentiment grew on the West Coast, R-C terminated its relationship with the Chiba-born actor. Two months after The Vermilion Pencil opened, he sued the studio for breach of contract.[87] Pauline Frederick, celebrated for her performance in the September 1920 Goldwyn Pictures tear-jerker Madame X, immediately cashed in with a top-tier contract from Robertson-Cole, for whom she starred in more than half a dozen melodramas, beginning with A Slave of Vanity just two months later.[88] She was said to have been paid an extravagant $7,000 or $7,500 a week under her R-C deal.[89] Early in her career, ZaSu Pitts acted in six R-C releases—Better Times (1919) gave Pitts her first ever top billing—from the Brentwood Film Corporation, founded by a group of doctors.[90]

In the years after the studio's rebranding, Evelyn Brent and Richard Talmadge were FBO's most prominent non-Western headliners.[91] Brent made a specialty of melodramatic pictures with a crime angle, often billed as "crook melodramas"—in Midnight Molly (1925), she played an ambitious politician's faithless wife and her look-alike, a high-end cat burglar.[92] Talmadge, a stunt designer and double for major stars including Douglas Fairbanks and Harold Lloyd, took the lead in action pictures for FBO—"stunt dramas" such as Stepping Lively (1924) and Tearing Through (1925).[93] He appeared in eighteen FBO releases, more than half of them produced by his own company.[94] Talmadge's last film for the studio was released in June 1926.[95] By August, Brent was on her way to starring roles at Paramount.[96] In October, Talmadge was judged to have been FBO's biggest non-Western draw of the year; in the first annual Exhibitors Herald theater owners' poll of top box office names, he placed thirtieth out of sixty.[97]

Beginning in late 1924, Maurice "Lefty" Flynn starred in over a dozen action-filled "comedy dramas" released by FBO, all produced and directed by Harry Garson.[98] Signing a new contract in 1925, the former Yale halfback demonstrated his range by playing a "fast riding motorcycle copper" in a May release, a "battling policeman" in September, and Breckenrdige Gamble, a bored millionaire turned international secret agent, in October.[99] Ralph Lewis, a prolific character actor who had appeared in several D. W. Griffith films, including The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, was top billed in at least eight FBO releases between 1922 and 1928.[100] George O'Hara headlined multiple features as well as short series.[101] Warner Baxter and Joe E. Brown were among the other popular FBO players.[102] Anna Q. Nilsson starred in two of the studio's more notable productions, as did Douglas Fairbanks Jr.[103] Pauline Frederick returned in 1926 for the title role in Her Honor, the Governor.[104] In FBO's waning months, former Fox star Olive Borden played the lead in three films.[105] Boris Karloff appeared in six FBO pictures between 1925 and 1927; in two of his earliest major roles, he performed opposite Evelyn Brent in the action-oriented Forbidden Cargo and Lady Robinhood (both 1925).[106]

In its pre-Kennedy years, the studio did not hesitate to take advantage of scandal sheet–worthy events. After the death of celebrated actor Wallace Reid, brought on by morphine addiction, his widow, Dorothy Davenport, signed on as producer and star of a cinematic examination of the sins of substance abuse: Human Wreckage, released by FBO in June 1923, five months after Reid's death, in which Davenport (billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid) plays the wife of a noble attorney turned dope fiend.[107] A few months later, the studio featured a celebrity of a very different sort: magician Harry Houdini, directing and starring in his last feature film, Haldane of the Secret Service.[108] In November 1924, FBO put out Davenport's next "social problem" picture, Broken Laws. Here Davenport (again billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid) plays the overindulgent mother of an unruly boy destined, as a reckless teen, to commit a terrible misdeed. According to a trade journal—perhaps echoing publicity copy—the tale was "a reminder that the foundation of all law and order lies in that greatest of American institutions—the home."[109]

When the biggest movie star in the world, Rudolph Valentino, split from his wife, Natacha Rambova, she was swiftly enlisted by the studio to costar with Clive Brook in the sensitively titled When Love Grows Cold (1926).[110] Under Kennedy's control, the studio focused on marketing its roster of films as suitable for the "average American" and the entire family: "We can't make pictures and label them 'For Children,' or 'For Women' or 'For Stout People' or 'For Thin Ones.' We must make pictures that have appeal to all."[111] Though Kennedy ended the scandal-sheet specials, FBO still found occasion for celebrity casting: One Minute to Play (1926), directed by Sam Wood, marked the film debut of football great "Red" Grange.[112] Tennis stars Suzanne Lenglen and Mary Browne were signed for a series of "Racquet Girls" pictures that never made it to screen.[113]

Western and canine stars

 
Tom Tyler, the most prolific of FBO's many Western stars, headlined twenty-nine movies for the studio, from Let's Go, Gallagher (1925) to The Pride of Pawnee (1929).[114]

Central to the FBO identity were Westerns and the studio's major cowboy star, Fred Thomson. In both 1926 and 1927, he ranked number two among all male performers in the Exhibitors Herald poll, right behind Tom Mix.[115] When one of Thomson's "oaters", The Two-Gun Man (1926), made it to New York's Warners' Theatre, the growing studio's Times Square showcase, it demonstrated that a Western, even one without Mix, could draw audiences to a first-run house in the most cosmopolitan of markets.[116] Along with trusty Silver King, Thomson brought in millions to FBO, and Kennedy personally made almost half a million dollars from the "super western" loanout to Paramount. But when Kennedy learned early in 1928 that Mix, whose decade-old Fox contract was expiring, might become available, he used his control of Fred Thomson Productions, the supposed tax shelter, to freeze Thomson out of motion pictures entirely.[117] That December, Thomson died—the immediate cause of death was tetanus; his widow, screenwriter Frances Marion, said that he had lost his will to live.[118]

Among Western stars under long-term contract, FBO's next most important—though by a distance—was Tom Tyler, who finished twenty-third among men in the 1927 exhibitors' poll.[119] According to a hyperbolic June 1927 report in Moving Picture World: "With Tom Tyler rapidly taking the place recently vacated by Fred Thomson [for the Paramount sojourn from which he would never return], F.B.O.'s program of western pictures is taking a place second to none in the industry. Tyler has made rapid strides during his two years with F.B.O. and with his horse 'Flash' and dog, 'Beans,' has become one of the leading favorites on the screen."[120] Tyler's appeal was also enhanced by his human costars—Frankie Darro (tied for fifty-fourth in the poll) as his young sidekick on over two dozen occasions and starlets such as Doris Hill, Nora Lane, Sharon Lynn, and in Born to Battle (1926), a twenty-five-year-old Jean Arthur.[121][122]

As 1928 began, Tyler was the most popular actor actually working at FBO, but Kennedy wanted the big gun. He bided his time as Tom Mix toured the Orpheum vaudeville theaters with a live show—boosting Kennedy's new exhibition interests—and legal machinations ensured Thomson's exile.[123] Finally, Mix was signed to a six-film deal and began shooting in July.[124] He ultimately made five pictures for the studio (two released after it had ceased to exist), and stayed near the top of the exhibitors' poll, his 112 votes good enough for second among the men, if well behind the 171 of MGM's Lon Chaney (no other FBO regular made it into double digits).[125] But the spread of the talkies was swiftly making the silent sagebrush superstar less of a sure thing.[126] Variety derided Mix's last FBO film, The Big Diamond Robbery, released in May 1929, as "cowboy burlesque".[127] His brief tenure at the studio was marked by salary grievances—he was now making only $10,000 a week—and dismay at FBO's inferior production values, from its worndown sets to the cut-rate film stock it used.[128] Subsequently asked about his experience working with Kennedy, Mix described him as a "tight-assed, money-crazy son-of-a-bitch."[129]

In addition to these major draws, there was also Harry Carey; a top star for Universal in the second half of the 1910s, he was still a bankable name when he made several FBO Westerns in 1922–23.[130] The other cowboy stars of FBO included Bob Custer (tied for thirty-seventh in the 1927 poll), Bob Steele (tied for sixty-sixth with, among others, Silver King), and teenager Buzz Barton.[131][122] One of the studio's most reliable Western headliners was a dog: Ranger (all alone at sixty-fifth among male performers).[132][122] Beans had featured roles in a number of Tom Tyler/Frankie Darro Westerns.[133] The fabled Strongheart starred in FBO's Jack London adaptation White Fang (1925).[134] For a small role in the melodrama My Dad (1922), a three-year-old Alsatian who would become one of the greatest canine stars of all time was singled out by the New York Daily News: "Rin-Tin-Tin...runs off with most of the histrionic honors. The dog stages one of the most realistic and blood curdling fights we have seen recently."[135]

Notable films and filmmakers

Further information: List of Film Booking Offices of America films
 
James Pierce in FBO's Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927), which brought the famous character back to the big screen for the first time in over five years. Tarzan would remain a Hollywood fixture for the next four decades.[136]

Kennedy had no illusions about his studio's place in the realm of cinematic art. A journalist once complimented him on FBO's recent output: "You have had some good pictures this year." Kennedy jocularly inquired, "What the hell were they?"[137] From the pre-Kennedy era, RKO historian Betty Lasky identifies the Dorothy Davenport "problem" picture Broken Laws (1924), directed by Roy William Neill, as a rare "unforgettable picture of the higher caliber" put out by FBO.[138] Reviews at the time called it "absorbing" and "vastly entertaining".[139] Among the studio's action movies, one standout production was a 1927 Tarzan picture. Author Edgar Rice Burroughs declared, "If you want to see the personification of Tarzan of the Apes as I visualize him, see the film Tarzan and the Golden Lion with Mr. James Pierce."[140] The Film Daily reviewer wrote that the movie "has a rather new order of thrills and atmosphere that might prove distinctly attractive."[140]

Two of the studio's most impressive releases were foreign productions. In 1927, FBO picked up for U.S. distribution an acclaimed Austrian biblical spectacular made three years earlier: Die Sklavenkönigin (The Slave Queen, aka Moon of Israel) had already won its director, Michael Kertész, a job with Warner Bros.[141] In Hollywood, he would make such hits as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Casablanca (1942) under the name Michael Curtiz. Una Nueva y gloriosa nación (1928), the most successful film in the history of Argentine silent cinema, was shot in Hollywood and distributed in the United States by FBO as The Charge of the Gauchos.[142] One of its two cinematographers was Nicholas Musuraca, who established his career at Film Booking Offices. With RKO, Musuraca would become one of Hollywood's most respected cinematographers.[143]

 
Richard Talmadge's fourth film for FBO, American Manners (1924), was directed by James W. Horne, who would go on to work with Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy.[144]

At the age of twenty-five, King Vidor insisted on casting then little-known ZaSu Pitts as the lead in Better Times; he directed two more of her R-C/Brentwood films, both starring his wife, Florence Vidor.[145] Louis J. Gasnier, responsible for the blockbuster 1914 serial The Perils of Pauline, directed several films for the company—from Good Women (1921) to The Call of Home (1922)—during its Robertson-Cole days.[146] The best-known director to work regularly under the FBO brand was Ralph Ince, younger brother of celebrated filmmaker Thomas H. Ince. Pulling double duty on occasion, Ralph Ince starred in five of the sixteen films he made for the studio between 1925 and 1928.[147] One production in which he served in both capacities was particularly well received: Chicago After Midnight (1928) was described by the New York Times as an "unusually well-acted and adroitly directed underworld story".[148] After The Mistress of Shenstone, Henry King directed two more R-C films with Pauline Frederick, also in 1921: Salvage and The Sting of the Lash.[149] Tod Browning directed two Gothic Pictures specials in 1924 starring Evelyn Brent: The Dangerous Flirt and Silk Stocking Sal.[150] In 1921 and 1922 alone, William Seiter directed eight R-C/FBO releases, some produced directly for the studio, others independently; in 1924 he made two additional FBO releases for Palmer Photoplay, both featuring Madge Bellamy.[151] Between 1922 and 1926, Emory Johnson produced and directed eight films for FBO.[152] Historian William K. Everson has pointed to Seiter and Johnson as two of the overlooked directorial talents of the silent era.[153]

Author and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter set up her own production company to film screen adaptations of her work, a perhaps unprecedented venture for a writer. FBO handled four releases from Gene Stratton-Porter Productions—A Girl of the Limberlost (1924), The Keeper of the Bees (1925), Laddie (1926), and The Magic Garden (1927)—and was itself producer of record for The Harvester (1927) and Freckles (1928). All six were directed by Stratton-Porter's son-in-law, James Leo Meehan. All six were hits. All are considered lost.[154] In-house, Frances Marion, who would win two writing Oscars in the 1930s, created the stories for seven of the FBO pictures starring her husband, Fred Thomson—for these brawny cowboy tales, such as Ridin' the Wind (1925) and The Tough Guy (1926), she used the pseudonym Frank M. Clifton (the "patronymic" was Thomson's middle name).[155] Editor Pandro S. Berman, son of a major FBO stockholder, cut his first film for the studio at the age of twenty-one; in the 1930s, he would earn renown as an RKO producer and production chief.[156] Famed RKO costume designer Walter Plunkett was also an FBO graduate.[157]

Short subjects and animation

 
Ad for a 1926 Alice Comedy distributed by "Greater FBO"

Both George O'Hara's and Alberta Vaughn's initial short series for FBO—each directed by Malcolm St. Clair—were hits, so in the second half of 1924 the studio made a bid at teaming them in the twelve-part The Go-Getters, spoofing popular films and classic stories with chapters such A Kick for Cinderella. It was so successful that they were reunited the next year for a similar twelve-parter, The Pacemakers, with episodes such as Merton of the Goofies (Merton of the Movies) and Madam Sans Gin (Madame Sans-Gêne).[158] Vaughn had solo top billing in the comedic series The Adventures of Mazie (1925–26) and the baseball-themed serial Fighting Hearts (1926).[159] In May 1928, with the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain under his control, Joseph Kennedy announced a forthcoming slate with not only more than the usual number of (relatively) high-budget films but a "Mammoth Program of Short Features". No less than four different series came from independent producer Larry Darmour, including the second twelve chapters of Mickey McGuire, starring seven-year-old Mickey Rooney. Amedee Van Beuren provided Walter Futter's Curiosities, a Ripley's-inspired "Movie Side Show" of "freaks and queer odds and ends from all corners of the world".[160]

Of particular historical interest are two independently produced series of slapstick comedies released by the studio: Between 1924 and 1927, Joe Rock provided FBO with a substantial annual slate of two-reelers (twenty-six per year as of their last contract); twelve of those from 1924–25 starred Stan Laurel, before his famous partnership with Oliver Hardy.[161] West of Hot Dog (1924), according to historian Simon Louvish, contains "one of [Laurel]'s finest gags," involving a level of cinematic technique that bears comparison to Buster Keaton's classic Sherlock Jr.[162] In 1926–27, the company released more than a dozen shorts by innovative comedian/animator Charles Bowers, whose work imaginatively mixed live action and three-dimensional model animation.[163]

FBO also distributed the output of significant creators of purely animated films. Between 1924 and 1926, FBO released the work of John Randolph Bray's cartoon studio, including the Dinky Doodle series created by Walter Lantz.[164] In 1925–26, the studio put out twenty-six cartoons by animator William Nolan based on George Herriman's now famed Krazy Kat newspaper comic strip, licensed by the wife-husband distribution team of Margaret Winkler and Charles Mintz.[165] While the Winkler–Mintz operation took Krazy Kat away from FBO the following season for a Paramount contract, they struck a deal with the studio for another series, one that, like Bowers's shorts, involved both animation and a live performer: the Alice Comedies, of which FBO would release over two dozen, were created by two young animators, Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney.[166]

