Realart's relationship to Paramount

[Harold Aherne]

Looking at Terry Ramsaye's A Million and One Nights, I found the reproduction (facing page 817) of the 2 Dec. 1921 letter in which the heads of most major production and distribution firms invite Will Hays to head what would become the MPPDA. Signature lines are provided for Famous Players-Lasky, Fox, Goldwyn, Metro, Pathé, Realart, Robertson-Cole, Selznick, Triangle, Universal, Vitagraph, and United Artists--which leads to my question.

I had always assumed that Realart was a subsidiary of FP-L. Certainly quite a few of its stars and directors, like Bebe Daniels, Wanda Hawley, Mary Miles Minter, May McAvoy, Alice Brady, Sam Wood, and William D. Taylor worked for both companies at the same time, or at least switched to FP-L after Realart issues ceased in 1922 (they had begun in 1919). But the letter to Hays gives the impression, correctly or not, that Realart was an independent company. There must have been some kind of association, but does anyone have more details?

-Harold

[Frederica]

Looking at Terry Ramsaye's A Million and One Nights, I found the reproduction (facing page 817) of the 2 Dec. 1921 letter in which the heads of most major production and distribution firms invite Will Hays to head what would become the MPPDA. Signature lines are provided for Famous Players-Lasky, Fox, Goldwyn, Metro, Pathé, Realart, Robertson-Cole, Selznick, Triangle, Universal, Vitagraph, and United Artists--which leads to my question.

I had always assumed that Realart was a subsidiary of FP-L. Certainly quite a few of its stars and directors, like Bebe Daniels, Wanda Hawley, Mary Miles Minter, May McAvoy, Alice Brady, Sam Wood, and William D. Taylor worked for both companies at the same time, or at least switched to FP-L after Realart issues ceased in 1922 (they had begun in 1919). But the letter to Hays gives the impression, correctly or not, that Realart was an independent company. There must have been some kind of association, but does anyone have more details?

-Harold

According to an Edwin Schallert article in the LA Times (December 23, 1921), Famous Players Lasky General Manager Charles Eyton announced that FP-L was taking over productions of the Realart studio, "affecting the destinies of five stars, a similar number of directors, and a large aggregation of film exchange and studio employees."

"On account of the general depression in the film industry, and the desire still further to economize, Famous Players-Lasky will take over the distribution of productions of the Realart studios" he stated. this will mean that eighteen Realart exchanges throughout the country will close immediately and the Famous Players-Lasky exchanges will simultaneously begin to distribute the Realart productions already completed and those in the making.

Following the completion of the productions now filming, further activities of the Realart program will be abandoned. The future disposition of the Realart stars and studio will, however, not be decided until after the return of Jesse Lasky, vice-president of Famous Players-Lasky, from the east, shortly after the first of the year.

"It is expected that upon his arrival Mr. Lasky will make known the future plans for Realart stars, and that in all probability these stars will be used in all-star casts of Famous Players-Lasky productions. Mr. Lasky also hopes to keep the Realart studio in operation during the winter by transferring there some of the companies which are scheduled to work on Famous Player-Lasky pictures.

The stars affected by this change in policy include Bebe Daniels, Wanda Hawley, May McAvoy, Constance Binney, and Mary Miles Minter. All the stars except Miss McAvoy have been working at the Realart studio, which is located on Occidental Boulevard. Large improvements have been made in this plant only recently, including the addition of large stages.

There has always been a close association between personnel and financial interests, it is understood, of Famous Player-Lasky and the Realart organizations. The formation of Realart took place about two years ago. It has been chiefly given over to pictures made by feminine stars."

So at the time the roundrobin to Hays was (ostensibly) written, Realart was still a separate entity. My guess is that said entity had been coughing up blood for some time and that certain events in San Francisco proved the straw that broke Realart's back, as far as Famous Players was concerned. Hmmm, how profitable were the named actors? Bets that contracts were reviewed and renegotiated.

Fred

[Harold Aherne]

So at the time the roundrobin to Hays was (ostensibly) written, Realart was still a separate entity. My guess is that said entity had been coughing up blood for some time and that certain events in San Francisco proved the straw that broke Realart's back, as far as Famous Players was concerned. Hmmm, how profitable were the named actors? Bets that contracts were reviewed and renegotiated.
Fred

Ah, that's some immensely valuable information, and I thank you for posting it. As for the stars Realart had under contract, many of them disappeared from the Paramount roster pretty quickly thereafter. By early 1923, Wanda Hawley was freelancing and Mary Miles Minter had retired from pictures for good. It looks like Alice Brady had been transferred over to FP-L a little earlier, but after "The Snow Bride" (1923) she didn't make another movie until 1933. Constance Binney was pretty much finished with the movies by 1923 as well. May McAvoy and Bebe Daniels seem to have had the greatest staying power of the Realart alumnae.

