Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

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Richard M Roberts
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Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Richard M Roberts » Wed Mar 10, 2010 12:54 pm

Go to the link at :

http://www.pbpulse.com/arts-and-culture ... more-45219

A good review, but Scott always whines about the money. Sometimes I wonder if that's all he's interested in.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Brent Walker » Wed Mar 10, 2010 1:34 pm

Thanks Richard, for letting me know about his review. And here are some other new reviews:

Thomas Gladysz, Silent Film Examiner:
http://www.examiner.com/x-7605-SF-Silen ... un-factory

Dennis King, Projections:
http://blog.wimgo.com/projections/2010/ ... s-kreator/

However, I think Scott may have Sennett's personal earnings and film studio earnings mixed up. He did have money stashed away--courtesy his mother in Canada, who saved the money he sent her and he got when she died--enabling him to live comfortably in his later years (but essentially depleted upon his death). And up until the '29 crash, he likely kept his studio propped up with his oil and mineral profits.

However, while there might have been some creative accounting (there probably has never been a film studio where there hasn't), if his studio was really making money he was hiding, his budgets wouldn't have continually gone down further and further to poverty row levels with each passing year from 1927, to the early Thirties, he wouldn't have had to keep throwing in with lesser-and-lesser distributors after First National, and he wouldn't have had to get a complete production advance from his last distributor (which itself was near bankruptcy)--money that had to be kept separate from his administrative costs, using a separate corporate name that wasn't heavily leveraged--to even be able to produce his last year's worth of releases. And he would have taken the drastic step to declare bankruptcy in 1933. I really think he took a bath with the whole Associated Producers endeavor in the early 1920's that he never fully recovered from.

But with that said, my book is really about the films and the people more than the money (a rather dry subject that I almost had second thoughts of even mentioning in the book as much as I did).

Richard M Roberts
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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Richard M Roberts » Wed Mar 10, 2010 5:00 pm

Brent Walker wrote:Thanks Richard, for letting me know about his review. And here are some other new reviews:

Thomas Gladysz, Silent Film Examiner:
http://www.examiner.com/x-7605-SF-Silen ... un-factory

Dennis King, Projections:
http://blog.wimgo.com/projections/2010/ ... s-kreator/

However, I think Scott may have Sennett's personal earnings and film studio earnings mixed up. He did have money stashed away--courtesy his mother in Canada, who saved the money he sent her and he got when she died--enabling him to live comfortably in his later years (but essentially depleted upon his death). And up until the '29 crash, he likely kept his studio propped up with his oil and mineral profits.

However, while there might have been some creative accounting (there probably has never been a film studio where there hasn't), if his studio was really making money he was hiding, his budgets wouldn't have continually gone down further and further to poverty row levels with each passing year from 1927, to the early Thirties, he wouldn't have had to keep throwing in with lesser-and-lesser distributors after First National, and he wouldn't have had to get a complete production advance from his last distributor (which itself was near bankruptcy)--money that had to be kept separate from his administrative costs, using a separate corporate name that wasn't heavily leveraged--to even be able to produce his last year's worth of releases. And he would have taken the drastic step to declare bankruptcy in 1933. I really think he took a bath with the whole Associated Producers endeavor in the early 1920's that he never fully recovered from.

But with that said, my book is really about the films and the people more than the money (a rather dry subject that I almost had second thoughts of even mentioning in the book as much as I did).



Yeah, Scott was whining about the money to me when he read my Roach book as well (he wrote one of the the "Big-Time Celebrity " introductions to the book). I told him I didn't give a flying f**k about the money, it wasn't in any way the focus of my book, and it would be damn boring reading if I wrote about it.


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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Brent Walker » Wed Mar 10, 2010 7:36 pm

Richard M Roberts wrote:Yeah, Scott was whining about the money to me when he read my Roach book as well (he wrote one of the the "Big-Time Celebrity " introductions to the book). I told him I didn't give a flying f**k about the money, it wasn't in any way the focus of my book, and it would be damn boring reading if I wrote about it.
RICHARD M ROBERTS


Besides which, the Roach money book has already been written. What we want is what your eagerly-awaited book is going to bring us -- the details on artistry and production of the Roach comedy series', most of which (outside of L&H, Our Gang & Lloyd) haven't yet gotten serious treatment in book form.