Notes

  1. ^ Sherwood (1923), p. 150; Ellis and Thornborough (1923), p. 262.
  2. ^ Beauchamp (2010), p. 70.
  3. ^ Codori (2020), pp. 113–17; Nasaw (2012), pp. 68–69; Miyao (2007), p. 169. Beauchamp (2010, p. 35), among others, misidentifies Cole as British.
  4. ^ Codori (2020), p. 113–14; Nasaw (2012), p. 69.
  5. ^ Slide (2013), p. 3; Miyao (2007), p. 169; Codori (2020), p. 114–15. "The Girl of My Dreams (1918)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 27, 2022. "And a Still Small Voice (1918)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
  6. ^ a b "Robertson-Cole Buys" (PDF). Variety. January 1920. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
  7. ^ Miyao (2007), p. 169; Codori (2020), pp. 115, 117. In a popular star poll taken at the time that encompassed over a hundred actors, Hayakawa placed forty-fourth. Miyao, Daisuke (2017). "Hollywood Zen: A Historical Analysis of Oshima Nagisa's Unfinished Film". Mise au Point. 9. 39. doi:10.4000/map.2385. In May 1916, five after months the release of his breakout film, The Cheat, a similar poll ranked him number one. Miyao (2007), p. 3.
  8. ^ Codori (2020), p. 114; Slide (2013), p. 175.
  9. ^ "Short Robertson-Cole Offerings: Supreme Comedies, Martin Johnson's Cannibal Films and Adventure Scenics Offer Variety". Motion Picture News. November 15, 1919. p. 3597. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
  10. ^ Codori (2020), p. 115; Jewell (1982), p. 8.
  11. ^ "Branch Officials of Robertson-Cole Will Confer in New York". Exhibitors Herald. March 20, 1920. p. 44. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
  12. ^ "Guide to Current Pictures: Robertson-Cole Pictures". Exhibitors Herald. March 20, 1920. p. 98; see also pp. 78–79. Retrieved October 27, 2022. See also Codori (2020), p. 116.
  13. ^ "Reviews: The Third Woman". Exhibitors Herald. March 20, 1920. p. 55; see also p. 98. Retrieved October 27, 2022. "The Third Woman (1920)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 27, 2022. "The Wonder Man (1920)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 27, 2022. "Carpentier Film Shown; French Champion Appears Under the Auspices of the Legion Here". New York Times. May 30, 1920. Retrieved October 26, 2022. While the AFI catalog describes The Wonder Man as "the first picture produced by Robertson-Cole" (Jewell [1982], p. 8, uses almost identical language), The Third Woman was clearly released first. Indeed, though AFI lists The Third Woman as an April release, it was both reviewed and listed as a "current picture" in the Exhibitors Herald cover dated March 20—and actually published ten days earlier. "Announcement: Change of Practice of Cover Line Dating". Exhibitors Herald. December 25, 1925. p. 43. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
    The production history of the March 1920 R-C release A Woman Who Understood is unclear. A film from star Bessie Barriscale's own production company had come out as recently as February (The Luck of Geraldine Laird); as AFI notes, Variety referred to A Woman Who Understood as a "'B.B.' feature," and at least one print ad identified it as a "B.B. Picture". Stating that "no other information has been located connecting this to Bessie Barriscale's own company", AFI lists it as an R-C production. "A Woman Who Understood (1920)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 27, 2022. A detailed survey of her career from the Women Film Pioneers Project lists it under B.B. Features/B. B. Productions. Lund, Maria Fosheim (2013). "Bessie Barriscale". Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  14. ^ Jewell (1982) describes the lot as 13.5 acres (p. 8); Beauchamp (2010) describes it as seventeen acres (p. 35). Shiel (2012) states that the studio was originally built on thirteen acres (p. 149); elsewhere, he states that, "by the 1920s", Robertson-Cole owned twenty acres in Hollywood (p. 113). Masters, Nathan (September 27, 2013). "Hooray for...Colegrove? Remembering Hollywood's Forgotten Neighbor". Lost LA. KCET. Retrieved October 26, 2022. The address of the studio (later owned by RKO, Desilu, and now Paramount) was and remains 780 Gower Street. Goodwin (1987), p. 346. For a modern view, see this map—the old FBO facility occupies the western quarter of the Paramount Studios area. For an image of the studio's administration building during its FBO days, see Crafton (1997), p. 136.
  15. ^ "Robertson-Cole Buys a Ranch". Motion Picture News. June 26, 1920. p. 83. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
  16. ^ Shiel (2012), p. 149.
  17. ^ Jewell (1982), p. 8. "Kismet (1920)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
  18. ^ Miyao (2007), p. 169.
  19. ^ Beauchamp (2010), pp. 35–37; Goodwin (1987), pp. 340–41; Nasaw (2012), pp. 68–71, 73.
  20. ^ Jewell (1982), p. 8. "The Mistress of Shenstone (1921)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 27, 2022. "The Mistress of Shenstone [review]". Moving Picture World. March 5, 1921. p. 45; see also p. 80. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  21. ^ Beauchamp (2010), pp. 38–44; Goodwin (1987), pp. 340, 342; Nasaw (2012), pp. 69–70, 73–74; Beauchamp (1998), p. 157.
  22. ^ Goodwin (1987), p. 341; Beauchamp (1998), p. 157; Jewell (1982), p. 8.
  23. ^ Lasky (1989) p. 13; Jewell (1982), p. 8. In February 1922, while plans for the reorganization were underway, the business was structured thus: R-C Pictures Corporation as parent company, Robertson-Cole Studios Inc. as production subsidiary, and Robertson-Cole Distributing Corporation as distribution subsidairy. Graham's owned all the capital stock in the companies. H.C.S. Thomson (of Graham's) was chairman of the board of R-C Pictures Corp. and Pat Powers was its managing director. The board of directors of Robertson-Cole Studios Inc. comprised Rufus Cole, Joseph Kennedy, Erskine Crum (of Graham's), W. W. Lancaster (of Lloyd's of London), and R. J. Tobin. In May, founder Rufus Cole resigned as both director and president of Robertson-Cole Studios, and Powers became its managing director. "Offeman v. Robertson-Cole Studios, Inc". Casetext. November 26, 1926. Retrieved October 29, 2022. See also Beauchamp (2010), p. 74.
    Many sources give FBO's full name incorrectly as "Film Booking Office of America"; the proper name is Film Booking Offices of America, as per the company's official logo. For the correct spelling, see Sherwood (1923), pp. 150, 156, 158, 159, etc.; Ellis and Thornborough (1923), p. 262.
  24. ^ Trade paper reports on production plans in 1925 contain no mention of Robertson-Cole as business or brand. "Thomson in New Series; Flynn Signs to Make Eight Pictures for F.B.O." Moving Picture World. May 23, 1925. p. 104. Retrieved November 1, 2022. Smith, Sumner (August 1, 1925). "Thomson of F.B.O. Discusses 'Bread and Butter' Pictures". Moving Picture World. p. 506. Retrieved October 29, 2022. "F.B.O. Sets Releases on Program for September". Moving Picture World. August 1, 1925. p. 559. Retrieved October 29, 2022. "F.B.O. Launches Western Drive". Exhibitors Trade Review. November 7, 1925. p. 27. Retrieved October 29, 2022. The reference in Beauchamp (1998) to Kennedy's February 1926 takeover of "R-C Pictures Corporation and Film Booking Office [sic] of America" (p. 180) suggests that the parent company retained its Robertson-Cole identity at that point. The 1927 logo reproduced at the top of this article, reading "FBO Pictures Corp.", and a brief trade report from July of that year indicate that the corporate name of the parent company was changed after the Kennedy purchase. "F.B.O. Is Now FBO". Moving Picture World. June 11, 1927. p. 403. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  25. ^ Lasky (1989), p. 13. See, e.g., "Vintage Railroad Melodramas to Be Accompanied by Live Music Sunday". Concord Monitor. October 19, 2021. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  26. ^ Jewell (2012), p. 10.
  27. ^ Foote (2014), p. 100; Wing (1924), p. 193; Carr, Harry (September 1923). "Art...and Right Hooks: The Story of George O'Hara". Motion Picture. pp. 21–22, 88. Retrieved November 3, 2022. "Fighting Blood [ad]". Exhibitors Herald. September 29, 1923. p. 75. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  28. ^ Ankerich (2010), chap. Alberta Vaughn.
  29. ^ Solomon (2011), p. 71.
  30. ^ Rainey (1999), p. 234.
  31. ^ "Offeman v. Robertson-Cole Studios, Inc". Casetext. November 26, 1926. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  32. ^ Beauchamp (1998), pp. 157–58.
  33. ^ Jewell (1982), p. 8.
  34. ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  35. ^ Beauchamp (2010), p. 80.
  36. ^ "The Biggest Money-Makers of 1925". Exhibitors Herald. December 25, 1925. pp. 54–57. Retrieved November 1, 2022. Lussier (2018), p. 95.
  37. ^ Beauchamp (1998), p. 157; Lasky (1989), pp. 14–15.
  38. ^ Jewell (2012), pp. 9–10; Lasky (1989), pp. 14–17.
  39. ^ Pierce, David (September 2013). "The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912–1929" (PDF). Library of Congress. p. 41. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  40. ^ "Thomson of F.B.O. Discusses 'Bread and Butter' Pictures". Moving Picture World. August 1, 1925. p. 506. Retrieved October 29, 2022. "F.B.O. Sets Releases on Program for September". Moving Picture World. August 1, 1925. p. 559. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  41. ^ Kear (2009), pp. 30, 142–44, 146–48. "Search Results: 'Gothic Pictures'". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "Search Results: 'Gothic Productions'". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  42. ^ Lasky (1989), pp. 12–13, 14–15; Beauchamp (1998), p. 180.
  43. ^ Quoted in Lasky (1989), p. 12.
  44. ^ Goodwin (1987), pp. 342, 343; Beauchamp (1998), p. 180; Lasky (1989), p. 13.
  45. ^ Nasaw (2012), pp. 94–95; Lasky (1989), pp. 14–15; Goodwin (1987), p. 344. Lasky incorrectly states that Kennedy moved his family to the New York City neighborhood of Riverdale in spring 1926; in fact, the family did not relocate from Massachusetts until fall 1927. Beauchamp (2010), pp. 106–7; Nasaw (2012), pp. 105–6. Lasky also misspells Kennedy's new firm as the Cinema "Credit" Corporation.
  46. ^ Beauchamp (2010), pp. 82–83; Goodwin (1987), pp. 345, 346.
  47. ^ Nasaw (2012), pp. 100–2; Beauchamp (1998), pp. 180, 197. For Hays and Kennedy's earlier association, see Goodwin (1987), p. 341; Nasaw (2012), pp. 75–76.
  48. ^ Ramsaye, Terry (September 1927). "Intimate Visits to the Homes of Famous Film Magnates". Photoplay. pp. 50–51, 122–25 (quote at 125). Retrieved December 26, 2022. Beauchamp (1998), p. 180; Nasaw (2012), p. 103. Beauchamp misleadingly suggests that Ramsaye's words were Hays's (which she does again in Beauchamp [2010], p. 68.)
  49. ^ Kear (2009), p. 38.
  50. ^ Lasky (1989), p. 15; Jewell (1982), p. 9.
  51. ^ Beauchamp (2010), p. xvi.
  52. ^ Goodwin (1987), p. 347–48; Lasky (1989), p. 14.
  53. ^ Goodwin (1987), p. 347.
  54. ^ Goodwin (1987), p. 348.
  55. ^ "The Biggest Money Makers of 1926". Exhibitors Herald. December 25, 1926. pp. 54–57. Retrieved November 1, 2022. "The Keeper of the Bees (1925)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 29, 2022. Murray, Ray (June 27, 1925). "Hollywood: Millions of Dollars Are Going into Pictures for New Season". Exhibitors Herald. p. 58. Retrieved November 1, 2022. Stratton-Porter, Gene (February 1925). "The Keeper of the Bees [part 1]". McCall's. pp. 5–7, 27–28, 47, 49. Retrieved November 1, 2022. Stratton-Porter, Gene (September 1925). "The Keeper of the Bees [part 8]". McCall's. p. 24, 26, 56, 62, 70. Retrieved November 1, 2022.
  56. ^ Goodwin (1987), p. 348; Jewell (1982), p. 9.
  57. ^ Finler (1988), p. 36.
  58. ^ "Staff Writers Are Banned at F.B.O. Studios". Moving Picture World. June 11, 1927. p. 405. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  59. ^ Beauchamp (2010), pp. 89–90; Beauchamp (1998), pp. 210, 211; Jensen (2005), pp. 97, 116–17, 122, 128; Koszarski (1990), p. 116.
  60. ^ Beauchamp (2010), p. 80.
  61. ^ Beauchamp (1998), pp. 211, 217, 227; Beauchamp (2010), p. 164.
  62. ^ McCaffrey and Jacobs (1999), p. 266.
  63. ^ Nasaw (2012), pp. 106–7; "The Biggest Money Makers of 1927". Exhibitors Herald. December 24, 1927. pp. 145–46. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  64. ^ Jewell (2012), p. 12; Lasky (1989), pp. 24–25; Nasaw (2012), pp. 111–12.
  65. ^ Lasky (1989), pp. 25–26; Jewell (2012), pp. 13–15; Nasaw (2012), pp. 115–17, 119–20; "Cinemerger". Time. May 2, 1927. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  66. ^ Crafton (1997), p. 140. According to Crafton, The Perfect Crime was first released on June 17. At a time when few theaters in the country were wired for sound, many of those with only the incompatible Vitaphone sound-on-disc system—see Block and Wilson (2010), p. 56; Crafton (1997), pp. 148–49—the film's limited run before its Rivoli debut was in the silent version in which it was shot. In the fifty-two pages of color ads Kennedy bought at the front of the May 19 Exhibitors Herald to promote FBO's upcoming slate of pictures, the two-page spread for The Perfect Crime has pride of place behind only Kennedy himself. There is no mention of sound. "The Perfect Crime [ad]". Exhibitors Herald. May 19, 1928. pp. 6–7. Retrieved October 28, 2022. Another two-page ad, in the July 7 issue, claiming the film has "Amazed...and Astounded the Critics" and is the "First Real Hit of 28-29", again makes no mention of sound. "The Perfect Crime [ad]". Exhibitors Herald. July 7, 1928. pp. 20–21. Retrieved October 28, 2022. Finally, a spread in the August 11 issue blares, "FBO Sound Sensation Scores Solid Broadway Smash", asserts that the film has been "A Hit in Silent Form" in Los Angeles and Detroit, and reassures that "FBO has not forgotten the thousands of showmen who have not yet obtained sound installations". "The Perfect Crime [ad]". Exhibitors Herald. August 11, 1928. pp. 26–27. Retrieved October 28, 2022. For the Rivoli, see "Rivoli Theatre". NYC AGO. New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
  67. ^ Crafton (1997), pp. 140, 304; Koszarski (1990), p. 169; "FBO Completes First 'Talkie'; Now Synchronizing Five Others". Exhibitors Herald. August 11, 1928. p. 31. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  68. ^ "The Screen: That Old Devil Crime". New York Times. August 6, 1928. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
  69. ^ "FBO Completes First 'Talkie'; Now Synchronizing Five Others". Exhibitors Herald. August 11, 1928. p. 31. Retrieved October 28, 2022. The language in the report referring to a Detroit release is ambiguous: "'The Perfect Crime' has already been given a two weeks' test engagement at the United Artists theatre, Detroit." Given the phrasing in the FBO ad in the same issue cited above, this refers either to the silent run that had already happened or a talkie run that was going to happen when the theater was at last set up for sound, as was scheduled for August 15. Hubbard, Preston J. (Winter 1985). "Synchronized Sound and Movie-House Musicians, 1926–29". American Music. 3 (4): 434. doi:10.2307/3051829. JSTOR 3051829.
  70. ^ Beauchamp (2010), p. 203; Lasky (1989), pp. 29, 33; Crafton (1997), p. 141. Lasky's claim that Kennedy at that point also tendered RCA an option to acquire control of FBO appears to be erroneous (the claim is echoed by Crafton, citing only Lasky); neither Kennnedy biographers Goodwin, Beauchamp, or Nasaw nor preeminent RKO historian Jewell offer any support for it. Lasky and Crafton both mistakenly state that Kennedy left on vacation after the August 22 announcement; in fact, his ship sailed on Friday, August 17. Nasaw (2012), p. 126; Beauchamp (2010), pp. 206–7.
  71. ^ Nasaw (2012), pp. 129–31.
  72. ^ Jewell (2012), p. 16.
  73. ^ Beauchamp (2010), pp. 230–31; Jewell (2012), p. 18; Nasaw (2012), pp. 130–31.
  74. ^ Jewell (2012), p. 18.
  75. ^ Lasky (1989), p. 43.
