By February 1926, however, the brothers' radio business had failed, and the studio was facing a net loss of $333,413.00. After a long period of refusing to accept the usage of sound in the company's films, Warner now agreed to use synchronized sound in Warner Bros. shorts, as long as it was used only for background music, Harry then made a visit to Western Electric's Bell Laboratories in New York, (which younger brother Sam had earlier visited) and was impressed. One problem that occurred for the Warners, though, was the fact that the high-ups at Western Electric were anti-Semitic. Sam, though, was able to convince the high-ups to sign with the studio after his wife Lina wore a gold cross at a dinner he attended with Western Electric brass. After this, Harry signed a partnership agreement with Western Electric to use Bell Laboratories to test the sound-on-film process. Godfather of Talkies The success of Warner Bros.' early talkie films (The Jazz Singer, The Lights of New York, The Singing Fool and The Terror) catapulted the studio into the ranks of the major studios. Flush with cash, the Warners abandoned their old location in the Poverty Row section of Hollywood and acquired a big studio in Burbank, California. As a result of this success, Warner was able to acquire the Stanley Company of America (founded by Jules E. Mastbaum), which controlled most of the first-run theaters on the East Coast. This purchase gave them a share in rival First National Pictures, of which Stanley owned one-third. After this purchase, Warner was soon able to acquire William Fox’s one third remaining share in First National and was now officially the majority stockholder of the company. After success of the studio's 1929 First National film Noah's Ark, Harry Warner also agreed to make Michael Curtiz a major director at the Burbank studio as well. Warner, after purchasing a string of music publishers, was even able to establish a music subsidiary-Warner Bros. Music- and buy out additional radio companies, foreign sound patents, and a lithograph company as well; he even was able to produce a Broadway musical Fifty Million Frenchmen. By the time the 1st Academy Awards took place, Warner was recognized as the second most powerful figure in the movie industry, just behind MGM head Nicholas Schenck. In the wake of the success of Gold Diggers of Broadway, journalists had dubbed Warner "the