Picture the landscape of Hollywood in the 1920s.
Oh, is the Wild West out there. Completely. The
film industry is this unregulated frontier. It's
a rapidly changing environment where fortunes
are materialized literally overnight. And just
as quickly. they are completely wiped out. Right.
You have these larger than life personalities,
cut crew, backroom, business deals, and really
the birth of modern global entertainment as we
know it today, all just converging in the California
sun. Plus, you have the transition from silent
films to talkies looming on the horizon. Exactly,
which is creating this intense gold rush mentality
among investors. We are thrilled you are joining
us today because we have a genuinely fascinating
story for you. We really do. Our mission in this
deep dive is to extract the incredible and honestly
almost completely forgotten history of a very
short -lived film distribution company. Very
short -lived. Yeah. They were known as the Producers
Distributing Corporation, or PDC. And our source
material for today is a Wikipedia article detailing
the brief existence of this company. Which is
a great read, by the way. It is. And while it
might seem like a straightforward historical
summary on the surface, reading between the lines
reveals an astounding web. historical heavyweights
oh yeah it's a dizzying game of corporate musical
chairs and ultimately a tragic graveyard of lost
art it really serves as a perfect microcosm of
early Hollywood economics and the physical fragility
of early cinema too it is a master class in how
the studio system was forged But before we jump
into the timeline, I have to point out a rather
amusing clarification from the very top of our
source document. I love this part. Right. The
article explicitly notes that this 1920s Hollywood
film studio is not to be confused with the Professional
Darts Corporation. Which shares the exact same
PDC initials. Yes. So just to set expectations
for you right out of the gate, we will not be
discussing anybody throwing bullseyes at a pub
today. No darts today. We are strictly examining
vintage cinema and corporate history. A helpful...
if highly specific, disclaimer. It is always
good to establish the parameters of the discussion
early on. Okay, let's untack this. The timeline
of PDC really gains momentum around late 1924,
and the setup involves a man named William Wadsworth
Hodkinson. Also known as W .W. Hodkinson. Right.
Now, Hodkinson is an absolute industry titan.
According to our source, he is the man who founded
Paramount Pictures back in 1912. He essentially
invented the modern system of nationwide film
distribution. He did. But by the time we reach
late 1924, his current distribution company is
struggling. And he decides it is time to sell
it off. So if Hodkinson's company is failing
in a highly volatile market, why does a buyer
from completely outside the industry suddenly
want to take on that huge financial risk? Yeah.
What was the angle? That is the pivotal question,
because the buyer brings a completely different
paradigm to the Hollywood scene. Who was it?
The man who steps up to buy the struggling company
is named Jeremiah Milbank. Okay. And to give
you an accurate picture of who Milbank was and
why he might be interested in a Hollywood studio,
I want to read an exact quote from our source.
Go for it. The article cites page 212 of Scott
Iman's book, Empire of Dreams, The Epic Life
of Cecil B. DeMille. Great book. The text describes
Milbank as a, quote, wealthy, extremely religious,
and politically conservative financier, end quote.
Got it. I want to pause right here and explicitly
remind you. our listener, that we are neutrally
reporting the source text's historical description
of milbank's politics right just giving the context
provided in the article exactly we are not taking
any political sides ourselves merely laying out
the historical facts of who was writing the checks
that context is vital though you have this wealthy
religious financier from the east coast who is
completely outside the typical hollywood outsider
yeah wall street money was just starting to recognize
the immense cultural and financial power of the
film industry Milbank likely saw an opportunity
not just for profit, but to establish a foothold
in this wild new medium. And his strategy is
brilliant. He doesn't try to make the art himself.
No, he knows he needs an insider. Right. Instead,
he decides to partner up with an absolute visionary
of the industry, the film director Cecil B. DeMille.
Talk about a striking pairing. I know. The conservative
East Coast financier providing the capital and
the flamboyant visionary director providing the
creative engine. DeMille steps in to become the
company's primary talent. And with this new partnership
forged, they officially rename the company the
Producers Distributing Corporation. So PDC is
officially born, backed by serious financial
firepower and significant creative cachet. Exactly.
Here's where it gets really interesting. Milbank's
financial investment immediately translates into
a massive physical footprint. They didn't just
rent office space. No, part of the capital went
directly into prime real estate. They purchased
the former Thomas H. Ince Culver Studios. Located
in Culver City. Right. This property became Cecil
B. DeMille's dedicated production facility for
PDC. But it wasn't just any regular studio backlot.