I count a total of 77 titles that Realart produced and/or released during its existence, and at least 8 of them are known to exist, per various AMS posts:

Erstwhile Susan (1919)--MOMA
A Cumberland Romance (1920)--LOC
Her First Elopement (1920)--MOMA
The New York Idea (1920)--run at Cinefest in 2007
Nurse Marjorie (1920)--LOC
The Soul of Youth (1920)--in the Treasures III set
The Little Clown (1921)--LOC
Morals (1921)--LOC

Anyone know of others?

-Harold

[Bob Birchard]

But the letter to Hays gives the impression, correctly or not, that Realart was an independent company. There must have been some kind of association, but does anyone have more details?

Realart was fully owned by Famous Players-Lasky from its inception. It was set up, as Artcraft had been earlier, to be able to charge higher rentals for films than could be charged for the regular Paramount program. It was essentially set up when Mary Miles Minter was signed by Adolph Zukor in 1918 to handle her films, but other stars also made pictures for Realart.

Realart was based (on the west coast at least) in the former Bosworth-Morosco-Pallas studio (which was owned by Paramount since the 1916 merger of FP-L and Bosworth, Inc.)

[Frederica]

Realart was fully owned by Famous Players-Lasky from its inception. It was set up, as Artcraft had been earlier, to be able to charge higher rentals for films than could be charged for the regular Paramount program. It was essentially set up when Mary Miles Minter was signed by Adolph Zukor in 1918 to handle her films, but other stars also made pictures for Realart.

Realart was based (on the west coast at least) in the former Bosworth-Morosco-Pallas studio (which was owned by Paramount since the 1916 merger of FP-L and Bosworth, Inc.)

Is the original contract or agreement between Hays and the various producers still in existence? The letter Ramsaye uses is publicity fluff, there must have been something more detailed that set out rights and responsibilities, not to mention funding.

Fred

[Bruce Long]

Apologies for reviving an old thread.

I remember reading from some authoritative-sounding source that in 1919 there was an effort to oust Zukor from FP-L. Zukor set up Realart so that if the ouster were successful, Zukor would still have a foothold within the industry. The ouster did not take place, so Realart was eventually folded back into FP-L.

As I recall (but am not 100% certain), the information was in the anti-trust trial coverage of FP-L published in the New York Morning Telegraph during 1922-23, which had a great deal of information about the background of FP-L.

Bruce

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Apologies for reviving an old thread.

I remember reading from some authoritative-sounding source that in 1919 there was an effort to oust Zukor from FP-L. Zukor set up Realart so that if the ouster were successful, Zukor would still have a foothold within the industry. The ouster did not take place, so Realart was eventually folded back into FP-L.

A couple of things - now that this thread has been revived.

1) Has anybody looked at the Zukor autobio to see if he mentions the Realart mantling and dismantling? (I need to skim through it to see if there is any family info, specifically on Zukor's daughter Mildred and her marriage to Arthur Loew Sr. - but I really don't want to.)

2) Harold noted that by 1923 MMM and some other Realart stars had retired. Actually, Paramount cleaned some major house in 1923 and terminated multiple contracts. Not surprisingly, in the wake of the Taylor murder, MMM was one of those who went.

3) the one point made that really peaked my interest in Fred's quoted article was the mention of a general depression in the film industry in late 1921.

That's news to me. I would have expected a loss in revenue in 1919, maybe even into 1920 as WWI ended and there was a reshuffling of the work force. Radio certainly affected BO receipts and the advent of sound was, partly, a push-back against the new home entertainment medium, (similar to the more famous push to wide-screen in the 1950s) - but I understood that radio didn't really have a negative impact on the film industry until 1925-27.

So what's this 1921 film depression? Lingering WWI stuff? Arbuckle? Prohibition? Market saturation? Competition from a re-emerging european industry? Something else?

[Chris Snowden]

So what's this 1921 film depression? Lingering WWI stuff? Arbuckle? Prohibition? Market saturation? Competition from a re-emerging european industry? Something else?

We had a horrible post-war recession from early 1920 until mid-1921, as the economy shifted back into peacetime mode. Commodity prices plunged, farmers went broke, the government pulled back on spending, heavy industries no longer got big contracts, unemployment skyrocketed.