  76. ^ Staff of Exhibitors Herald-World (1929). "Money Making Stars and Pictures of 1928". Motion Picture Almanac. pp. 145–46. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  77. ^ Jewell (1988), p. 20.
  78. ^ "Pals of the Prairie (1929)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
  79. ^ In 1924, for example, 586 American features (five reels or longer) were released. Solomon (2011), p. 71. "The Biggest Money-Makers of 1925". Exhibitors Herald. December 25, 1925. pp. 54–57. Retrieved November 1, 2022. "The Biggest Money Makers of 1926". Exhibitors Herald. December 25, 1926. pp. 38–39. Retrieved November 1, 2022. "The Biggest Money Makers of 1927". Exhibitors Herald. December 24, 1927. pp. 36–37. Retrieved October 29, 2022. Staff of Exhibitors Herald-World (1929). "Money Making Stars and Pictures of 1928". Motion Picture Almanac. pp. 145–46. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  80. ^ Pierce, David (September 2013). "The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912–1929" (PDF). Library of Congress. pp. 1, 41, and passim. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  81. ^ Grayson, Eric (Winter 2007). "Limberlost Found: Indiana's Literary Legacy in Hollywood". Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. pp. 42–47. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
  82. ^ Boggs (2011), p. 44; Katchmer (2002), p. 371; Pierce, David. "Silent Movie Cowboy Star Fred Thomson: Cowboy Films". Readers of the Purple Sage Western Bookstore. Nordell Online Bookstores Group. Retrieved November 2, 2022. "Galloping Gallagher (1924)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  83. ^ Firestone (2010), pp. 73, 77.
  84. ^ According to the ASFFD, versions of the following are held outside the United States: The Mask of Lopez (1924), North of Nevada (1924), Ridin' the Wind (1925), The Tough Guy (1926), The Two-Gun Man (1926), Lone Hand Saunders (1926), and Arizona Nights (1927). Abridged prints of The Bandit's Baby and That Devil Quemado (both 1925) exist somewhere in private hands. "Search Results: 'Fred Thomson' [+] FBO". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved November 2, 2022. Galloping Gallagher is not in the database at all, for reasons unknown.
  85. ^ Kear (2009), pp. 142–48.
  86. ^ Miyao (2007), p. 334; "A Heart in Pawn (1919)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 28, 2022. "The Vermilion Pencil (1922)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  87. ^ Miyao (2007), pp. 3–5, 225–27, 312; Maurice (2013), chap. Face, Race, and Screen; Gates (2019), p. 28; Miyao, Daisuke (2017). "Hollywood Zen: A Historical Analysis of Oshima Nagisa's Unfinished Film". Mise au Point. 9. 39. doi:10.4000/map.2385.
  88. ^ Davies (1971), p. 666. Frederick made seven known films for the company between 1920 and 1922 and one more in 1926. There is a question about the status of a ninth project: The Woman Breed (supposedly 1922). There is no doubt a screenplay was written and shooting was planned. But the last AFI print catalog states, in its terse entry for The Woman Breed, "Because it is unusual to find no information on an FBO or Pauline Frederick film (all facts here are from the Film Year Book, 1923), it can be concluded that this film was also known by another title." The current online AFI catalog has no entry for it at all. Beeman, Renee (February 18, 1922). "Live News of the West Coast". Exhibitors Trade Review. p. 823. "New Story by Louis Stevens, to Pauline Frederick". Canadian Moving Picture Digest. March 18, 1922. p. 17. Munden (1997), p. 917. For a helpful Frederick filmography, which does not include The Woman Breed, see "The Films of Pauline Frederick". The Pauline Frederick Website. Stanford University. December 18, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
  89. ^ Liebman (2017), p. 102; Davies (1971), p. 666.
  90. ^ Stumpf (2010), pp. 13–14, 116–17; Slide (2013), p. 27.
  91. ^ Jewell (1982), p. 8; Kear (2009), pp. 31–38, 142, 144–45, 147; Lasky (1989), p. 16.
  92. ^ Kear (2009), pp. 31, 35, 144–45; "Midnight Molly [ad]". Moving Picture World. January 31, 1925. p. 414. Retrieved November 1, 2022. Sewell, C. S. (February 7, 1925). "Midnight Molly [review]". Moving Picture World. pp. 558, 586. Retrieved November 2, 2022. Reid, Laurence (July 4, 1925). "Smooth as Satin [review]". Moving Picture World. p. 101. Retrieved November 1, 2022. "F.B.O. Sets Releases on Program for September". Moving Picture World. August 1, 1925. p. 559. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  93. ^ Freese (2014), pp. 3, 93, 171, 278; Smith, Sumner (August 1, 1925). "Thomson of F.B.O. Discusses 'Bread and Butter' Pictures". Moving Picture World. p. 506. Retrieved November 1, 2022.
  94. ^ Laughing at Danger (1924) through The Better Man (1926). "Richard Talmadge". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 1, 2022.
  95. ^ "The Better Man (1926)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 1, 2022.
  96. ^ Kear (2009), pp. 38–40, 148–50.
  97. ^ "60 Best Box Office Names". Exhibitors Herald. October 30, 1926. pp. 54–57. Retrieved October 28, 2022. Though Talmadge made few actual Westerns, in categorizing male stars as "drama and comedy drama", "Western", or "comedian", the trade journal placed him with the cowboys. Brent's first Paramount feature, Love 'Em and Leave 'Em, had not reached most theaters when the poll was conducted, and she made it only onto the unranked long list of "240 Box Office Names".
  98. ^ The AFI Flynn filmography, which is organized by year of release but not month, shows thirteen such films: The No-Gun Man and The Millionaire Cowboy (both 1924), then Smilin' at Trouble (1925) through The College Boob (1926). "Lefty Flynn". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 1, 2022. Smith, Sumner (August 1, 1925). "Thomson of F.B.O. Discusses 'Bread and Butter' Pictures". Moving Picture World. p. 506. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  99. ^ "Thomson in New Series; Flynn Signs to Make Eight Pictures for F.B.O." Moving Picture World. May 23, 1925. p. 104. Retrieved November 1, 2022. Christgau (1999), pp. 55–59. "New Pictures: Speed Wild". Moving Picture World. June 6, 1925. p. 63. Retrieved November 1, 2022. "New Pictures: High and Handsome". September 19, 1925. p. 58. Retrieved November 1, 2022. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help) Connelly (1998), p. 105.
  100. ^ Long (2012), pp. 16–20; Jewell (1982), p. 8. "In the Name of the Law (1922)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "The Third Alarm (1923)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "The Westbound Limited (1923)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "The Mailman (1923)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "Untamed Youth (1924)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "The Last Edition (1925)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "Bigger than Barnum's (1926)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "Crooks Can't Win (1928)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  101. ^ Rainey (1999), p. 177.
  102. ^ Jewell (1982), pp. 8–9.
  103. ^ Jewell (1982), pp. 8–9. Nilsson: "Vanity's Price (1924)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "Blockade (1928)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. Fairbanks: "Dead Man's Curve (1928)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022. "The Jazz Age (1929)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  104. ^ Nollen (1991), pp. 34, 356.
  105. ^ Vogel (2010), pp. 5, 94, 105–6.
  106. ^ Nollen (1991), pp. 31–32, 354–58; Kear (2009), pp. 144–46.
  107. ^ Schaefer (1999), p. 224; Slide (2022), pp. 85–88; Taves (2012), chap. Initial Distribution beyond First National, 1923.
  108. ^ Jewell (2012) p. 10; "Haldane of the Secret Service [ad]". Exhibitors Herald. October 27, 1923. p. 75. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  109. ^ Lussier (2018), p. 95; Slide (2022), p. 88; "F.B.O. Has Excellent Material Lined Up for Fall and Winter". Moving Picture World. July 12, 1924. p. 123. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  110. ^ Goodwin (1987), p. 341; "Rambova F.B.O. Picture Titled 'When Love Grows Cold'". Exhibitors Herald. December 25, 1925. p. 40. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  111. ^ Quoted in Goodwin (1987), p. 347.
  112. ^ Beauchamp (2010), pp. 80–82, 87; Hall, Mordaunt (September 6, 1926). "The Screen: 'Red' Grange's First Film". New York Times. Retrieved October 29, 2022. See also Heritage Vintage (2004b), p. 121.
  113. ^ Beauchamp (2010), p. 82.
  114. ^ Mayer (2017), p. 280. Cf. Katchmer (2002), p. 380. Katchmer misdates Let's Go, Gallagher as 1924 and omits The Cowboy Cop (1926), Tom and His Pals (1926), and Terror Mountain (1928) from his Tyler filmography. "Let's Go, Gallagher (1925)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 28, 2022. "The Cowboy Cop (1926)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 28, 2022. "Tom and His Pals (1926)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 28, 2022. "Terror Mountain (1928)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 28, 2022. "The Pride of Pawnee (1929)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  115. ^ Beauchamp (1998), p. 224; "The Big Names of 1927". Exhibitors Herald. December 31, 1927. pp. 22–23. Retrieved October 27, 2022. "60 Best Box Office Names". Exhibitors Herald. October 30, 1926. p. 54. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  116. ^ Lasky (1989), p. 16.
  117. ^ Beauchamp (2010), pp. 165–67, 208. Nasaw (2012)—incredibly citing Beauchamp—writes, "Kennedy did everything he could to keep Thomson's career alive" (p. 107), a gross falsehood.
  118. ^ Beauchamp (2010), pp. 233–36.
  119. ^ Beauchamp (2010), p. 82; "The Big Names of 1927". Exhibitors Herald. December 31, 1927. pp. 22–23. Retrieved October 27, 2022. He placed thirty-fourth in the previous year's poll, which was not divided by sex. "60 Best Box Office Names". Exhibitors Herald. October 30, 1926. p. 54. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  120. ^ "F.B.O. Has Ambitious Program of 20 Westerns for 1927-28". Moving Picture World. June 11, 1927. p. 422. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  121. ^ Katchmer (2002), p. 380; Rainey (1987), p. 139.
  122. ^ a b c "The Big Names of 1927". Exhibitors Herald. December 31, 1927. pp. 22–23. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
  123. ^ Jensen (2005), pp. 119; Beauchamp (2010), pp. 165–67.
  124. ^ Jensen (2005), pp. 120; Brichard (1993), p. 216.
  125. ^ Staff of Exhibitors Herald-World (1929). "Money Making Stars and Pictures of 1928". Motion Picture Almanac. pp. 144–45. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  126. ^ Jensen (2005), pp. 116–18, 120–23.
  127. ^ Jensen (2005), p. 123.
  128. ^ Brichard (1993), pp. 216–18; Jensen (2005), pp. 121–24; Lasky (1989), p. 17.
  129. ^ Quirk (1996), p. 303.
  130. ^ Mayer (2017), p. 69; Katchmer (1991), pp. 122–24, 133.
  131. ^ Lasky (1989), pp. 16–17; Katchmer (2002), pp. 17, 83.
  132. ^ Beauchamp (2010), p. 82. The suggestion by Goodwin (1987) that, during Kennedy's tenure, FBO made "a dozen dog pictures...each year" (p. 348) is exaggerated. Ranger, the studio's only canine headliner of the Kennedy era, starred in sixteen pictures over the course of three years.
  133. ^ For examples of how such films were marketed, see Heritage Vintage (2004a), p. 79, and Heritage Vintage (2005), p. 35. In the latter, the text accompanying the poster of Tom and His Pals (1926) incorrectly identifies it as a Paramount picture and suggests it was the first film teaming Tyler and Darro (it was the ninth).
  134. ^ Sandburg (1925), pp. 270–71.
  135. ^ Valderrama (2020), p. 21.
  136. ^ Fenton (2002), pp. 106–7; Armstrong and Armstrong (2001), pp. 196–97; Mayer (2017), p. 37.
  137. ^ Quoted in Lasky (1989), p. 14.
  138. ^ Lasky (1989), p. 14.
  139. ^ Slide (2022), pp. 88–89; Lussier (2018), pp. 95–96.
  140. ^ a b Quoted in Fenton (2002), p. 107.
  141. ^ Kemp (1987), p. 173.
  142. ^ Finkielman (2004), p. 84.
  143. ^ Finler (1988), pp. 173, 184–85.
  144. ^ Armstrong (2007), p. 235; Sweeney (2007), p. 210.
  145. ^ Stumpf (2010), pp. 13, 116.
  146. ^ Koszarski (1990), p. 271. "Good Women (1921)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 26, 2022. "The Call of Home (1922)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 26, 2022. Gasnier also produced (but did not direct) the R-C releases The Beloved Cheater (1919) and The Butterfly Man (1920) with his own production companies. Codori (2020), p. 116.
  147. ^ Ince starred in the five movies atop the following list of his directorial efforts for FBO: "Search Results: 'Ralph Ince' [+] FBO". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved November 5, 2022. For the three films starring Evelyn Brent he directed, see Kear (2009), pp. 31–34, 144–46.
  148. ^ Hall, Mordaunt (March 6, 1928). "The Screen: An Irish Mother. Bootleggers and Night Clubs". New York Times. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  149. ^ McCaffrey and Jacobs (1999), p. 166; "Salvage [review]". Variety. June 17, 1921. p. 34. Retrieved November 5, 2022. "Sting of the Lash [review]". Variety. October 21, 1921. p. 36. Retrieved November 5, 2022..
  150. ^ Kear (2009), pp. 30, 43, 142–44. For further description of the latter, see Langman (1998), p. 88.
  151. ^ Lupack (2020), pp. 248–50; Taves (2012), chap. Initial Distribution beyond First National, 1923; "Search Results: 'William Seiter' [+] FBO". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved November 5, 2022. "Search Results: 'William Seiter' [+] 'Palmer Photoplay'". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  152. ^ Fleming (2007), p. 269; "Search Results: 'Emory Johnson' [+] FBO". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  153. ^ Everson (1998), p. 142.
  154. ^ Grayson, Eric (Winter 2007). "Limberlost Found: Indiana's Literary Legacy in Hollywood". Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. p. 44. Retrieved October 26, 2022. "The Harvester (1927)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 26, 2022. "Freckles (1928)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved October 26, 2022. Quoting raves from the New York Daily News and Motion Picture Journal, FBO promoted A Girl of the Limberlost as "the surprise picture of the year." "We've Quit Guessing [ad]". Exhibitors Herald. October 18, 1924. p. 115. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
  155. ^ Beauchamp (1998), pp. 168, 181, 211–12, 451–52.
  156. ^ Jackson, Markoe, and Markoe (1998), p. 28; Lasky (1989), pp. 105–18, 133–36, 152–57, 174–75.
  157. ^ Morton (2005), p. 43.
  158. ^ Foote (2014), pp. 100–1; Ankerich (2010), chap. Alberta Vaughn; Rainey (1999), p. 177.
  159. ^ Ankerich (2010), chap. Alberta Vaughn; Rainey (1999), pp. 12, 76; "F.B.O. Sets Releases on Program for September". Moving Picture World. August 1, 1925. p. 559. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  160. ^ "World's Greatest Rodeo [ad]". Exhibitors Herald. May 19, 1928. pp. 45, 49–53. Retrieved October 30, 2022. Erickson (2020), pp. 74–76.
  161. ^ Erickson (2020), p. 74; Okuda and Neibaur (2012), pp. 129–65.
  162. ^ Louvish (2001), pp. 171–72.
  163. ^ Crafton (1993), p. 362 n. 39; Bourne, Mark (2004). "Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius". DVD Journal. Retrieved October 24, 2022.
  164. ^ Crafton (1993), pp. 186–87; Langer (1995), pp. 105, 259 n. 40. For posters of two Bray/Lantz cartoons distributed by FBO, see Heritage Vintage (2004b), p. 51.
  165. ^ Barrier (2003), pp. 30, 48; Coar, Bob (March 7, 2022). "That Crazy Cat Bill Nolan". Cartoon Research. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  166. ^ Barrier (2008), pp. 51–53; Crafton (1993), p. 285; Langer (1995), p. 259 n. 39; Coar, Bob (March 7, 2022). "That Crazy Cat Bill Nolan". Cartoon Research. Retrieved November 5, 2022.

