Albert Warner officially marking the beginning of The Great Depression, Albert saw that the studio was in need of additional star power in order to survive. Following Albert's advice, Jack and Harry Warner acquired three Paramount stars (William Powell, Kay Francis, and Ruth Chatterton) for studio salaries doubled from their previous ones. This move proved to be a success, and stockholders maintained confident in the Warners. In late 1929, Jack Warner would hire sixty-one-year-old actor George Arliss to star in the studio's film "Disraeli". To everybody's surprise, the film "Disraeli" was a success, and Arliss would win an Oscar for Best Actor
Jack L. Warner the film's success at the box office, Harry Warner remained concerned about the economic threat presented by the Edison Trust. He subsequently broke with Laemmle and sent Jack to establish a film exchange in San Francisco, while Sam did the same in Los Angeles. The brothers were soon poised to exploit the expanding California movie market. In 1917, Jack was sent to Los Angeles to open another film exchange company. Their first opportunity to produce a major film came in 1918, when they purchased the film rights for "My Four Years in Germany", a bestselling novel that condemned German wartime