The movie business needed people to have disposable cash in their pockets, but as always, things remained awful for consumers for another half a year or so after the official end of the recession.

[Harold Aherne]

The North American economy was in a recession around 1920-1922, which could account for declining film grosses. The situation was of course more serious in Europe; Germany instituted a new currency in 1923 (the Rentenmark) and 1924 (the Reichsmark; both were valid until 1948).

The recession's effects were noticed in the record industry as well.Sales of Victor records reached a high in 1921 with a noticeable drop-off the following year (though not nearly as much as in the early 30s). Columbia went into receivership in 1923, having been overly optimistic about the sales of phonographs, and was purchased by its British subsidiary.

Nonetheless, I've never come across many references about the recession in the popular media of the day, although one exception might be Van & Schenck's recording of "Ain't We Got Fun". It's possible that the cash-strapped European markets contributed to the decline in film receipts as well.

-Harold

[Frederica]

1) Has anybody looked at the Zukor autobio to see if he mentions the Realart mantling and dismantling? (I need to skim through it to see if there is any family info, specifically on Zukor's daughter Mildred and her marriage to Arthur Loew Sr. - but I really don't want to.)

I've read Zukor's autobio, it's quite fluffy. I don't recall any mention of Realart or much of anything else, to be honest.

2) Harold noted that by 1923 MMM and some other Realart stars had retired. Actually, Paramount cleaned some major house in 1923 and terminated multiple contracts. Not surprisingly, in the wake of the Taylor murder, MMM was one of those who went.

I don't know if cutting MMM was so much due to the Taylor murder; her contract was terminated nearly two years later. Do we have any idea of how profitable her films were? I suspect Paramount was more interested in who cost what and how profitable they were.

Fred

[greta de groat]

It was noted in Photoplay (several times) that since Mary Miles Minter's last film she had gained quite a bit of weight (and there is at least one photo they published as well), and they were saying that if she wanted to get back in she'd better start dieting. So that could have discouraged FP-L from re-signing her on top of everything else. Of course, the weight gain could have been insurance on her part that she didn't have to go back. How did she feel about making movies, was she disappointed at the ending of her career or glad to get away from it?

The recession of 1920-21 hit a lot of independent companies, including Equity Pictures, which was Clara Kimball Young's venture.

greta

[T0m M]

Realart was fully owned by Famous Players-Lasky from its inception. It was set up, as Artcraft had been earlier, to be able to charge higher rentals for films than could be charged for the regular Paramount program...

I had always thought that Realart was established for the production of lower rental, B-pictures, while Famous-Players-Lasky was for standard rental, A-pictures and Artcraft was for high rental, prestige films.

I've seen some cases of stars, such as Bebe Daniels, floating between Famous-Players-Lasky and Realart productions, with the latter seeming to be the lower budget productions.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

I don't know if cutting MMM was so much due to the Taylor murder;
Fred

I'm not suggesting Paramount let her go on a moral high horse - only that (presumably) her films stopped making money. Whether that lack of revenue was due to audience disinterest over time *because* or the Taylor murder or that her stardom had simply run its course and she started slipping, I don't know.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

We had a horrible post-war recession from early 1920 until mid-1921, as the economy shifted back into peacetime mode. Commodity prices plunged, farmers went broke, the government pulled back on spending, heavy industries no longer got big contracts, unemployment skyrocketed.

The movie business needed people to have disposable cash in their pockets, but as always, things remained awful for consumers for another half a year or so after the official end of the recession.

Interesting. Somehow I had the post-war recession lasting from 1919 into 1920. Interesting that it would have taken more than a year after the Armistice for the R-word to hit in force.

[Bruce Long]

Realart was fully owned by Famous Players-Lasky from its inception. It was set up, as Artcraft had been earlier, to be able to charge higher rentals for films than could be charged for the regular Paramount program...

I had always thought that Realart was established for the production of lower rental, B-pictures, while Famous-Players-Lasky was for standard rental, A-pictures and Artcraft was for high rental, prestige films...

Any ownership of Realart by FP-L was not made public when Realart was started: Arthur Kane was titular head of Realart; Realart films were not distributed through Paramount and were not mentioned in the Paramount ads. In the anti-trust lawsuit against FP-L it was revealed that some exhibitors (who hated FP-L because of their heavy-handed tactics), signed up for Realart pictures precisely because they thought Realart was not part of FP-L.