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External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Film Booking Offices of America films.
  • comprehensive listing of silent features produced by FBO/Robertson-Cole and released between 1925 and 1929 (showing how many were considered lost as of 2003)
  • lists FBO sound productions released in 1928 (but does not clearly indicate the several holdover FBO sound productions distributed by RKO in 1929)
  • Joseph P. Kennedy Personal Papers Biographical/Historical Note includes a summary of Kennedy's FBO dealings
  • The Two-Gun Man (1926)—The Surviving Reel nine-and-a-half minutes' worth of Fred Thomson and Silver King's fifteenth film for FBO

January 07, 2023
film, booking, offices, america, registered, pictures, corp, american, film, studio, silent, midsize, producer, distributor, mostly, budget, films, business, began, 1918, robertson, cole, anglo, american, import, export, company, robertson, cole, began, distri. Film Booking Offices of America FBO registered as FBO Pictures Corp was an American film studio of the silent era a midsize producer and distributor of mostly low budget films The business began in 1918 as Robertson Cole an Anglo American import export company Robertson Cole began distributing films in the United States that December and opened a Los Angeles production facility in 1920 Late that year R C entered into a working relationship with East Coast financier Joseph P Kennedy A business reorganization in 1922 led to the company s assumption of the new FBO name Two years later the studio contracted with Western leading man Fred Thomson who within a couple years was one of Hollywood s most popular stars Thomson was just one of several silent screen cowboys with whom FBO became identified Film Booking Offices of AmericaLogo from 1927TypeCorporationIndustryMotion picturesPredecessorRobertson Cole Corp Founded1922Defunct1929FateAssets transferred to Radio Keith Orpheum Corp SuccessorRKO PicturesHeadquarters1922 1925 723 Seventh Avenue New York NY 1 1926 1929 1560 Broadway New York NY 2 The studio whose core market was America s small towns also put out many romantic melodramas action pictures and comedic shorts Pauline Frederick and Sessue Hayakawa were the major stars of its R C period Subsequently Evelyn Brent and Richard Talmadge were FBO s biggest non Western stars From 1925 on adaptations of the works of Gene Stratton Porter were consistently among its top box office attractions In 1926 Kennedy led an investment group that acquired the company he relocated to California to run it with considerable success Exhibitors cited The Keeper of the Bees based on a Stratton Porter novel as the year s most popular film In August 1928 using RCA Photophone technology FBO became the second Hollywood studio to release a feature length talkie Two months later Kennedy and RCA executive David Sarnoff arranged the merger between FBO and the Keith Albee Orpheum theater circuit that created RKO one of the major studios of Hollywood s Golden Age FBO s assets were folded into the new company and it was dissolved in early 1929 Contents 1 Business history 1 1 The R C years 1 2 A new identity 1 3 Kennedy takes command 1 4 Sound enters the picture 2 Cinematic legacy 2 1 Headliners and celebrity casting 2 2 Western and canine stars 2 3 Notable films and filmmakers 2 4 Short subjects and animation 3 Notes 4 Sources 5 External linksBusiness history EditThe R C years Edit December 1921 Robertson Cole ad featuring Pauline Frederick and Sessue Hayakawa The company that would become FBO began as Robertson Cole an importer exporter and motion picture distributor with headquarters in London and New York founded in 1918 by Englishman Harry F Robertson and American Rufus S Cole 3 The company handled American made trucks cars automobile accessories and Bell amp Howell motion picture equipment its initial film distribution focus was on the Northern European South Asian and Latin American markets 4 From its U S office R C Pictures as it was often branded started American motion picture distribution late in 1918 purchasing film rights from independent production companies and selling them on to Exhibitors Mutual Distributing a corporate successor of the Mutual Film studio In November R C contracted to serve as the sole provider to Exhibitors Mutual and its first acquisitions were released the following month 5 6 For its top of the line product it purchased the movies of star actor Sessue Hayakawa whose films were produced by his own company Haworth Pictures Corporation 7 Other companies also made films expressly for R C distribution B B Features Jesse D Hampton Productions National Film Corporation Winsome Stars 8 To accompany its features Robertson Cole also acquired a wide variety of serials and other shorts from Supreme Comedies with Harry Depp and Teddy Sampson to a biweekly series On the Borderland of Civilization filmed by adventurer Martin Johnson 9 Late in 1919 independent motion picture producer Frank Hall acquired Exhibitors Mutual and integrated it into his new Hallmark Exchanges In January 1920 Robertson Cole purchased Hallmark securing the capacity to directly distribute the films to which it owned rights including the in house productions then being planned 10 6 In March the inaugural convention of the branch managers and field supervisors of the Robertson Cole Distributing Corporation was announced 11 The company currently boasted a slate of twenty five movies in theaters around the country with its top films co branded Superior Pictures 12 The first R C feature productions began to appear including The Third Woman that same month directed by Charles Swickard and starring Carlyle Blackwell and Louise Lovely and The Wonder Man directed by John G Adolfi and starring boxer Georges Carpentier which had a premiere on May 29 and went into general release in July 13 With its move into production Robertson Cole needed its own filmmaking studio in June it acquired a lot around fifteen acres six hectares in size in Los Angeles s fortuitously named Colegrove district then adjacent to but soon to be subsumed by Hollywood 14 For exterior shoots the company purchased 460 acres in Santa Monica to be known as the R C Ranch 15 In September contracts were signed for the construction on the Colegrove property of an administration building with a massive neoclassical facade and eight stages each occupying nearly a third of an acre 16 The first film to shoot at the facility while it was still being built was the independent production Kismet 1920 directed by Louis J Gasnier 17 With the West Coast operation up and running Hayakawa s production company was absorbed into Robertson Cole 18 Rufus Cole also entered into a working relationship with Joseph P Kennedy father of future U S president John F Kennedy and then a broker at the New York banking firm of Hayden Stone In December after lengthy negotiations Kennedy set up his own wholly owned company Robertson Cole Distributing Corporation of New England to handle the business s films in an area where he had a controlling interest in a regional theater chain though it was locked out of Massachusetts by the leading exhibitors 19 In February 1921 the movie heralded as Robertson Cole s first official production came out The Mistress of Shenstone directed by Henry King and starring Pauline Frederick a former headliner with Famous Players Lasky and Goldwyn Pictures 20 At the same time the business was 5 million in debt from the L A studio purchase and draining money banks were reluctant to issue lines of credit to any but the biggest film companies and R C was forced to pay interest rates as high as 18 percent to so called bonus sharks to access working capital The company s primary investor the Graham s of London firm turned to Kennedy to find a buyer giving him a seat on the R C board paying him a monthly adviser s fee and promising a sizable commission Though he failed to arrange the sale Graham s was looking for and his own offer to buy 25 percent of the business was turned down Kennedy would become deeply involved with the studio in the coming years 21 A new identity Edit FBO logo from 1924 25 In 1922 Robertson Cole underwent a major reorganization as the company s founders departed 22 The flagship U S distribution business changed its name to Film Booking Offices of America a banner under which R C had released more than a dozen independent productions 23 The West Coast studio operation continued to make films under the Robertson Cole name for some time but FBO ultimately became the primary identity of the business for production as well as distribution 24 Between May 1922 and October 1923 one of the company s new American investors Pat Powers was effectively in command Powers had previously led his own filmmaking company part of the multiple mergers that created the large Universal studio in 1912 During his time in charge at FBO his brand was added to many of its films P A Powers Presents 25 Among its outside suppliers of the period were Chester Bennett Productions Hunt Stromberg Productions and Tiffany Productions 26 In 1923 the studio launched a series of boxing themed shorts Fighting Blood starring FBO newcomer George O Hara it was so popular it was often billed above the accompanying feature 27 O Hara would become an FBO mainstay as would Alberta Vaughn who specialized in shorts most of her films were two reelers a measure of film length indicating a running time of fifteen to twenty five minutes 28 Many feature films of the era were no more than five reels 29 Love and Learn 1924 was the tenth installment of The Telephone Girl Alberta Vaughn s first FBO series of shorts Not a true serial film each of its chapters was a stand alone tale 30 H C S Thomson of Graham s already chairman of the board became the business s managing director with the departure of Powers 31 Before leaving the board in 1924 Kennedy put together a major distribution and production deal between FBO and leading Western star Fred Thomson 32 B P Fineman became the studio s production chief that year Evelyn Brent his wife moved over from Fox to become FBO s top dramatic star 33 In April 1925 FBO vice president Joseph I Schnitzer signed Thomson to a new contract paying him 6 000 a week roughly 92 710 in 2021 dollars 34 Behind only the enormously popular Tom Mix Thomson was now the second highest paid of all cowboy actors his horse Silver King beloved by audiences was covered by a 100 000 insurance policy The deal also gave Thomson his own dedicated production unit at the studio 35 In December 1925 the Exhibitors Herald published its first annual list of the biggest box office films of the preceding year ending November 15 based on a national survey of theater owners FBO s top five attractions were led by A Girl of the Limberlost an adaptation of a novel by bestselling author Gene Stratton Porter who had died the previous December this was followed by Broken Laws an issue driven melodrama detailing the dire consequences of not spanking naughty children and three Fred Thomson oaters The Bandit s Baby The Wild Bull s Lair and Thundering Hoofs 36 As a distributor Film Booking Offices focused on marketing its films to small town exhibitors and independent theater chains that is those not owned by one of the major Hollywood studios 37 As a production company it concentrated on low budget movies with an emphasis on Westerns action films romantic melodramas and comedy shorts 38 From its first productions in early 1920 through late 1928 just before it was dissolved in a merger the company as either Robertson Cole Pictures or FBO Pictures produced more than 400 features 39 The studio s top of the line movies specials in industry parlance aimed at major exhibition venues beyond the reach of most FBO films were sometimes marketed as FBO Gold Bond pictures 40 Between 1924 and 1926 seven of Evelyn Brent s star vehicles as well as two other high end films were produced under the label of Gothic Pictures or Gothic Productions 41 With neither the backing of large corporate interests nor the daily money generator of its own theater chain and far from its London owners the company faced persistent cash flow difficulties The significant financial drain of its reliance on short term high interest loans continued 42 Kennedy takes command Edit FBO distribution logo from 1926 While still at the Hayden Stone investment firm Kennedy had boasted to a colleague Look at that bunch of pants pressers in Hollywood making themselves millionaires I could take the whole business away from them 43 In 1925 he set out to do so forming his own group of investors led by wealthy Boston lawyer Guy Currier Filene s department store owner Louis Kirstein and Union Stockyards and Armour and Company owner Frederick H Prince In August 1925 Kennedy traveled to England with an offer to buy a controlling stake in Film Booking Offices for 1 million The bid was initially rejected Graham s had poured 7 million into the company but in February 1926 FBO s owners decided to take the money 44 From the studio s New York City headquarters Kennedy swiftly addressed its perennial cash flow problems setting up a new business the Cinema Credits Corporation to provide FBO with reliable financing at favorable terms 45 By March he was traveling to Hollywood where one of his first steps was to cut loose the various independent producers resident at the studio 46 The president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association Will Hays the industry s future censor in chief was delighted by the new face on the scene in his eyes Kennedy signified both a desirable image for the film trade and Wall Street s faith in its prospects 47 As renowned journalist Terry Ramsaye wrote in Photoplay the following year Hays had been seeking to endow the febrile motion picture industry with an atmosphere of Americanism and substantiality Kennedy is a valuable personality from this point of view He is exceedingly American historian Cari Beauchamp explains the connotation not Jewish in contrast to most of the studio heads Ramsaye went on to celebrate Kennedy s background of lofty and conservative financial connections an atmosphere of much home and family life and all those fireside virtues of which the public never hears in the current news from Hollywood 48 Publicity photo of Fred Thomson FBO s biggest box office draw during the mid 1920s Studio chief Fineman departed around the time of Kennedy s purchase to work at the larger First National Pictures 49 The new owner appointed Edwin King to replace him but took a personal hand in guiding the company creatively as well as financially 50 His brand Joseph P Kennedy Presents would proceed to appear on over a hundred films 51 Kennedy soon brought stability to FBO making it one of the most reliably profitable outfits in the minor leagues of the Hollywood studio system The focus was on films with Main Street appeal and minimal costs 52 We are trying he declared to be the Woolworth and Ford of the motion picture industry rather than the Tiffany 53 Westerns remained the studio s backbone along with various action pictures and romantic scenarios as Kennedy put it Melodrama is our meat 54 Gene Stratton Porter then was the gravy according to the 1926 Exhibitors Herald survey The Keeper of the Bees for which shooting was completed while the novel was still being serialized in McCall s was the number one picture in the entire country that year The remainder of FBO s top five comprised once again three Fred Thomson pictures along with another Stratton Porter adaptation 55 During this period the average production cost of FBO features was around 50 000 and few were budgeted at anything more than 75 000 56 By comparison in 1927 28 the average cost at Fox was 190 000 at Metro Goldwyn Mayer 275 000 57 In a broad economization move in 1927 FBO ended the long term contracts with writers that were an industry standard shifting story assignments to a freelance basis 58 One major expense Kennedy didn t