In 1923, brothers Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner founded their namesake studio in Hollywood. The Polish Jewish family had entered the movie business in 1906 when they pooled their savings to buy a Kinetoscope projector in their adopted home of Youngstown, Ohio. Harry, as studio president, and Jack, sole head of production after Sam Warner’s untimely death, ultimately ran the company. Warner Bros. refrained from lavish, fantastical productions favored by some rivals, instead establishing a reputation for realism, urban dramas, and hard-boiled protagonists, such as the characters and sensibilities featured in William A. Wellman’s, Oscar-nominated gangster picture The Public Enemy.