[Frederica]

I don't know if cutting MMM was so much due to the Taylor murder;
Fred

I'm not suggesting Paramount let her go on a moral high horse - only that (presumably) her films stopped making money. Whether that lack of revenue was due to audience disinterest over time *because* or the Taylor murder or that her stardom had simply run its course and she started slipping, I don't know.

I don't think they had a moral high horse! I wonder how profitable MMM was, even in her glory days. If such a thing can be said about MMM. I've only seen one of her films, at Cinecon...and didn't I squish your face with my foot while I was trying to escape?

Fred

[T0m M]

Realart was fully owned by Famous Players-Lasky from its inception. It was set up, as Artcraft had been earlier, to be able to charge higher rentals for films than could be charged for the regular Paramount program...

I had always thought that Realart was established for the production of lower rental, B-pictures, while Famous-Players-Lasky was for standard rental, A-pictures and Artcraft was for high rental, prestige films...

Any ownership of Realart by FP-L was not made public when Realart was started: Arthur Kane was titular head of Realart; Realart films were not distributed through Paramount and were not mentioned in the Paramount ads. In the anti-trust lawsuit against FP-L it was revealed that some exhibitors (who hated FP-L because of their heavy-handed tactics), signed up for Realart pictures precisely because they thought Realart was not part of FP-L.

With all due respect, the perceived or actual ownership is irrelvant with respect to the intended production values. Was it meant for high rental, prestige pictures like Artcraft or low rental, budget fillers?

[Chris Snowden]

With all due respect, the perceived or actual ownership is irrelvant with respect to the intended production values. Was it meant for high rental, prestige pictures like Artcraft or low rental, budget fillers?

Well, Paramount was releasing two features a week in those days, all year long, and a lot of them needed to be made cheaply. Rather than dilute the Paramount brand with a lot of cheapie programmers, the company issued the more modest pictures under the Realart banner. About a third of the year's releases went out as Realarts, until the brand was discontinued in 1922.

Realart was the proving ground for the company's up-and-coming performers. Those who made it (Mary Miles Minter, Bebe Daniels) graduated to the more prestigious Paramount productions. Those who didn't (Vivian Martin, Constance Binney)... didn't.

[Chris Snowden]

I don't think they had a moral high horse! I wonder how profitable MMM was, even in her glory days. If such a thing can be said about MMM. I've only seen one of her films, at Cinecon...and didn't I squish your face with my foot while I was trying to escape?

I remember the redwood trees more than I remember Mary Miles Minter, but it wasn't a bad movie!

MMM was pretty popular in her day. She was the biggest star American had in its final years, and placed 18th in Motion Picture's 1918 popularity poll, just ahead of stars like (look away, Greta, look away!) Norma Talmadge and Clara Kimball Young.

When Paramount lost the services of Mary Pickford, it snapped up MMM in hopes of molding her into America's Sweetheart II. She never quite made it, but she still did well for herself. That is, she did well until after the Taylor murder scandal, when suddenly Paramount had no idea what kind of roles to cast her in. By then she only had another couple of pictures left to go on her contract anyway.

She was originally set to star in a Western picture, but she put her foot down, and Jesse Lasky let her out of it. The film turned out to be The Covered Wagon, and it would've been the biggest hit of her career by far. (In his autobiography, Lasky says that she was a big star, but not right for the part, and that getting her off the picture was his idea.)

By then, Minter and Paramount were a bad fit for each other, and the company bought out her contract. The Taylor scandal seems to have soured her on Hollywood, and she rejected other studios' offers and left the business. She moved to New York, dated up a storm, ate as much as she pleased and seems to have had a nice life, when she wasn't suing her mother for mismanagement of her Hollywood earnings.

[Bruce Long]

With all due respect, the perceived or actual ownership is irrelvant with respect to the intended production values. Was it meant for high rental, prestige pictures like Artcraft or low rental, budget fillers?

Here's a glimpse of Realart at one moment in time, from The Clipper, July 7, 1920:



From my limited perspective: It does appear that at this moment in time, the Taylor productions (like "The Soul of Youth") were prestige pictures. I don't think the rest of the Realart program was particularly low rental. They had to recover the cost of the high Minter salary and they were paying for many popular stories, instead of just having them cheaply-written by studio writers.

I think the most striking feature of the Realart regular program was the total focus on young pulchritude; 100% of its stars were young women. So an exhibitor or movie patron who preferred that kind of film, would know that all the Realart program films would have that focus. In contrast, the Paramount program of that time had a wide variety of films, some of which had male stars (Reid, Arbuckle, etc.), older female stars, or "all star" (equals no star) casts. The Realart program films were much more a very specific type of film, with a specific type of star.