spare with the powerful United Artists and Paramount studios circling Fred Thomson Kennedy kept him at FBO for 15 000 a week assigning the contract to a newly created corporation Fred Thomson Productions for tax purposes The actor now had the second highest straight salary in the entire industry surpassed only by Tom Mix again whose new arrangement with Fox paid 17 500 59 Thomson s were among those few FBO films budgeted at or above 75 000 but they could be relied on to gross in the quarter million dollar range 60 And Kennedy found an angle to make himself even more money Under the new contract Kennedy struck a deal in early 1927 with Paramount for the major studio to produce and distribute a series of four Thomson super westerns Kennedy participated in the films financing recouping his stake plus 100 000 in profits each Paramount covered Thomson s weekly salary and the actor s production unit stayed on the FBO lot 61 Given the lag time between production and exhibition of the four Thomson features that reached theaters in 1927 three were FBO releases 62 The studio put out fifty one features in total that year for the twelve month period ending November 15 theater owners judged FBO s top three films to all be Gene Stratton Porter adaptations with two Thomson oaters following 63 Sound enters the picture Edit FBO logo from 1928 The advent of sound film would drastically alter the studio s course Negotiations that began in late 1927 with the Radio Corporation of America RCA on a deal for sound conversion led to the January 1928 announcement that RCA parent company General Electric and allied shareholder Westinghouse had purchased a major interest in FBO 64 Four months later as part of a strategy conceived with RCA general manager David Sarnoff Kennedy and associated investors acquired control of Keith Albee Orpheum KAO a vaudeville exhibition chain owning approximately one hundred theaters across the United States affiliated with many more and with two small studios under its control Pathe Exchange and Producers Distributing Corporation PDC Cecil B DeMille s former boutique outlet 65 FBO s The Perfect Crime starring Clive Brook and Irene Rich opened on August 4 1928 at the Rivoli movie palace in Manhattan s Theater District 66 The first film directed by admired cinematographer Bert Glennon it was also the first feature length talkie to appear from a studio other than Warner Bros since the epochal premiere of Warners The Jazz Singer ten months before The Perfect Crime had been shot silently in anticipation of a silent release Using the RCA Photophone sound on film system dialogue and mystery sound effects were dubbed in afterward 67 Savaging it as a jabberwocky of inane incidents the New York Times review concluded What it is all about can be called only an open question A guess at the solution however would be that FBO had a mystery story and in an effort to keep up with the times had synchronized it The synchronization is faulty in many many places and several vocal selections are added in curious out of the way scenes 68 A trade paper report described the studio s plans to add synchronized music sound effects and dialogue to five other silently shot films 69 To date FBO s experiments with sound had all been funded by RCA on August 22 as Kennedy was crossing the Atlantic for a European vacation Variety announced that he had finally signed a formal licensing agreement to pay for his studio s use of Photophone recording 70 While Kennedy traveled RCA launched a bid to acquire control of and combine the Keith Albee Orpheum chain with FBO as talks began between Sarnoff and the lead investment firm behind KAO After his return in late September Kennedy ultimately agreed to the plan which would involve his divestiture from both businesses 71 On October 23 1928 RCA announced it was merging Film Booking Offices and Keith Albee Orpheum to form the new motion picture business Radio Keith Orpheum RKO with Sarnoff as chairman 72 Kennedy who retained Pathe and the PDC assets it had absorbed made more than 4 million in profit from converting and selling off his stock in the deal 73 Joseph I Schnitzer ranking FBO vice president was elevated to president of the new company s production arm replacing Kennedy 74 William LeBaron the last FBO production chief retained his position after the merger but the new studio dedicated to full sound production cut ties with FBO s roster of silent screen performers 75 In its final year of operation of FBO s top five box office films according to theater owners three were again Gene Stratton Porter adaptations including The Keeper of the Bees first released in October 1925 and making its fourth appearance in the annual balloting the others were the Austrian import Moon of Israel and The Great Mail Robbery 76 During the transitional period the first RKO feature release Syncopation in March 1929 was packaged to exhibitors with two FBO low budget programmers 77 Movies that Film Booking Offices had either produced or arranged to distribute were released under the FBO banner through the end of the year The last official FBO production to reach American theaters was Pals of the Prairie directed by Louis King and starring Buzz Barton and Frank Rice released July 7 1929 78 Cinematic legacy Edit In an age when popular films might run for years in different locations around the country and many hundreds were released every exhibition season The Keeper of the Bees according to theater owners ranked 64th nationally in 1925 1st in 1926 34th in 1927 and 71st in 1928 79 A large majority of FBO Robertson Cole pictures produced during the silent era and the transitional period of the conversion to sound cinema are considered to be lost films with no copies known to exist Much of FBO s cinematic legacy thus endures only in still images other publicity materials and written accounts All told just 30 percent of American silent feature films have been preserved 25 percent more or less complete plus another 5 percent in incomplete versions The overall survival rate of features produced by R C FBO is similar of 449 movies identified by the National Film Preservation Board as R C FBO productions 125 are known to survive in some form 28 percent though with only two 0 4 percent in a legacy studio archive 80 The losses moreover were not equally distributed and one of FBO s most successful franchises has disappeared entirely not even a fragmentary print of any of the six Gene Stratton Porter films put out by the studio has been found Due to its zeal for cost cutting FBO was reputed to be especially meticulous in the execution of a practice then common among distributors rounding up its release prints at the end of a picture s run and melting them down to recover the silver in the film emulsion 81 As for FBO s biggest star among America s biggest at the time of the twenty films Fred Thomson made for the studio for years just a single one was known to remain intact in a US archive Thundering Hoofs About three reels worth of the five reel Galloping Gallagher 1924 were also known to survive 82 In 1982 film scholar Bruce Firestone wrote that the disappearance through loss or destruction of virtually all of his films has turned Thomson into one of the least known cowboys in the history of American movies 83 According to the Library of Congress s American Silent Feature Film Database to this tiny corpus may now be added complete prints of The Dangerous Coward 1924 and A Regular Scout 1926 at the George Eastman House Seven more Thomson features are held by archives abroad 84 Headliners and celebrity casting Edit Publicity photo of Evelyn Brent star of fourteen FBO releases between 1924 and 1926 85 Sessue Hayakawa the first star of any magnitude associated with the Robertson Cole brand made a total of twenty films released by the studio from A Heart in Pawn in March 1919 to The Vermilion Pencil in March 1922 86 Hayakawa was regarded as one of the finest screen performers of his time but as anti Japanese sentiment grew on the West Coast R C terminated its relationship with the Chiba born actor Two months after The Vermilion Pencil opened he sued the studio for breach of contract 87 Pauline Frederick celebrated for her performance in the September 1920 Goldwyn Pictures tear jerker Madame X immediately cashed in with a top tier contract from Robertson Cole for whom she starred in more than half a dozen melodramas beginning with A Slave of Vanity just two months later 88 She was said to have been paid an extravagant 7 000 or 7 500 a week under her R C deal 89 Early in her career ZaSu Pitts acted in six R C releases Better Times 1919 gave Pitts her first ever top billing from the Brentwood Film Corporation founded by a group of doctors 90 In the years after the studio s rebranding Evelyn Brent and Richard Talmadge were FBO s most prominent non Western headliners 91 Brent made a specialty of melodramatic pictures with a crime angle often billed as crook melodramas in Midnight Molly 1925 she played an ambitious politician s faithless wife and her look alike a high end cat burglar 92 Talmadge a stunt designer and double for major stars including Douglas Fairbanks and Harold Lloyd took the lead in action pictures for FBO stunt dramas such as Stepping Lively 1924 and Tearing Through 1925 93 He appeared in eighteen FBO releases more than half of them produced by his own company 94 Talmadge s last film for the studio was released in June 1926 95 By August Brent was on her way to starring roles at Paramount 96 In October Talmadge was judged to have been FBO s biggest non Western draw of the year in the first annual Exhibitors Herald theater owners poll of top box office names he placed thirtieth out of sixty 97 Beginning in late 1924 Maurice Lefty Flynn starred in over a dozen action filled comedy dramas released by FBO all produced and directed by Harry Garson 98 Signing a new contract in 1925 the former Yale halfback demonstrated his range by playing a fast riding motorcycle copper in a May release a battling policeman in September and Breckenrdige Gamble a bored millionaire turned international secret agent in October 99 Ralph Lewis a prolific character actor who had appeared in several D W Griffith films including The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance was top billed in at least eight FBO releases between 1922 and 1928 100 George O Hara headlined multiple features as well as short series 101 Warner Baxter and Joe E Brown were among the other popular FBO players 102 Anna Q Nilsson starred in two of the studio s more notable productions as did Douglas Fairbanks Jr 103 Pauline Frederick returned in 1926 for the title role in Her Honor the Governor 104 In FBO s waning months former Fox star Olive Borden played the lead in three films 105 Boris Karloff appeared in six FBO pictures between 1925 and 1927 in two of his earliest major roles he performed opposite Evelyn Brent in the action oriented Forbidden Cargo and Lady Robinhood both 1925 106 In its pre Kennedy years the studio did not hesitate to take advantage of scandal sheet worthy events After the death of celebrated actor Wallace Reid brought on by morphine addiction his widow Dorothy Davenport signed on as producer and star of a cinematic examination of the sins of substance abuse Human Wreckage released by FBO in June 1923 five months after Reid s death in which Davenport billed as Mrs Wallace Reid plays the wife of a noble attorney turned dope fiend 107 A few months later the studio featured a celebrity of a very different sort magician Harry Houdini directing and starring in his last feature film Haldane of the Secret Service 108 In November 1924 FBO put out Davenport s next social problem picture Broken Laws Here Davenport again billed as Mrs Wallace Reid plays the overindulgent mother of an unruly boy destined as a reckless teen to commit a terrible misdeed According to a trade journal perhaps echoing publicity copy the tale was a reminder that the foundation of all law and order lies in that greatest of American institutions the home 109 When the biggest movie star in the world Rudolph Valentino split from his wife Natacha Rambova she was swiftly enlisted by the studio to costar with Clive Brook in the sensitively titled When Love Grows Cold 1926 110 Under Kennedy s control the studio focused on marketing its roster of films as suitable for the average American and the entire family We can t make pictures and label them For Children or For Women or For Stout People or For Thin Ones We must make pictures that have appeal to all 111 Though Kennedy ended the scandal sheet specials FBO still found occasion for celebrity casting One Minute to Play 1926 directed by Sam Wood marked the film debut of football great Red Grange 112 Tennis stars Suzanne Lenglen and Mary Browne were signed for a series of Racquet Girls pictures that never made it to screen 113 Western and canine stars Edit Tom Tyler the most prolific of FBO s many Western stars headlined twenty nine movies for the studio from Let s Go Gallagher 1925 to The Pride of Pawnee 1929 114 Central to the FBO identity were Westerns and the studio s major cowboy star Fred Thomson In both 1926 and 1927 he ranked number two among all male performers in the Exhibitors Herald poll right behind Tom Mix 115 When one of Thomson s oaters The Two Gun Man 1926 made it to New York s Warners Theatre the growing studio s Times Square showcase it demonstrated that a Western even one without Mix could draw audiences to a first run house in the most cosmopolitan of markets 116 Along with trusty Silver King Thomson brought in millions to FBO and Kennedy personally made almost half a million dollars from the super western loanout to Paramount But when Kennedy learned early in 1928 that Mix whose decade old Fox contract was expiring might become available he used his control of Fred Thomson Productions the supposed tax shelter to freeze Thomson out of motion pictures entirely 117 That December Thomson died the immediate cause of death was tetanus his widow screenwriter Frances Marion said that he had lost his will to live 118 Among Western stars under long term contract FBO s next most important though by a distance was Tom Tyler who finished twenty third among men in the 1927 exhibitors poll 119 According to a hyperbolic June 1927 report in Moving Picture World With Tom Tyler rapidly taking the place recently vacated by Fred Thomson for the Paramount sojourn from which he would never return F B O s program of western pictures is taking a place second to none in the industry Tyler has made rapid strides during his two years with F B O and with his horse Flash and dog Beans has become one of the leading favorites on the screen 120 Tyler s appeal was also enhanced by his human costars Frankie Darro tied for fifty fourth in the poll as his young sidekick on over two dozen occasions and starlets such as Doris Hill Nora Lane Sharon Lynn and in Born to Battle 1926 a twenty five year old Jean Arthur 121 122 As 1928 began Tyler was the most popular actor actually working at FBO but Kennedy wanted the big gun He bided his time as Tom Mix toured the Orpheum vaudeville theaters with a live show boosting Kennedy s new exhibition interests and legal machinations ensured Thomson s exile 123 Finally Mix was signed to a six film deal and began shooting in July 124 He ultimately made five pictures for the studio two released after it had ceased to exist and stayed near the top of the exhibitors poll his 112 votes good enough for second among the men if well behind the 171 of MGM s Lon Chaney no other FBO regular made it into double digits 125 But the spread of the talkies was swiftly making the silent sagebrush superstar less of a sure thing 126 Variety derided Mix s last FBO film The Big Diamond Robbery released in May 1929 as cowboy burlesque 127 His brief tenure at the studio was marked by salary grievances he was now making only 10 000 a week and dismay at FBO s inferior production values from its worndown sets to the cut rate film stock it used 128 