It's funny that he would be that into the money, though, because Scott Eyman's own many outstanding books don't seem heavily focused on finances. The Lion of Hollywood: the Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer is a book about an executive, yet is a damn exciting read and I don't recall all that much about financial details.

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Jim Kerkhoff » Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:24 pm

Brent / Richard -
All I have to say is that in regards to the aforementioned review, both of you are "on the money" ... er, ah, ... well ... oh, forget it. What the heck! I agree with the two of you. Box office dollars can be interesting when put into the context of a comedian's best and worst output. Just take a look at the track record of L&H and Buster's comedies. Some of their less interesting motion pictures (I hate to use the word "worst") made more bucks than what is considered to be some of their best work. A lot has to do with the marketing machine behind a particular picture. Page-by-page, I'm gradually making my way through the Sennett book and am loving every minute of it! I could care less about which of Sennett's comedies made more moo-la than others - and which were flops in ticket returns. The financial revenue of these very special films is secondary to what is on the screen.

Jim K

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Frank Flood » Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:33 am

Maybe this is a contrarian view, but I think that in an indepth study of a studio or a performer, a look at the money involved (or not) is important. I can't think of any comedians or comedy studios that did their best work when their budgets tightened. As Brent notes, by the early 30's Sennett's budgets had declined to poverty row levels, and for a large part, they looked it. Similar things happened at Educational, Roach to some extent, and certainly RKO and Columbia from the 1930's, through the 1940's and into the 1950's. Money does affect funny. I would recommend Thomas Schatz's book THE GENIUS OF THE SYSTEM from some years ago, as a good look at how budgets and other behind the screen factors affected the movies produced by MGM, Warner Bros., Universal and David Selznick. These same factors affected the various comedy units. Of course, an economic history of short comedy production would effectively suck the life out of what makes these films so enjoyable, but the economics did shape what went on screen and is correctly part of the story.

Frank

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Gary Johnson » Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:47 am

Financial returns are interesting in the context of a stars career. Keaton got in trouble when "The General" failed at the box office - especially when compared to his previous film, "Battling Butler" (considered by most a lesser Keaton production), became one of his highest grosser of the twenties. We all know that was because MGM's distribution system was superior to UA.

Brent and Robert were referring more towards the finances of an entire studio but even that becomes pertinent when it affects the product being turned out. I always assumed that it was the crash of 29' that brought down Sennett but now I'm learning that his production deals he made back in 1922 stimulated his cash-flow problems. To take that a step further, when Sennett dissolved Keystone for Triangle he had big dreams of a financial payday which never materialized, so maybe he was not as savvy of a businessman as his reputation states? In the case of the Roach studio everyone is familiar that it was during the production of "March of the Wooden Soldiers" that drew a schism between Roach and his biggest studio asset, Laurel. That was when it all came to a head but back in 32' drastic cost-cutting was implemented at the studio due to the depression and both personnel and budgets were slashed thus affecting Laurel's creativity. The festering probably began then.

So financial reporting can be very interesting in a certain context.

Gary J.

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby David B Pearson » Thu Mar 11, 2010 3:28 pm

Gary Johnson wrote:Financial returns are interesting in the context of a stars career. Keaton got in trouble when "The General" failed at the box office - especially when compared to his previous film, "Battling Butler" (considered by most a lesser Keaton production), became one of his highest grosser of the twenties. We all know that was because MGM's distribution system was superior to UA.


The General grossed more than Battling Butler, although it probably still lost money.

If you are using the numbers Tom Dardis posted on these films, Dardis later admitted he only used the grosses for the western hemisphere on UA's The General, College, and Steamboat Bill Jr., while the Battling Butler and other Metro numbers are worldwide. So the entire Dardis "Masterpiece that Failed" argument is a BIG, FAT FRAUD.

The updated number for The General is around $900,000, based on Karl Thiede's new number for Steamboat Bill Jr. of $722,000 he released in 2005 -- which is a lot better than the $358,839 Dardis foisted on the world in 1979.

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Gregg Rickman » Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:54 pm

Hi, a question for David Pearson. Where did Karl Thiede publish the real amount of money Keaton's UA releases made?
I appreciated the info in your post very much. As Keaton always said in his interviews that THE GENERAL made about a million, it's good to know that he wasn't that wrong. Where did Dardis admit that his info in his bio was misleading?

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby David B Pearson » Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:03 pm

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Last edited by David B Pearson on Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.


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