Or so it seems to me.

Bruce

[Harold Aherne]

Paramount had quite an intense release schedule from 1915 to 1921, usually more than 100 films per year when you count all the subsidiary brands like Cosmopolitan, Realart, Artcraft, and the Ince releases. I've been compiling lists of all the Paramount releases to the late 30s, and here are the numbers I've come up with for their most active years. Realart releases are included in the 1919-22 figures.

1915: 107 (1)
1916: 106
1917: 120
1918: 129 (2)
1919: 141 (3) [4 Realarts]
1920: 120 [26 Realarts]
1921: 122 (4) [34 Realarts]
1922: 84 [13 Realarts]

(1)Includes the possibly unfinished Bosworth film The Beachcomber.
(2)Includes Hearts of the World and a couple of independent films they picked up, viz. Little Women and Sporting Life).
(3)Includes the unreleased Peg O' My Heart with Wanda Hawley and Thomas Meighan.
(4)Includes the unreleased Arbuckle films.

So it's pretty clear how powerful Zukor and Lasky were during this period, and quite understandable why theatre owners might resent them (Wasn't this part of the reason why First National was formed?). After 1922, the number of annual Paramount releases settled down to 55-65, and by the late 20s MGM had taken over its spot in the Hollywod pecking order.

-Harold

[Harlett O'Dowd]

So it's pretty clear how powerful Zukor and Lasky were during this period, and quite understandable why theatre owners might resent them (Wasn't this part of the reason why First National was formed?). After 1922, the number of annual Paramount releases settled down to 55-65, and by the late 20s MGM had taken over its spot in the Hollywod pecking order.

-Harold

Well, Paramount was still announcing 80+ pictures a year through 1923, although they didn't all get made or released.

Thanks for the info, Harold. BTW, you wouldn't happen to have the 1920s Paramounts separated into east and west coast productions, would you?

[Harold Aherne]

Well, Paramount was still announcing 80+ pictures a year through 1923, although they didn't all get made or released.

Thanks for the info, Harold. BTW, you wouldn't happen to have the 1920s Paramounts separated into east and west coast productions, would you?

Haven't gotten to that point yet, although I do know that most Gloria Swanson films from Zaza through (I think) The Coast of Folly were made on the east coast. Madame Sans-Gêne was made in France, of course, and Stage Struck was filmed mostly in West Virginia, save for the Technicolor sequences. A number of Richard Dix vehicles were also made in NY in the mid-20s; this site might have some details. Some information on the Swanson-Dwan features is here.

-Harold

[Chris Snowden]

From my limited perspective: It does appear that at this moment in time, the Taylor productions (like "The Soul of Youth") were prestige pictures. I don't think the rest of the Realart program was particularly low rental.

From Jesse Lasky's autobiography I Blow My Own Horn:

"Before long we were able to build up our premium rental line, Artcraft, by absorbing the three giants of the Triangle Company, along with their top stars, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, and Charles Ray, and their ace writing team, John Emerson and Anita Loos. We developed another brand labeled Realart, using it for pictures in a lower budget and lower rental bracket, to build promising personalities like Bebe Daniels, Vivian Martin, and May McAvoy until they were starring material for the Class A Paramount productions." (page 126)

That's not to say that selected Realarts weren't presented to exhibitors as being more special than the typical Realart. But if you look up the company's filmography in the AFI Catalogs, not a single title stands out as a highly-regarded film today.

Bruce, didn't William Desmond Taylor become head of the Motion Picture Directors Association in 1919? His Realarts began that year. I wonder if Zukor and Lasky assigned him to the Realart division as punishment for heading up a semi-union like the MPDA.

[Bruce Long]

...Bruce, didn't William Desmond Taylor become head of the Motion Picture Directors Association in 1919? His Realarts began that year. I wonder if Zukor and Lasky assigned him to the Realart division as punishment for heading up a semi-union like the MPDA.

Taylor had already been elected MPDA president twice, in 1917 and 1918. We can only speculate about the reason Taylor was so closely aligned with Realart. I guess it's possible he was being "punished" for MPDA activities, but at that point I think the producers viewed the MPDA as primarily an ally, advancing the prestige of the movies and fighting things like Blue Laws (Sunday closed theaters).