This is the crazy part. The main administration
building of this property was literally a replica
of Mount Vernon. George Washington's at that.
Yes. The imagery there is hard to ignore. It
really is. The fact that a conservative East
Coast financier planted a massive, sprawling
replica of a presidential mansion right in the
middle of a Culver City backlot. It says everything
you need to know about the image they were trying
to project. They wanted to signal legitimacy,
tradition and solid American values. In an industry
that was widely viewed by the public at the time
as completely scandalous and untamed. What's
fascinating here is the enduring legacy of that
specific. piece of real estate. The building
itself. Right. That Mount Vernon replica building
far outlived the memory of the producers distributing
corporation. How so? Well, if you fast forward
a bit in film history. That exact building eventually
became the iconic, highly recognizable logo for
Selznick International Pictures. Wow. So even
if you have never heard of PDC, if you have seen
classic films from the Selznick era, you know,
those sweeping epics produced a decade later,
you've seen the architectural legacy that Milbank's
money purchased. The physical infrastructure
literally outlasted the corporate entity that
built it. It's incredible. But beyond the real
estate, we have to examine what PDC actually
produced inside that studio. The output. Yeah.
The sheer volume of work they churned out is
staggering when you consider their operational
window. It was a very tight window. Our source
explicitly states PDC was organized in 1924 and
dissolved in 1927. That is a lifespan of roughly
three years. Three years. Yet the filmography
listed in the article is extensive. They produced
dozens upon dozens of films in that tiny window
of time. Which really highlights how the studio
system functioned as a high -speed manufacturing
plant during the silent era. They were moving
at a breakneck pace. They were trying to capture
every possible demographic to ensure a return
on Milbank's investment. Yeah. They weren't just
making prestige pictures. Right. They were filling
theater schedules. Just to immerse you in the
flavor of the era, let me read off a few of the
titles from their filmography. Let's hear them.
You have The Hoosier Schoolmaster. released in
1924. Classic. You have The Siren of Seville
and Hell's High Road. Great titles. You have
The Nervous Wreck and a title that perfectly
captures the changing social mores of the 1920s
up in Mabel's room. They were churning out melodramas,
comedies, sweeping romances. All meticulously
crafted right on that Culver City lot. It was
a factory of dreams. So what does this all mean?
We have this incredibly prolific studio creating
a massive catalog of entertainment housed in
a replica presidential mansion. Bankrolled by
a wealthy financier. And driven by Cecil B. DeMille.
On paper, it sounds like an unstoppable cultural
force. It does. But as you scroll through the
filmography in our source document, there is
this haunting, repetitive word that appears next
to title after title. It is a stark reminder
of the chemical reality of early cinema. The
word is lost. Yeah. Next to dozens of the films
produced by PDC, the Wikipedia article simply
states lost. These are not movies you can stream
or rent or even find a dusty print of in a museum
vault somewhere. They are entirely gone. To truly
grasp the scale of this cultural tragedy, we
need to look at the chemistry and the specific
casualties. The film stock itself. Right. The
cellulose nitrate film stock used during this
era was notoriously unstable. Highly flammable.
It was prone to catastrophic vault fires. And
if it wasn't kept in perfectly climate -controlled
conditions, it would simply shrink off gas, turn
into a sticky jelly, and eventually crumble into
dust. Which sounds like a nightmare for preservation.
Well, the studios at the time often didn't even
see the value in preserving these films once
their initial theatrical run was over. Really?
Yeah, they were viewed as disposable commercial
products, not historical artifacts. Which means
we have a devastating litany of lost art. Let's
look at the sheer volume of human effort that
simply evaporated. It's sobering. From 1924 alone,
a film called Another Scandal is lost. Her Own
Free Will, lost. Welcome, Stranger, lost. The
Trooping with Ellen, lost. The Chorus Lady, lost.
The Flaming Forties, lost. The Ramshackle House,
lost. A Cafe in Cairo, lost. The Barrage, lost.
Chalk Marks, lost. And that is just a fraction
of the list from their very first year in operation.
It continues relentlessly through 1925, 1926,
and 19... We are talking about dozens of feature
films. Think about the hundreds of actors, the
directors, the set designers building extensive
worlds. The lighting technicians, the costume
designers. They poured their careers into projects
that no longer exist in any physical form. Even
among the films that avoided total destruction,
the source details how many barely survived as
fragments. They are just ghosts of cinema now.
