Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-22
The Snoring Picture cAlbum
BY Robert e. Sherwood.

this being the first demonstration OF
Won Stroheims famous and fatal ten
dency to underestimate. The story was
called Blind Husbands" and 1t en-
| thralled Mr.. Laemmle. He asked Won
Stroheim how much it would cost to
produce the picture. Five thousand
dollars" was the modest reply "What?"
asked Mr.. Laemmle, who hadn't heard
such a low figure in years. We'll. at
: the outside, 10000 said Won Stro-
helm. Go ahead and make it." said
the boss, and Won Stroheim went ahead
and made Blind Husbands" at a cost
of $65 5000 1t was huge success.
Later Won Stroheim produced Fool
ish Wives" 1t was the first picture in
history to cost over 100000 and it
was source of untold grief and no
little secret pride to Mr. Laemmle. He
lost 100000 on it. but he gave Won
Stroheim another chance, the latter
swearing he would make his next pic
ture for practically nothing.
This picture was Merry Go Round"
When one-tenth of it had been COM
pleted Won Stroheim had already spent
$3.50, 900, so Mr.. Laemmle requested him
to seek employment elsewhere.
II was sad disappointment for the
little old gentleman when his tempera-
mental favorite departed from Univer-
sal City. He could not reconcile him
self to the embittering fact that a
starving nobody who had come to him
and begged tearfully for a scrap of OPP
portunity should have turned out to be
such reckless spendthrift
X
THIS was one of many disappoint-
mentS. Mr.. Laemmle had a habit
OF promoting obscure people to posi-
tons OF importance; almost all of them
turned out to be buds. One notable
exception was his juvenile secretary.
Irving Thalberg, who later left him to
become, with Metro-Goldwyn-M Mayer, a
spectacular success as a motion picture
studio executive.
Another exception seems to be Mr..
Iaemmle's equally Juvenile son. Carl,
1r., who is now the boss at Universal
City and sponsor of that current tri-
umph, "All Quiet on the Western
Front This youths promotion caused
unbridled mirth in Hollywood It was
the elimination of all the Laemmle
relative troubles. The wisecrackers pre-
dicted that "All Quiet on the Western
Front" would be known as Junior
End"
1t was not only in Hollywood that
"All Quiet" was viewed in advance with
prejudiced pessimism. Howls of pro-
test against it were raised in Germany
1t seems that the German people hadn't
forgotten The Kaiser, the Beast of
Berlin" They believed that "All Quiet
on the Western Front" would be pro-
duced along the same unfriendly lines
They made things uncomfortably hot
for the expatriate Carl Laemmle.
1t was probably the happiest moment
in Mr.. Laemmle's frequently unhappy
life when, the day after "All Quiet
opened III New York, he dispatched a
several-thousand-w cablegram to the
mayor of Laupheim, his home town.
The cable contained tranSlations of the
newspaper criticisms and provided def
mite assurance that Mr.. Laemmle's pic
lure was faithful in spirit and indeed
TO Erich Remarque's novel.
So when Carl Laemmle next visits
Laupheim he will be greeted with
cheers. He is now a hero-and a pros
porous one. But he has lived long
enough and suffered enough discourage
ments to be acutely aware that this
pleasant condition of affairs is apt to
be extremely temporary.
X
MY admiration for motion picture
magnates as a class is limited. and
In many ways Carl Laemmle represents
an incarnation of those qualities of
extravagant stupidity that have made
the movie business the prodigious COM
btnation Of success and failure that it
is today.
However. he represents something
else "A kindly, genial and infinitely
courageous honesty, which has caused
him TO be overtrustful, overoptimistic
overloyal This quality has cost him
vast sums of money, but it has also
gained for him far more affectionate
regard than is accorded to most Of his
brethren Of Hollywood.
(CopyriRht 1901