For the four years prior to directing his first Realart film, most of films directed by Taylor were made on that Bosworth-Pallas-Morosco-Realart-Wilshire lot. For that reason, it's possible that he simply felt more comfortable working there (perhaps his office on that lot was very close to the office of Julia Crawford Ivers). If he expressed that preference to Lasky, then it's natural that he would have been assigned there.

[Frederica]

...Bruce, didn't William Desmond Taylor become head of the Motion Picture Directors Association in 1919? His Realarts began that year. I wonder if Zukor and Lasky assigned him to the Realart division as punishment for heading up a semi-union like the MPDA.

Taylor had already been elected MPDA president twice, in 1917 and 1918. We can only speculate about the reason Taylor was so closely aligned with Realart. I guess it's possible he was being "punished" for MPDA activities, but at that point I think the producers viewed the MPDA as primarily an ally, advancing the prestige of the movies and fighting things like Blue Laws (Sunday closed theaters).

I had always assumed the MPDA was more a nascent lobbying organization more than it was a union, am I incorrect in that belief? Or did it have aspects of both?

Fred

[Bruce Long]

...I had always assumed the MPDA was more a nascent lobbying organization more than it was a union, am I incorrect in that belief? Fred

I'm not really aware of any "union" aspects of the organization.

Bruce

[T0m M]

Taylor had already been elected MPDA president twice, in 1917 and 1918. We can only speculate about the reason Taylor was so closely aligned with Realart. I guess it's possible he was being "punished" for MPDA activities, but at that point I think the producers viewed the MPDA as primarily an ally, advancing the prestige of the movies and fighting things like Blue Laws (Sunday closed theaters).

For the four years prior to directing his first Realart film, most of films directed by Taylor were made on that Bosworth-Pallas-Morosco-Realart-Wilshire lot. For that reason, it's possible that he simply felt more comfortable working there (perhaps his office on that lot was very close to the office of Julia Crawford Ivers). If he expressed that preference to Lasky, then it's natural that he would have been assigned there.

Punishment may have had something to do with it, but I doubt it had anything to do with the MPDA, as after his 1917 success with Tom Sawyer, it appears that he actually got a promotion, or at least a boost in stature. He was assigned to several Famous Player-Lasky pictures and even directed Pickford's last three Artcraft releases.

From what I understand, the Pickford vehicles were not well received and Mary herself refered to them as "three very bad pictures". After this he appears to have been assigned primarily to Realart pictures, so it seems more likely that the failure of the Pickford vehicles was cause of his demotion to / association with Realart.

[Bruce Long]

...From what I understand, the Pickford vehicles were not well received and Mary herself refered to them as "three very bad pictures". After this he appears to have been assigned primarily to Realart pictures, so it seems more likely that the failure of the Pickford vehicles was cause of his demotion to / association with Realart.

I'm skeptical of that line of reasoning. If FP-L was unhappy with William Desmond Taylor's work on the Pickford films, then why would Taylor have been assigned to direct the first 4 Minter films (particularly considering that FP-L wanted to make Minter as successful as Pickford)? The opposite conclusion seems more likely: that FP-L was pleased with his work on the Pickford films, and that is why he was chosen to direct Minter and go to Realart.

Bruce

[Chris Snowden]

I had always assumed the MPDA was more a nascent lobbying organization more than it was a union, am I incorrect in that belief? Or did it have aspects of both?

It wasn't a union, but it was a professional organization that was likely to be in opposition to the interests of the producers now and then. I can't think of any reason why someone like Zukor would be happy that the directors were organizing.

The best material I've ever seen on the MPDA is Lisa Mitchell's article "Ties That Bind" for the DGA's magazine in 2001. (You can Google it and read it online.)

She points out that the directors who first formed the group did so in a secret meeting. If the MPDA's agenda was really as benign as just "maintaining the honor and dignity of the profession," that was a strangely furtive way to get it started. By 1917, Motography was calling it a "self-protective" organization. Wid's wrote in 1921 that the MPDA was formed to "improve conditions and combat false accusations."

In some areas, the goals of the MPDA and those of the producers were in harmony: better public relations for the industry, less objectionably racy material in films, etc.

But in other areas, they were bound to collide. By early 1922, Taylor himself, as MPDA president, sent a wire to the Senate Finance Committee deploring the studios' strategy of saving money by making films in Europe (economically depressed after the war) rather than in America. No producer, certainly not Zukor, could've been pleased about that.

A couple of months later, an MPDA banquet was attended by the likes of Zukor, Hearst and other heavyweights, which suggests that the organization carried some clout in the business.