Exactly. For example, the Hoosier Schoolmaster,
that 1924 film we mentioned earlier, the article
notes it is missing one reel. So you can watch
it, but a chunk of the narrative is permanently
missing. A 1925 film called Madam Behave is listed
simply as incomplete. But the entry that genuinely
illustrates the tragedy is a 1926 film called
Red Dice. Oh, this one is sad. According to the
source, the only thing that survives of Red Dice
is the trailer. Just the trailer. Two minutes
of promotional footage is the only evidence left
to prove that an entire feature film once existed
and played to audiences across the country. this
raises an important question actually this raises
an important question for you the listener i
want you to really try and imagine Creating this
massive catalog of art. Working at that frenetic
1920s pace to build an entertainment empire.
Exactly. Only for half of the actual product
to physically vanish from the earth within a
century. It reframes how we think about legacy.
We tend to assume that if something is widely
distributed, it is permanent. Right. But the
story of PTC proves that widespread distribution
offers zero protection against chemical decay
and corporate neglect. To be fair to history,
our source does note that some of PDC's output
made it through the century intact. Sure. Films
like The King of Kings from 1927, Braveheart
from 1925, and The Volga Boatman from 1926 did
survive the nitrate era. Which is wonderful.
But the ratio of what we preserve to what we
lost remains a tough pill to swallow. It does.
And what is particularly insightful here is how
the physical fragility of the films contrasts
with the robust, aggressive evolution of the
corporate entities that own them. While the art
was slowly turning to dust in neglected vaults,
the executives were playing a high -stakes game
of monopoly. If we connect this to the bigger
picture, the corporate history of PDC illustrates
the massive consolidation of power that happened
at the end of the 1920s. Let's map out this corporate
chessboard because PDC's dissolution was not
a failure. No, it was a strategic absorption.
Let's trace the assets. Remember, PDC is formally
dissolved in 1927. Right. The mechanism for that
dissolution is a flurry of mergers. In March
of 1927, PDC merges with another studio called
the Passé Exchange. Okay, so they combine forces.
And this combined entity is immediately placed
under the control of a theater chain called the
Keith Albee Orpheum Chain, or KAO. This is a
textbook example of vertical integration. The
executives realize that making movies isn't enough.
You need guaranteed places to show them. By merging
the production facilities of PDC and Pathé with
the KAO theater chain, they suddenly control
the product from the soundstage all the way to
the ticket booth. But the consolidation doesn't
stop there. Not at all. In early 1928, a formidable
new player enters the narrative. Joseph P. Kennedy.
The patriarch of the Kennedy political dynasty.
The very same. At this time, Joseph P. Kennedy
is an incredibly shrewd businessman who owns
the Film Booking Offices of America, known as
FBO. FBO is known for being a highly efficient
mid -tier studio that cranked out profitable
westerns and action pictures. And in early 1928,
Kennedy leverages his position and sweeps in
to take control of the entire KAO theater chain.
Think about the scale of that move. Kennedy now
controls his own efficient studio in FBO, a massive
nationwide chain of theaters in KAO, and all
the residual assets of PDC and Pathé. He is building
an entertainment empire at an unprecedented speed.
But the landscape is about to shift violently
beneath his feet. Because a new technology is
threatening to upend the entire silent film industry.
The talkies are arriving. And this is where the
story shifts from a standard corporate merger
to a masterclass in technological leverage. Who
comes in next? Later in 1928, David Sarnoff enters
the picture. Oh, wow. Yeah. Sarnoff is the general
manager of RCA, the Radio Corporation of America.
Now, Sarnoff isn't a movie guy. Right. He is
a hardware and communications guy. He has a very
specific goal. He wants to promote a bland new
sound -on film system developed by his company
called RCA Photophone. This is the crucial insight.
Sarnoff realizes that whoever controls the audio
technology will effectively control the next
generation of Hollywood. Exactly. But the existing
major studios were already aligning with the
competing sound system from Warner Bros. and
Western Electric. So Sarnoff couldn't just sell
his RCA photophone system. He needed a dedicated
platform to force it into the market. He realized
he had to buy the software, the studios themselves,
to ensure the survival of his hardware. So Sarnoff
orchestrates an incredibly complex acquisition.