Subsequently asked about his experience working with Kennedy Mix described him as a tight assed money crazy son of a bitch 129 In addition to these major draws there was also Harry Carey a top star for Universal in the second half of the 1910s he was still a bankable name when he made several FBO Westerns in 1922 23 130 The other cowboy stars of FBO included Bob Custer tied for thirty seventh in the 1927 poll Bob Steele tied for sixty sixth with among others Silver King and teenager Buzz Barton 131 122 One of the studio s most reliable Western headliners was a dog Ranger all alone at sixty fifth among male performers 132 122 Beans had featured roles in a number of Tom Tyler Frankie Darro Westerns 133 The fabled Strongheart starred in FBO s Jack London adaptation White Fang 1925 134 For a small role in the melodrama My Dad 1922 a three year old Alsatian who would become one of the greatest canine stars of all time was singled out by the New York Daily News Rin Tin Tin runs off with most of the histrionic honors The dog stages one of the most realistic and blood curdling fights we have seen recently 135 Notable films and filmmakers Edit Further information List of Film Booking Offices of America films James Pierce in FBO s Tarzan and the Golden Lion 1927 which brought the famous character back to the big screen for the first time in over five years Tarzan would remain a Hollywood fixture for the next four decades 136 Kennedy had no illusions about his studio s place in the realm of cinematic art A journalist once complimented him on FBO s recent output You have had some good pictures this year Kennedy jocularly inquired What the hell were they 137 From the pre Kennedy era RKO historian Betty Lasky identifies the Dorothy Davenport problem picture Broken Laws 1924 directed by Roy William Neill as a rare unforgettable picture of the higher caliber put out by FBO 138 Reviews at the time called it absorbing and vastly entertaining 139 Among the studio s action movies one standout production was a 1927 Tarzan picture Author Edgar Rice Burroughs declared If you want to see the personification of Tarzan of the Apes as I visualize him see the film Tarzan and the Golden Lion with Mr James Pierce 140 The Film Daily reviewer wrote that the movie has a rather new order of thrills and atmosphere that might prove distinctly attractive 140 Two of the studio s most impressive releases were foreign productions In 1927 FBO picked up for U S distribution an acclaimed Austrian biblical spectacular made three years earlier Die Sklavenkonigin The Slave Queen aka Moon of Israel had already won its director Michael Kertesz a job with Warner Bros 141 In Hollywood he would make such hits as The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938 and Casablanca 1942 under the name Michael Curtiz Una Nueva y gloriosa nacion 1928 the most successful film in the history of Argentine silent cinema was shot in Hollywood and distributed in the United States by FBO as The Charge of the Gauchos 142 One of its two cinematographers was Nicholas Musuraca who established his career at Film Booking Offices With RKO Musuraca would become one of Hollywood s most respected cinematographers 143 Richard Talmadge s fourth film for FBO American Manners 1924 was directed by James W Horne who would go on to work with Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy 144 At the age of twenty five King Vidor insisted on casting then little known ZaSu Pitts as the lead in Better Times he directed two more of her R C Brentwood films both starring his wife Florence Vidor 145 Louis J Gasnier responsible for the blockbuster 1914 serial The Perils of Pauline directed several films for the company from Good Women 1921 to The Call of Home 1922 during its Robertson Cole days 146 The best known director to work regularly under the FBO brand was Ralph Ince younger brother of celebrated filmmaker Thomas H Ince Pulling double duty on occasion Ralph Ince starred in five of the sixteen films he made for the studio between 1925 and 1928 147 One production in which he served in both capacities was particularly well received Chicago After Midnight 1928 was described by the New York Times as an unusually well acted and adroitly directed underworld story 148 After The Mistress of Shenstone Henry King directed two more R C films with Pauline Frederick also in 1921 Salvage and The Sting of the Lash 149 Tod Browning directed two Gothic Pictures specials in 1924 starring Evelyn Brent The Dangerous Flirt and Silk Stocking Sal 150 In 1921 and 1922 alone William Seiter directed eight R C FBO releases some produced directly for the studio others independently in 1924 he made two additional FBO releases for Palmer Photoplay both featuring Madge Bellamy 151 Between 1922 and 1926 Emory Johnson produced and directed eight films for FBO 152 Historian William K Everson has pointed to Seiter and Johnson as two of the overlooked directorial talents of the silent era 153 Author and naturalist Gene Stratton Porter set up her own production company to film screen adaptations of her work a perhaps unprecedented venture for a writer FBO handled four releases from Gene Stratton Porter Productions A Girl of the Limberlost 1924 The Keeper of the Bees 1925 Laddie 1926 and The Magic Garden 1927 and was itself producer of record for The Harvester 1927 and Freckles 1928 All six were directed by Stratton Porter s son in law James Leo Meehan All six were hits All are considered lost 154 In house Frances Marion who would win two writing Oscars in the 1930s created the stories for seven of the FBO pictures starring her husband Fred Thomson for these brawny cowboy tales such as Ridin the Wind 1925 and The Tough Guy 1926 she used the pseudonym Frank M Clifton the patronymic was Thomson s middle name 155 Editor Pandro S Berman son of a major FBO stockholder cut his first film for the studio at the age of twenty one in the 1930s he would earn renown as an RKO producer and production chief 156 Famed RKO costume designer Walter Plunkett was also an FBO graduate 157 Short subjects and animation Edit Ad for a 1926 Alice Comedy distributed by Greater FBO Both George O Hara s and Alberta Vaughn s initial short series for FBO each directed by Malcolm St Clair were hits so in the second half of 1924 the studio made a bid at teaming them in the twelve part The Go Getters spoofing popular films and classic stories with chapters such A Kick for Cinderella It was so successful that they were reunited the next year for a similar twelve parter The Pacemakers with episodes such as Merton of the Goofies Merton of the Movies and Madam Sans Gin Madame Sans Gene 158 Vaughn had solo top billing in the comedic series The Adventures of Mazie 1925 26 and the baseball themed serial Fighting Hearts 1926 159 In May 1928 with the Keith Albee Orpheum theater chain under his control Joseph Kennedy announced a forthcoming slate with not only more than the usual number of relatively high budget films but a Mammoth Program of Short Features No less than four different series came from independent producer Larry Darmour including the second twelve chapters of Mickey McGuire starring seven year old Mickey Rooney Amedee Van Beuren provided Walter Futter s Curiosities a Ripley s inspired Movie Side Show of freaks and queer odds and ends from all corners of the world 160 Of particular historical interest are two independently produced series of slapstick comedies released by the studio Between 1924 and 1927 Joe Rock provided FBO with a substantial annual slate of two reelers twenty six per year as of their last contract twelve of those from 1924 25 starred Stan Laurel before his famous partnership with Oliver Hardy 161 West of Hot Dog 1924 according to historian Simon Louvish contains one of Laurel s finest gags involving a level of cinematic technique that bears comparison to Buster Keaton s classic Sherlock Jr 162 In 1926 27 the company released more than a dozen shorts by innovative comedian animator Charles Bowers whose work imaginatively mixed live action and three dimensional model animation 163 FBO also distributed the output of significant creators of purely animated films Between 1924 and 1926 FBO released the work of John Randolph Bray s cartoon studio including the Dinky Doodle series created by Walter Lantz 164 In 1925 26 the studio put out twenty six cartoons by animator William Nolan based on George Herriman s now famed Krazy Kat newspaper comic strip licensed by the wife husband distribution team of Margaret Winkler and Charles Mintz 165 While the Winkler Mintz operation took Krazy Kat away from FBO the following season for a Paramount contract they struck a deal with the studio for another series one that like Bowers s shorts involved both animation and a live performer the Alice Comedies of which FBO would release over two dozen were created by two young animators Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney 166 Notes Edit Sherwood 1923 p 150 Ellis and Thornborough 1923 p 262 Beauchamp 2010 p 70 Codori 2020 pp 113 17 Nasaw 2012 pp 68 69 Miyao 2007 p 169 Beauchamp 2010 p 35 among others misidentifies Cole as British Codori 2020 p 113 14 Nasaw 2012 p 69 Slide 2013 p 3 Miyao 2007 p 169 Codori 2020 p 114 15 The Girl of My Dreams 1918 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 27 2022 And a Still Small Voice 1918 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 27 2022 a b Robertson Cole Buys PDF Variety January 1920 Retrieved January 25 2014 Miyao 2007 p 169 Codori 2020 pp 115 117 In a popular star poll taken at the time that encompassed over a hundred actors Hayakawa placed forty fourth Miyao Daisuke 2017 Hollywood Zen A Historical Analysis of Oshima Nagisa s Unfinished Film Mise au Point 9 39 doi 10 4000 map 2385 In May 1916 five after months the release of his breakout film The Cheat a similar poll ranked him number one Miyao 2007 p 3 Codori 2020 p 114 Slide 2013 p 175 Short Robertson Cole Offerings Supreme Comedies Martin Johnson s Cannibal Films and Adventure Scenics Offer Variety Motion Picture News November 15 1919 p 3597 Retrieved November 3 2022 Codori 2020 p 115 Jewell 1982 p 8 Branch Officials of Robertson Cole Will Confer in New York Exhibitors Herald March 20 1920 p 44 Retrieved October 27 2022 Guide to Current Pictures Robertson Cole Pictures Exhibitors Herald March 20 1920 p 98 see also pp 78 79 Retrieved October 27 2022 See also Codori 2020 p 116 Reviews The Third Woman Exhibitors Herald March 20 1920 p 55 see also p 98 Retrieved October 27 2022 The Third Woman 1920 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 27 2022 The Wonder Man 1920 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 27 2022 Carpentier Film Shown French Champion Appears Under the Auspices of the Legion Here New York Times May 30 1920 Retrieved October 26 2022 While the AFI catalog describes The Wonder Man as the first picture produced by Robertson Cole Jewell 1982 p 8 uses almost identical language The Third Woman was clearly released first Indeed though AFI lists The Third Woman as an April release it was both reviewed and listed as a current picture in the Exhibitors Herald cover dated March 20 and actually published ten days earlier Announcement Change of Practice of Cover Line Dating Exhibitors Herald December 25 1925 p 43 Retrieved October 31 2022 The production history of the March 1920 R C release A Woman Who Understood is unclear A film from star Bessie Barriscale s own production company had come out as recently as February The Luck of Geraldine Laird as AFI notes Variety referred to A Woman Who Understood as a B B feature and at least one print ad identified it as a B B Picture Stating that no other information has been located connecting this to Bessie Barriscale s own company AFI lists it as an R C production A Woman Who Understood 1920 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 27 2022 A detailed survey of her career from the Women Film Pioneers Project lists it under B B Features B B Productions Lund Maria Fosheim 2013 Bessie Barriscale Women Film Pioneers Project Columbia University Libraries Retrieved October 28 2022 Jewell 1982 describes the lot as 13 5 acres p 8 Beauchamp 2010 describes it as seventeen acres p 35 Shiel 2012 states that the studio was originally built on thirteen acres p 149 elsewhere he states that by the 1920s Robertson Cole owned twenty acres in Hollywood p 113 Masters Nathan September 27 2013 Hooray for Colegrove Remembering Hollywood s Forgotten Neighbor Lost LA KCET Retrieved October 26 2022 The address of the studio later owned by RKO Desilu and now Paramount was and remains 780 Gower Street Goodwin 1987 p 346 For a modern view see this map the old FBO facility occupies the western quarter of the Paramount Studios area For an image of the studio s administration building during its FBO days see Crafton 1997 p 136 Robertson Cole Buys a Ranch Motion Picture News June 26 1920 p 83 Retrieved November 3 2022 Shiel 2012 p 149 Jewell 1982 p 8 Kismet 1920 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 27 2022 Miyao 2007 p 169 Beauchamp 2010 pp 35 37 Goodwin 1987 pp 340 41 Nasaw 2012 pp 68 71 73 Jewell 1982 p 8 The Mistress of Shenstone 1921 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 27 2022 The Mistress of Shenstone review Moving Picture World March 5 1921 p 45 see also p 80 Retrieved November 5 2022 Beauchamp 2010 pp 38 44 Goodwin 1987 pp 340 342 Nasaw 2012 pp 69 70 73 74 Beauchamp 1998 p 157 Goodwin 1987 p 341 Beauchamp 1998 p 157 Jewell 1982 p 8 Lasky 1989 p 13 Jewell 1982 p 8 In February 1922 while plans for the reorganization were underway the business was structured thus R C Pictures Corporation as parent company Robertson Cole Studios Inc as production subsidiary and Robertson Cole Distributing Corporation as distribution subsidairy Graham s owned all the capital stock in the companies H C S Thomson of Graham s was chairman of the board of R C Pictures Corp and Pat Powers was its managing director The board of directors of Robertson Cole Studios Inc comprised Rufus Cole Joseph Kennedy Erskine Crum of Graham s W W Lancaster of Lloyd s of London and R J Tobin In May founder Rufus Cole resigned as both director and president of Robertson Cole Studios and Powers became its managing director Offeman v Robertson Cole Studios Inc Casetext November 26 1926 Retrieved October 29 2022 See also Beauchamp 2010 p 74 Many sources give FBO s full name incorrectly as Film Booking Office of America the proper name is Film Booking Offices of America as per the company s official logo For the correct spelling see Sherwood 1923 pp 150 156 158 159 etc Ellis and Thornborough 1923 p 262 Trade paper reports on production plans in 1925 contain no mention of Robertson Cole as business or brand Thomson in New Series Flynn Signs to Make Eight Pictures for F B O Moving Picture World May 23 1925 p 104 Retrieved November 1 2022 Smith Sumner August 1 1925 Thomson of F B O Discusses Bread and Butter Pictures Moving Picture World p 506 Retrieved October 29 2022 F B O Sets Releases on Program for September Moving Picture World August 1 1925 p 559 Retrieved October 29 2022 F B O Launches Western Drive Exhibitors Trade Review November 7 1925 p 27 Retrieved October 29 2022 The reference in Beauchamp 1998 to Kennedy s February 1926 takeover of R C Pictures Corporation and Film Booking Office sic of America p 180 suggests that the parent company retained its Robertson Cole identity at that point The 1927 logo reproduced at the top of this article reading FBO Pictures Corp and a brief trade report from July of that year indicate that the corporate name of the parent company was changed after the Kennedy purchase F B O Is Now FBO Moving Picture World June 11 1927 p 403 Retrieved November 5 2022 Lasky 1989 p 13 See e g Vintage Railroad Melodramas to Be Accompanied by Live Music Sunday Concord Monitor October 19 2021 Retrieved November 4 2022 Jewell 2012 p 10 Foote 2014 p 100 Wing 1924 p 193 Carr Harry September 1923 Art and Right Hooks The Story of George O Hara Motion Picture pp 21 22 