Lobby card from Open Your Eyes (1919)

Lobby card from The Beautiful and Damned (1922)

The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwood's 1919 Broadway
play, The Gold Diggers, from theatrical impresario David Belasco. However, Rin Tin Tin,[25] a dog
brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation.[26] Rin Tin
Tin's third film was the feature Where the North Begins, which was so successful that Jack signed
the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week.[25] Rin Tin Tin became the studio's top star.[25] Jack
nicknamed him "The Mortgage Lifter"[25] and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanuck's
career.[27] Zanuck eventually became a top producer[28] and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jack's
right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film
production.[29] More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director;[27] Harry Rapf left
the studio to join Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.[30] Lubitsch's film The Marriage Circle was the studio's most
successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year.[27]

The first logo of Warner Bros. Pictures (1923–1925)

Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warner's remained a lesser studio.[31] Sam and
Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel.[31] The film
was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a long-term contract;[32] like The Marriage
Circle, Beau Brummel was named one of the ten best films of the year by the Times.[32] By the end of
1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywood's most successful independent studio,[32] where it
competed with "The Big Three" Studios (First National, Paramount Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer (MGM)).[33] As a result, Harry Warner—while speaking at a convention of 1,500 independent
exhibitors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—was able to convince the filmmakers to spend $500,000 in
newspaper advertising,[34] and Harry saw this as an opportunity to establish theaters in places such
as New York City and Los Angeles.[34]

As the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a
major loan. With this new money, the Warners bought the pioneer Vitagraph Company which had a \