He merges Joseph P. Kennedy's FBO studio with
the KAO theater chain. By combining these entities,
he creates a brand new massive studio specifically
designed to utilize RCA photophone technology.
This new company, born out of the remnants of
all these smaller studios, including the ashes
of our short -lived PDC, is the legendary RKO
Radio Pictures. RKO goes on to become one of
the big five studios of Hollywood's golden age.
Eventually producing masterpieces like King Kong
and Citizen Kane. It is a brilliant strategy.
RKO is a giant of cinema history, and its foundational
DNA traces all the way back to this complex web
of acquisitions to William Wadsworth Hopkinson
and Jeremiah Milbank. But we should clarify what
happened to PDC's specific physical assets, like
the Culver City studio, during the creation of
RKO. Right. Where did the Mount Vernon replica
go? Well, according to the article, Joseph P.
Kennedy retained control of Pathé during the
massive RKO merger. Remember, Pathé was the entity
that had formally assumed PDC's assets back in
1927. Which included that famous studio lot.
Kennedy holds on to Pathé for a few more years,
letting it operate independently. Finally, in
January of 1931, Kennedy sells Pathé to RKO,
absorbing the final pieces of PDC into the behemoth.
And with that final transaction complete... Joseph
P. Kennedy completely exits the film business,
taking a massive fortune with him. The entire
corporate landscape was fundamentally transformed
in just about four years. It is a breathtaking
pace of corporate maneuvering, from Hodkinson
to Milbank to DeMille, then to Kennedy, and finally
to Sarnoff. They were shuffling these massive
assets, real estate, theater chains, film libraries,
with ruthless efficiency. Just to tie up one
final loose end from the source material, the
article makes a point to clarify a few named
doppelgangers. Oh, right. Because the name Producers
Distributing Corporation sounds so authoritative
and official, it was inevitably recycled by other
people later on. The source notes that our 1920s
PDC has no connection whatsoever to a company
of the exact same name organized by a man named
Ben Judel in 1939. Judel's iteration produced
just four films before evolving into a poverty
row studio. One of those low -budget independent
operations that cranked out cheap B -movies down
the street from the major lots. Yeah, that became
Producers Releasing Corporation. Furthermore,
the 1920s PDC is completely unconnected to a
modern company called the Producers Distribution
Agency, which was founded in 2010 by John Sloss
and Bart Walker. Those are entirely separate
entities, separated by decades of history, merely
sharing a corporately appealing name. It is remarkably
easy for historical wires to get crossed when
executives keep recycling the same impressive
sounding titles. But the original PDC... the
one with Cecil B. DeMille and the Mount Vernon
replica, was a truly unique flash in the pan.
It really was. To wrap up this journey we've
been on today, we started with a company founded
in 1924 and totally absorbed by 1927. Yet in
that incredibly brief three -year window, it
managed to intersect with the founder of Paramount.
It served as a creative harbor for Cecil B. DeMille.
It was passed through the hands of Joseph P.
Kennedy as he built his empire. It was leveraged
by David Sarnoff as a Trojan horse for new sound
technology. And it served as a critical stepping
stone to the creation of the legendary RKO pictures.
It is a dense, deeply impactful piece of historical
trivia. It is. And I want to leave you with a
final thought to mull over long after you finish
listening today. Let's hear it. Think about the
stark contrast we've uncovered between the rigid
mechanics of corporate mergers and the extreme
fragility of the actual art. It's a huge disparity.
When PDC was swallowed up by these corporate
giants The real estate, the assets, the distribution
contracts, they were all meticulously documented,
legally protected, and passed along to billionaires
and megacorporations. The Mount Vernon replica
survived for decades to become a logo for an
entirely different studio. But the art itself.
The dozens of feature films created by hundreds
of dedicated artists that was left to rot in
vaults, lost to time, chemical decay, and corporate
indifference. It's heartbreaking. It makes you
wonder as you look around at the massive quantities
of digital media being produced right now in
servers worldwide. A hundred years from today,
what perfectly preserved corporate holding company
will own the rights to a database full of files
that are simply labeled lost? That is a haunting
perspective to end on. It puts the constant frantic
churn of the entertainment industry into very
short focus, reminding us that while businesses
are built to survive, art requires active preservation.
It really does. Thank you so much for coming
along with us on this deep dive. We hope you
found the forgotten history of the Producers
Distributing Corporation as illuminating as we
did. Thank you for your time, and keep exploring
the history hidden just beneath the surface.