BUT although picture producers admitted that they had been wrong about color in cartoons they were still sure they were right about color in features. At this point, however, Technicolor received unexpected help from two outside sources – Merian Caldwell Cooper and John Hay (Jock) Whitney. One is an expert cinema director, producer, executive; the other is commonly credited with the possession of $100,000,000; both are enthusiastic about the possibilities of the color picture.
Although his former position as production head of' RKO-Radio Pictures makes Mr. Cooper one of' Hollywood's important figures, his career has been very different from that of the usual picture executive. He has been more familiar with bullet holes than with buttonholes, having served in the U. S. aviation forces during the War and having organized the Kosciusko Squadron to fight for Poland in post-War troubles along the Polish-Russian border. He was captured by the Germans after a battle in which Cooper's squadron of seven planes (led by Sidney Howard) was attacked by twenty German ships. He was also shot down in the Russian fighting and might have been executed by the Bolsheviks who did not at all approve of his flying Foreign Legion, except that he was fortunately mistaken for somebody else against whom the Russians had no special grudge. With Europe peaceful, Cooper returned to this country, wrote for the New York Times, heard of an expedition bound for the Dutch East Indies and Abyssinia, joined it. It was on this expedition that he saw his first pictures made and met traveler Ernest Schoedsack, with whom he later teamed up in the making of Grass¾ a picture