88 Retrieved November 3 2022 Fighting Blood ad Exhibitors Herald September 29 1923 p 75 Retrieved November 4 2022 Ankerich 2010 chap Alberta Vaughn Solomon 2011 p 71 Rainey 1999 p 234 Offeman v Robertson Cole Studios Inc Casetext November 26 1926 Retrieved October 29 2022 Beauchamp 1998 pp 157 58 Jewell 1982 p 8 1634 1699 McCusker J J 1997 How Much Is That in Real Money A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States Addenda et Corrigenda PDF American Antiquarian Society 1700 1799 McCusker J J 1992 How Much Is That in Real Money A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States PDF American Antiquarian Society 1800 present Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Consumer Price Index estimate 1800 Retrieved April 16 2022 Beauchamp 2010 p 80 The Biggest Money Makers of 1925 Exhibitors Herald December 25 1925 pp 54 57 Retrieved November 1 2022 Lussier 2018 p 95 Beauchamp 1998 p 157 Lasky 1989 pp 14 15 Jewell 2012 pp 9 10 Lasky 1989 pp 14 17 Pierce David September 2013 The Survival of American Silent Feature Films 1912 1929 PDF Library of Congress p 41 Retrieved November 2 2022 Thomson of F B O Discusses Bread and Butter Pictures Moving Picture World August 1 1925 p 506 Retrieved October 29 2022 F B O Sets Releases on Program for September Moving Picture World August 1 1925 p 559 Retrieved October 29 2022 Kear 2009 pp 30 142 44 146 48 Search Results Gothic Pictures American Silent Feature Film Database Library of Congress Retrieved November 4 2022 Search Results Gothic Productions American Silent Feature Film Database Library of Congress Retrieved November 4 2022 Lasky 1989 pp 12 13 14 15 Beauchamp 1998 p 180 Quoted in Lasky 1989 p 12 Goodwin 1987 pp 342 343 Beauchamp 1998 p 180 Lasky 1989 p 13 Nasaw 2012 pp 94 95 Lasky 1989 pp 14 15 Goodwin 1987 p 344 Lasky incorrectly states that Kennedy moved his family to the New York City neighborhood of Riverdale in spring 1926 in fact the family did not relocate from Massachusetts until fall 1927 Beauchamp 2010 pp 106 7 Nasaw 2012 pp 105 6 Lasky also misspells Kennedy s new firm as the Cinema Credit Corporation Beauchamp 2010 pp 82 83 Goodwin 1987 pp 345 346 Nasaw 2012 pp 100 2 Beauchamp 1998 pp 180 197 For Hays and Kennedy s earlier association see Goodwin 1987 p 341 Nasaw 2012 pp 75 76 Ramsaye Terry September 1927 Intimate Visits to the Homes of Famous Film Magnates Photoplay pp 50 51 122 25 quote at 125 Retrieved December 26 2022 Beauchamp 1998 p 180 Nasaw 2012 p 103 Beauchamp misleadingly suggests that Ramsaye s words were Hays s which she does again in Beauchamp 2010 p 68 Kear 2009 p 38 Lasky 1989 p 15 Jewell 1982 p 9 Beauchamp 2010 p xvi Goodwin 1987 p 347 48 Lasky 1989 p 14 Goodwin 1987 p 347 Goodwin 1987 p 348 The Biggest Money Makers of 1926 Exhibitors Herald December 25 1926 pp 54 57 Retrieved November 1 2022 The Keeper of the Bees 1925 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 29 2022 Murray Ray June 27 1925 Hollywood Millions of Dollars Are Going into Pictures for New Season Exhibitors Herald p 58 Retrieved November 1 2022 Stratton Porter Gene February 1925 The Keeper of the Bees part 1 McCall s pp 5 7 27 28 47 49 Retrieved November 1 2022 Stratton Porter Gene September 1925 The Keeper of the Bees part 8 McCall s p 24 26 56 62 70 Retrieved November 1 2022 Goodwin 1987 p 348 Jewell 1982 p 9 Finler 1988 p 36 Staff Writers Are Banned at F B O Studios Moving Picture World June 11 1927 p 405 Retrieved November 5 2022 Beauchamp 2010 pp 89 90 Beauchamp 1998 pp 210 211 Jensen 2005 pp 97 116 17 122 128 Koszarski 1990 p 116 Beauchamp 2010 p 80 Beauchamp 1998 pp 211 217 227 Beauchamp 2010 p 164 McCaffrey and Jacobs 1999 p 266 Nasaw 2012 pp 106 7 The Biggest Money Makers of 1927 Exhibitors Herald December 24 1927 pp 145 46 Retrieved October 29 2022 Jewell 2012 p 12 Lasky 1989 pp 24 25 Nasaw 2012 pp 111 12 Lasky 1989 pp 25 26 Jewell 2012 pp 13 15 Nasaw 2012 pp 115 17 119 20 Cinemerger Time May 2 1927 Retrieved October 29 2022 Crafton 1997 p 140 According to Crafton The Perfect Crime was first released on June 17 At a time when few theaters in the country were wired for sound many of those with only the incompatible Vitaphone sound on disc system see Block and Wilson 2010 p 56 Crafton 1997 pp 148 49 the film s limited run before its Rivoli debut was in the silent version in which it was shot In the fifty two pages of color ads Kennedy bought at the front of the May 19 Exhibitors Herald to promote FBO s upcoming slate of pictures the two page spread for The Perfect Crime has pride of place behind only Kennedy himself There is no mention of sound The Perfect Crime ad Exhibitors Herald May 19 1928 pp 6 7 Retrieved October 28 2022 Another two page ad in the July 7 issue claiming the film has Amazed and Astounded the Critics and is the First Real Hit of 28 29 again makes no mention of sound The Perfect Crime ad Exhibitors Herald July 7 1928 pp 20 21 Retrieved October 28 2022 Finally a spread in the August 11 issue blares FBO Sound Sensation Scores Solid Broadway Smash asserts that the film has been A Hit in Silent Form in Los Angeles and Detroit and reassures that FBO has not forgotten the thousands of showmen who have not yet obtained sound installations The Perfect Crime ad Exhibitors Herald August 11 1928 pp 26 27 Retrieved October 28 2022 For the Rivoli see Rivoli Theatre NYC AGO New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists Retrieved October 26 2022 Crafton 1997 pp 140 304 Koszarski 1990 p 169 FBO Completes First Talkie Now Synchronizing Five Others Exhibitors Herald August 11 1928 p 31 Retrieved October 28 2022 The Screen That Old Devil Crime New York Times August 6 1928 Retrieved October 26 2022 FBO Completes First Talkie Now Synchronizing Five Others Exhibitors Herald August 11 1928 p 31 Retrieved October 28 2022 The language in the report referring to a Detroit release is ambiguous The Perfect Crime has already been given a two weeks test engagement at the United Artists theatre Detroit Given the phrasing in the FBO ad in the same issue cited above this refers either to the silent run that had already happened or a talkie run that was going to happen when the theater was at last set up for sound as was scheduled for August 15 Hubbard Preston J Winter 1985 Synchronized Sound and Movie House Musicians 1926 29 American Music 3 4 434 doi 10 2307 3051829 JSTOR 3051829 Beauchamp 2010 p 203 Lasky 1989 pp 29 33 Crafton 1997 p 141 Lasky s claim that Kennedy at that point also tendered RCA an option to acquire control of FBO appears to be erroneous the claim is echoed by Crafton citing only Lasky neither Kennnedy biographers Goodwin Beauchamp or Nasaw nor preeminent RKO historian Jewell offer any support for it Lasky and Crafton both mistakenly state that Kennedy left on vacation after the August 22 announcement in fact his ship sailed on Friday August 17 Nasaw 2012 p 126 Beauchamp 2010 pp 206 7 Nasaw 2012 pp 129 31 Jewell 2012 p 16 Beauchamp 2010 pp 230 31 Jewell 2012 p 18 Nasaw 2012 pp 130 31 Jewell 2012 p 18 Lasky 1989 p 43 Staff of Exhibitors Herald World 1929 Money Making Stars and Pictures of 1928 Motion Picture Almanac pp 145 46 Retrieved October 29 2022 Jewell 1988 p 20 Pals of the Prairie 1929 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 26 2022 In 1924 for example 586 American features five reels or longer were released Solomon 2011 p 71 The Biggest Money Makers of 1925 Exhibitors Herald December 25 1925 pp 54 57 Retrieved November 1 2022 The Biggest Money Makers of 1926 Exhibitors Herald December 25 1926 pp 38 39 Retrieved November 1 2022 The Biggest Money Makers of 1927 Exhibitors Herald December 24 1927 pp 36 37 Retrieved October 29 2022 Staff of Exhibitors Herald World 1929 Money Making Stars and Pictures of 1928 Motion Picture Almanac pp 145 46 Retrieved October 29 2022 Pierce David September 2013 The Survival of American Silent Feature Films 1912 1929 PDF Library of Congress pp 1 41 and passim Retrieved November 2 2022 Grayson Eric Winter 2007 Limberlost Found Indiana s Literary Legacy in Hollywood Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History pp 42 47 Retrieved October 26 2022 Boggs 2011 p 44 Katchmer 2002 p 371 Pierce David Silent Movie Cowboy Star Fred Thomson Cowboy Films Readers of the Purple Sage Western Bookstore Nordell Online Bookstores Group Retrieved November 2 2022 Galloping Gallagher 1924 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 2 2022 Firestone 2010 pp 73 77 According to the ASFFD versions of the following are held outside the United States The Mask of Lopez 1924 North of Nevada 1924 Ridin the Wind 1925 The Tough Guy 1926 The Two Gun Man 1926 Lone Hand Saunders 1926 and Arizona Nights 1927 Abridged prints of The Bandit s Baby and That Devil Quemado both 1925 exist somewhere in private hands Search Results Fred Thomson FBO American Silent Feature Film Database Library of Congress Retrieved November 2 2022 Galloping Gallagher is not in the database at all for reasons unknown Kear 2009 pp 142 48 Miyao 2007 p 334 A Heart in Pawn 1919 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 28 2022 The Vermilion Pencil 1922 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 28 2022 Miyao 2007 pp 3 5 225 27 312 Maurice 2013 chap Face Race and Screen Gates 2019 p 28 Miyao Daisuke 2017 Hollywood Zen A Historical Analysis of Oshima Nagisa s Unfinished Film Mise au Point 9 39 doi 10 4000 map 2385 Davies 1971 p 666 Frederick made seven known films for the company between 1920 and 1922 and one more in 1926 There is a question about the status of a ninth project The Woman Breed supposedly 1922 There is no doubt a screenplay was written and shooting was planned But the last AFI print catalog states in its terse entry for The Woman Breed Because it is unusual to find no information on an FBO or Pauline Frederick film all facts here are from the Film Year Book 1923 it can be concluded that this film was also known by another title The current online AFI catalog has no entry for it at all Beeman Renee February 18 1922 Live News of the West Coast Exhibitors Trade Review p 823 New Story by Louis Stevens to Pauline Frederick Canadian Moving Picture Digest March 18 1922 p 17 Munden 1997 p 917 For a helpful Frederick filmography which does not include The Woman Breed see The Films of Pauline Frederick The Pauline Frederick Website Stanford University December 18 2021 Retrieved November 3 2022 Liebman 2017 p 102 Davies 1971 p 666 Stumpf 2010 pp 13 14 116 17 Slide 2013 p 27 Jewell 1982 p 8 Kear 2009 pp 31 38 142 144 45 147 Lasky 1989 p 16 Kear 2009 pp 31 35 144 45 Midnight Molly ad Moving Picture World January 31 1925 p 414 Retrieved November 1 2022 Sewell C S February 7 1925 Midnight Molly review Moving Picture World pp 558 586 Retrieved November 2 2022 Reid Laurence July 4 1925 Smooth as Satin review Moving Picture World p 101 Retrieved November 1 2022 F B O Sets Releases on Program for September Moving Picture World August 1 1925 p 559 Retrieved October 29 2022 Freese 2014 pp 3 93 171 278 Smith Sumner August 1 1925 Thomson of F B O Discusses Bread and Butter Pictures Moving Picture World p 506 Retrieved November 1 2022 Laughing at Danger 1924 through The Better Man 1926 Richard Talmadge AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 1 2022 The Better Man 1926 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 1 2022 Kear 2009 pp 38 40 148 50 60 Best Box Office Names Exhibitors Herald October 30 1926 pp 54 57 Retrieved October 28 2022 Though Talmadge made few actual Westerns in categorizing male stars as drama and comedy drama Western or comedian the trade journal placed him with the cowboys Brent s first Paramount feature Love Em and Leave Em had not reached most theaters when the poll was conducted and she made it only onto the unranked long list of 240 Box Office Names The AFI Flynn filmography which is organized by year of release but not month shows thirteen such films The No Gun Man and The Millionaire Cowboy both 1924 then Smilin at Trouble 1925 through The College Boob 1926 Lefty Flynn AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 1 2022 Smith Sumner August 1 1925 Thomson of F B O Discusses Bread and Butter Pictures Moving Picture World p 506 Retrieved October 29 2022 Thomson in New Series Flynn Signs to Make Eight Pictures for F B O Moving Picture World May 23 1925 p 104 Retrieved November 1 2022 Christgau 1999 pp 55 59 New Pictures Speed Wild Moving Picture World June 6 1925 p 63 Retrieved November 1 2022 New Pictures High and Handsome September 19 1925 p 58 Retrieved November 1 2022 a href Template Cite magazine html title Template Cite magazine cite magazine a Cite magazine requires magazine help Connelly 1998 p 105 Long 2012 pp 16 20 Jewell 1982 p 8 In the Name of the Law 1922 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 The Third Alarm 1923 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 The Westbound Limited 1923 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 The Mailman 1923 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 Untamed Youth 1924 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 The Last Edition 1925 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 Bigger than Barnum s 1926 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 Crooks Can t Win 1928 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 Rainey 1999 p 177 Jewell 1982 pp 8 9 Jewell 1982 pp 8 9 Nilsson Vanity s Price 1924 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 Blockade 1928 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 Fairbanks Dead Man s Curve 1928 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 The Jazz Age 1929 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved November 4 2022 Nollen 1991 pp 34 356 Vogel 2010 pp 5 94 105 6 Nollen 1991 pp 31 32 354 58 Kear 2009 pp 144 46 Schaefer 1999 p 224 Slide 2022 pp 85 88 Taves 2012 chap Initial Distribution beyond First National 1923 Jewell 2012 p 10 Haldane of the Secret Service ad Exhibitors Herald October 27 1923 p 75 Retrieved November 4 2022 Lussier 2018 p 95 Slide 2022 p 88 F B O Has Excellent Material Lined Up for Fall and Winter Moving Picture World July 12 1924 p 123 Retrieved October 29 2022 Goodwin 1987 p 341 Rambova F B O Picture Titled When Love Grows Cold Exhibitors Herald December 25 1925 p 40 Retrieved October 31 2022 Quoted in Goodwin 1987 p 347 Beauchamp 2010 pp 80 82 87 Hall Mordaunt September 6 1926 The Screen Red Grange s First Film New York Times Retrieved October 29 2022 See also Heritage Vintage 2004b p 121 Beauchamp 2010 p 82 Mayer 2017 p 280 Cf Katchmer 2002 p 380 Katchmer misdates Let s Go Gallagher as 1924 and omits The Cowboy Cop 1926 Tom and His Pals 1926 and Terror Mountain 1928 from his Tyler filmography Let s Go Gallagher 1925 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 28 2022 The Cowboy Cop 1926 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 28 2022 Tom and His Pals 1926 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 28 2022 Terror Mountain 1928 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 28 2022 The Pride of Pawnee 1929 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 28 2022 Beauchamp 1998 p 224 The Big Names of 1927 Exhibitors Herald December 31 1927 pp 22 23 Retrieved October 27 2022 60 Best Box Office Names Exhibitors Herald October 30 1926 p 54 Retrieved October 28 2022 Lasky 1989 p 16 Beauchamp 2010 pp 165 67 208 Nasaw 2012 incredibly citing Beauchamp writes Kennedy did everything he could to keep Thomson s career alive p 107 a gross falsehood Beauchamp 2010 pp 233 36 Beauchamp 2010 p 82 The Big Names of 1927 Exhibitors Herald December 31 1927 pp 22 23 Retrieved October 27 2022 He placed thirty fourth in the previous year s poll which was not divided by sex 60 Best Box Office Names Exhibitors Herald October 30 1926 p 54 Retrieved October 28 2022 F B O Has Ambitious Program of 20 Westerns for 1927 28 Moving Picture World June 11 1927 p 422 Retrieved November 5 2022 Katchmer 2002 p 380 Rainey 1987 p 139 a b c The Big Names of 1927 Exhibitors Herald December 31 1927 pp 22 23 Retrieved October 27 2022 Jensen 2005 pp 119 Beauchamp 2010 pp 165 67 Jensen 2005 pp 120 Brichard 1993 p 216 Staff of Exhibitors Herald World 1929 Money Making Stars and Pictures of 1928 Motion Picture Almanac pp 144 45 Retrieved October 29 2022 Jensen 2005 pp 116 18 120 23 Jensen 2005 p 123 Brichard 1993 pp 216 18 Jensen 2005 pp 121 24 Lasky 1989 p 17 Quirk 1996 p 303 Mayer 2017 p 69 Katchmer 1991 pp 122 24 133 Lasky 1989 pp 16 17 Katchmer 2002 pp 17 83 Beauchamp 2010 p 82 The suggestion by Goodwin 1987 that during Kennedy s tenure FBO made a dozen dog pictures each year p 348 is exaggerated Ranger the studio s only canine headliner of the Kennedy era starred in sixteen pictures over the course of three years For examples of how such films were marketed see Heritage Vintage 2004a p 79 and Heritage Vintage 2005 p 35 In the latter the text accompanying the poster of Tom and His Pals 1926 incorrectly identifies it as a Paramount picture and suggests it was the first film teaming Tyler and Darro it was the ninth Sandburg 1925 pp 270 71 Valderrama 2020 p 21 Fenton 2002 pp 106 7 Armstrong and Armstrong 2001 pp 196 97 Mayer 2017 p 37 Quoted in Lasky 1989 p 14 Lasky 1989 p 14 Slide 2022 pp 88 89 Lussier 2018 pp 95 96 a b Quoted in Fenton 2002 p 107 Kemp 1987 p 173 Finkielman 2004 p 84 Finler 1988 pp 173 184 85 Armstrong 2007 p 235 Sweeney 2007 p 210 Stumpf 2010 pp 13 116 Koszarski 1990 p 271 Good Women 1921 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 26 2022 The Call of Home 1922 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 26 2022 Gasnier also produced but did not direct the R C releases The Beloved Cheater 1919 and The Butterfly Man 1920 with his own production companies Codori 2020 p 116 Ince starred in the five movies atop the following list of his directorial efforts for FBO Search Results Ralph Ince FBO American Silent Feature Film Database Library of Congress Retrieved November 5 2022 For the three films starring Evelyn Brent he directed see Kear 2009 pp 31 34 144 46 Hall Mordaunt March 6 1928 The Screen An Irish Mother Bootleggers and Night Clubs New York Times Retrieved October 29 2022 McCaffrey and Jacobs 1999 p 166 Salvage review Variety June 17 1921 p 34 Retrieved November 5 2022 Sting of the Lash review Variety October 21 1921 p 36 Retrieved November 5 2022 Kear 2009 pp 30 43 142 44 For further description of the latter see Langman 1998 p 88 Lupack 2020 pp 248 50 Taves 2012 chap Initial Distribution beyond First National 1923 Search Results William Seiter FBO American Silent Feature Film Database Library of Congress Retrieved November 5 2022 Search Results William Seiter Palmer Photoplay American Silent Feature Film Database Library of Congress Retrieved November 5 2022 Fleming 2007 p 269 Search Results Emory Johnson FBO American Silent Feature Film Database Library of Congress Retrieved November 5 2022 Everson 1998 p 142 Grayson Eric Winter 2007 Limberlost Found Indiana s Literary Legacy in Hollywood Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History p 44 Retrieved October 26 2022 The Harvester 1927 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 26 2022 Freckles 1928 AFI Catalog American Film Institute Retrieved October 26 2022 Quoting raves from the New York Daily News and Motion Picture Journal FBO promoted A Girl of the Limberlost as the surprise picture of the year We ve Quit Guessing ad Exhibitors Herald October 18 1924 p 115 Retrieved October 26 2022 Beauchamp 1998 pp 168 181 211 12 451 52 Jackson Markoe and Markoe 1998 p 28 Lasky 1989 pp 105 18 133 36 152 57 174 75 Morton 2005 p 43 Foote 2014 pp 100 1 Ankerich 2010 chap Alberta Vaughn Rainey 1999 p 177 Ankerich 2010 chap Alberta Vaughn Rainey 1999 pp 12 76 F B O Sets Releases on Program for September Moving Picture World August 1 1925 p 559 Retrieved October 29 2022 World s Greatest Rodeo ad Exhibitors Herald May 19 1928 pp 45 49 53 Retrieved October 30 2022 Erickson 2020 pp 74 76 Erickson 2020 p 74 Okuda and Neibaur 2012 pp 129 65 Louvish 2001 pp 171 72 Crafton 1993 p 362 n 39 Bourne Mark 2004 Charley Bowers The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius DVD Journal Retrieved October 24 2022 Crafton 1993 pp 186 87 Langer 1995 pp 105 259 n 40 For posters of two Bray Lantz cartoons distributed by FBO see Heritage Vintage 2004b p 51 Barrier 2003 pp 30 48 Coar Bob March 7 2022 That Crazy Cat Bill Nolan Cartoon Research Retrieved November 5 2022 Barrier 2008 pp 51 53 Crafton 1993 p 285 Langer 1995 p 259 n 39 Coar Bob March 7 2022 That Crazy Cat Bill Nolan Cartoon Research Retrieved November 5 2022 Sources EditAnkerich Michael G 2010 Dangerous Curves atop Hollywood Heels The Lives Careers and Misfortunes of 14 Hard Luck Girls of the Silent Screen Duncan OK BearManor Media ISBN 978 1 59393 605 1 Armstrong Richard 2007 James W Horne in The Rough Guide to Film by Richard Armstrong Tom Charity Lloyd Hughes and Jessica Winter London Rough Guides p 210 ISBN 978 1 84353 408 2 Armstrong Richard B and Mary Williams Armstrong 2001 Encyclopedia of Film Themes Settings and Series Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 4572 1 Barrier Michael 2003 Hollywood Cartoons American Animation in Its Golden Age New York Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 516729 5 Barrier Michael 2008 The Animated Man A Life of Walt Disney Berkeley University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 25619 4 Beauchamp Cari 1998 Without Lying Down Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood Berkeley Los Angeles and London University of California Press ISBN 0 520 21492 7 Beauchamp Cari 2010 Joseph P Kennedy Presents His Hollywood Years New York Knopf ISBN 978 1400040001 Birchard Robert S 1993 King Cowboy Tom Mix and the Movies Burbank CA Riverwood Press ISBN 978 1 880756 05 8 Block Alex Ben and Lucy Autrey Wilson eds 2010 George Lucas s Blockbusting A Decade by Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success New York HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 06 177889 6 Boggs Johnny D 2011 Jesse James and the Movies Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 4788 6 Buehrer Beverley Bare 1993 Boris Karloff A Bio Bibliography Westport CT Greenwood Press ISBN 0 313 27715 X Christgau John 1999 The Origins of the Jump Shot Eight Men Who Shook the World of Basketball Lincoln University of Nebraska Press ISBN 0 8032 6394 5 Codori Jeff 2020 Film History through Trade Journal Art 1916 1920 Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 1 4766 7617 3 Connelly Robert B 1998 The Silents Silent Feature Films 1910 36 Chicago December Press ISBN 978 0913204368 Corneau Ernest N 1969 The Hall of Fame of Western Film Stars Hanover MA Christopher Publishing House ISBN 0 8158 0124 6 Crafton Donald 1993 Before Mickey The Animated Film 1898 1928 Chicago and London University of Chicago Press ISBN 0 226 11667 0 Crafton Donald 1997 The Talkies American Cinema s Transition to Sound 1926 1931 New York Charles Scribner s Sons ISBN 0 684 19585 2 Davies Wallace Evan 1971 Frederick Pauline in Notable American Women 1607 1950 A Biographical Dictionary ed Edward T James Cambridge MA and London Belknap Press of Harvard University Press ISBN 0 674 62734 2 Ellis Don Carlos and Laura Thornborough 1923 Motion Pictures in Education A Practical Handbook for Users of Visual Aids New York Thomas V Crowell Erickson Hal 2020 A Van Beuren Production A History of the 619 Cartoons 875 Live Action Shorts Four Feature Films and One Serial of Amedee Van Beuren Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 1 4766 8027 9 Everson William K 1998 American Silent Film New York Da Capo ISBN 0 306 80876 5 Fenton James W 2002 Edgar Rice Burroughs and Tarzan A Biography of the Author and His Creation Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 0 7864 1393 X Finkielman Jorge 2004 The Film Industry in Argentina An Illustrated Cultural History Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 0 7864 1628 9 Finler Joel W 1988 The Hollywood Story New York Crown ISBN 0 517 56576 5 Firestone Bruce M 2010 1982 Fred Thomson in American Classic Screen Profiles ed John C Tibbetts and James M Welsh Lanham MD Firestone Press p 73 77 ISBN 978 0 8108 7677 4 Fleming E J 2007 Wallace Reid The Life and Death of a Hollywood Idol Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 7725 8 Foote Lisle 2014 Buster Keaton s Crew The Team Behind His Silent Films Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 9683 9 Freese Gene Scott 2014 Hollywood Stunt Performers 1910s 1970s A Biographical Dictionary 2nd ed Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 7643 5 Gates Philippa 2019 Criminalization Assimilation Chinese Americans and Chinatowns in Classical Hollywood Film New Brunswick NJ Rutgers University Press ISBN 978 0813589428 Goodwin Doris Kearns 1987 The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys An American Saga New York Simon amp Schuster ISBN 0 671 23108 1 Heritage Vintage Movie Poster Signature Auction 603 Dallas Heritage Vintage Movie Posters 2004a ISBN 1 932899 15 4 Heritage Vintage Movie Poster Signature Auction 607 Dallas Heritage Vintage Movie Posters 2004b ISBN 1 932899 35 9 Heritage Vintage Movie Poster Signature Auction 624 Dallas Heritage Vintage Movie Posters 2005 ISBN 1 59967 004 6 Jackson Kenneth T Karen Markoe and Arnie Markoe 1998 The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives vol 1 1981 1985 New York Charles Scribner s Sons ISBN 978 0 68480 492 7 Jensen Richard D 2005 The Amazing Tom Mix The Most Famous Cowboy of the Movies Lincoln NE iUniverse ISBN 978 0 595 35949 3 Jewell Richard B 2012 RKO Radio Pictures A Titan Is Born Berkeley and Los Angeles University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 27178 4 Jewell Richard B with Vernon Harbin 1982 The RKO Story New York Arlington House Crown ISBN 0 517 54656 6 Katchmer George A 1991 Eighty Silent Film Stars Biographies and Filmographies of the Obscure to the Well Known Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0899504940 Katchmer George A 2002 A Biographical Dictionary of Silent Film Western Actors and Actresses Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 4693 3 Kear Lynn with James King 2009 Evelyn Brent The Life and Films of Hollywood s Lady Crook Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 4363 5 Kemp Philip 1987 Curtiz Michael in World Film Directors Volume 1 1890 1945 ed John Wakeman New York H W Wilson pp 172 81 ISBN 0 8242 0757 2 Koszarski Richard 1990 An Evening s Entertainment The Age of the Silent Feature Picture 1915 1928 Berkeley Los Angeles and London University of California Press ISBN 0 520 08535 3 Langer Mark 1995 John Randolph Bray Animation Pioneer in American Silent Film Discovering Marginalized Voices ed Gregg Bachman and Thomas J Slater Carbondale Southern Illinois Univ Press 2002 pp 94 114 ISBN 0 8093 2402 4 Langman Larry 1998 American Film Cycles The Silent Era Westport CT Greenwood Press ISBN 0 313 30657 5 Lasky Betty 1989 RKO The Biggest Little Major of Them All Santa Monica CA Roundtable ISBN 0 915677 41 5 Liebman Roy 2017 Broadway Actors in Films 1894 2015 Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 7685 5 Long Harry H 2012 Avenging Conscience in American Silent Horror Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films 1913 1929 vol 1 by John T Soister and Henry Nicolella with Steve Joyce and Harry H Long Jefferson NC McFarland pp 16 21 ISBN 978 0 7864 3581 4 Louvish Simon 2001 Stan and Ollie The Roots of Comedy The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy New York St Martin s ISBN 0 312 26651 0 Lupack Barbara Tepa 2020 Silent Serial Sensations The Wharton Brothers and the Magic of Early Cinema Ithaca NY Cornell University Press ISBN 978 1501748189 Lussier Tim 2018 Bare Knees Flapper The Life and Films of Virginia Lee Corbin Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 1 4766 7568 8 Lyons Timothy James 1974 1972 The Silent Partner The History of the American Film Manufacturing Company 1910 1921 New York Arno Press ISBN 0 405 04872 6 Maurice Alice 2013 The Cinema and Its Shadow Race and Technology in Early Cinema Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press ISBN 978 1 4529 3939 1 Mayer Geoff 2017 Encyclopedia of American Serials Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 7762 3 McCaffrey Donald W and Christopher P Jacobs 1999 Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema Westport CT Greenwood Press ISBN 0 313 30345 2 Miyao Daisuke 2007 Sessue Hayakawa Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom Durham NC and London Duke University Press ISBN 978 0822339588 Morton Ray 2005 King Kong The History of a Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson New York Applause ISBN 1 55783 669 8 Munden Kenneth W 1971 The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States Feature Films 1921 1930 Berkeley Los Angeles and London University of California Press ISBN 0 520 20969 9 Nasaw David 2012 The Patriarch The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P Kennedy New York Penguin Press ISBN 978 1 59420 376 3 Nollen Scott Allen 1991 Boris Karloff A Critical Account of His Screen Stage Radio Television Jefferson NC Mcfarland ISBN 0 89950 580 5 Okuda James L and James L Neibaur 2012 Stan Without Ollie The Stan Laurel Solo Films 1917 1927 Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 4781 7 Quirk Lawrence J 1996 The Kennedys in Hollywood Dallas Taylor Publishing ISBN 978 0878339341 Rainey Buck 1987 Heroes of the Range Metuchen NJ Scarecrow Press ISBN 978 0810818040 Rainey Buck 1999 Serials and Series A World Filmography 1912 1956 Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 4702 2 Sandburg Carl 1925 White Fang in The Movies Are Carl Sandburg s Film Reviews and Essays 1920 1928 ed Arnie Bernstein Chicago Lake Claremont Press 2000 pp 270 71 ISBN 1 893121 05 4 Schaefer Eric 1999 Bold Daring Shocking True A History of Exploitation Films 1919 1959 Durham NC and London Duke University Press ISBN 0 8223 2374 5 Sherwood Robert Emmet 1923 The Best Moving Pictures of 1922 23 Boston Small Maynard Shiel Mark 2012 Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles London Reaktion Books ISBN 978 1 86189 902 6 Slide Anthony 2013 1998 The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry Abingdon and New York Routledge ISBN 978 1 579 58056 8 Slide Anthony 2022 1996 The Silent Feminists America s First Women Directors Lanham MD Rowman amp Littlefield ISBN 978 1 5381 6552 2 Solomon Aubrey 2011 The Fox Film Corporation 1915 1935 A History and Filmography Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 6286 5 Stumpf Charles 2010 ZaSu Pitts The Life and Career Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 4620 9 Sweeney Kevin W ed 2007 Buster Keaton Interviews Jackson University Press of Mississippi ISBN 978 1 57806 962 0 Taves Brian 2012 Thomas Ince Hollywood s Independent Pioneer Lexington University Press of Kentucky ISBN 978 0 8131 3422 2 Valderrama Carla 2020 This Was Hollywood Forgotten Stars and Stories New York Hachette ISBN 978 0 7624 9586 3 Wing Ruth ed 1924 The Blue Book of the Screen Hollywood CA Blue Book of the Screen Inc External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Film Booking Offices of America films The Silent Films of FBO Pictures comprehensive listing of silent features produced by FBO Robertson Cole and released between 1925 and 1929 showing how many were considered lost as of 2003 The Early Sound Films of Radio Pictures lists FBO sound productions released in 1928 but does not clearly indicate the several holdover FBO sound productions distributed by RKO in 1929 Joseph P Kennedy Personal Papers Biographical Historical Note includes a summary of Kennedy s FBO dealings The Two Gun Man 1926 The Surviving Reel nine and a half minutes worth of Fred Thomson and Silver King s fifteenth film for FBO Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Film Booking Offices of America amp oldid 1131073003, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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