Lemmle carl

A native of the Jewish quarter of the town of Laupheim in Württemberg , Lemmle emigrated to America at the age of 17. Over the next 20 years, he worked in provincial Oshkosh as a courier at a pharmacy, an accountant , and manager of a clothing store. After marrying the boss’s daughter and accumulating sufficient wealth, in 1906 he took over the purchase of cheap cinemas, but rather soon faced the inefficiency of the existing film distribution system under the auspices of the monopoly Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC).

In 1907, Lemmle founded his own company Laemmle Film Service and entered into a tough competition with MPPC for supremacy in the American film industry. In this struggle, his trump card was the naming of the performers of the main roles in the opening credits of the film, which in those days anonymous film actors seemed to be a bold marketing ploy.

In 1910, he managed to lure away the first ever movie star , Florence Lawrence . The next day, American newspapers came out with headlines about her tragic death ^[1] . Soon, however, it turned out that the rumors about the death of the star were exaggerated; spectacular publicity stunts of this kind will become Lemmle's “fad”.

Lemle is considered the founder of the “star pipeline” ( star system ), on which classical Hollywood was built ^[1] . He invented new names and glamorous biographies to his actors and actresses, generously paying extra to newspapermen for mentioning every step of the “star”. One of the first "products" of this conveyor was Mary Pikford .

In 1912, Lemme registered Universal . Three years later, in the San Fernando Valley, in the presence of 20,000 fans, the opening of the Universal City ( Universal City ) took place at 235 acres, where conveyor filming of silent films took place. Lemmle immediately opened his studio for the access of everyone who wanted to watch the films being shot.

Despite the success of this platform (at that time the largest cinema in the world) and the constant increase in speed, Lemle continued to consider Universal as a family business . Under his leadership in the studio worked at least 70 relatives, many of whom held key posts ^{[1] [2]} . Cinema did not become for Uncle Carl ( Uncle Carl ) the only business of life: he did not forget about his origins and more than once visited the relatives who remained in Europe. He opened a branch of his company in Central Europe, and after the Nazis came to power in Germany, he financed the emigration of Laupheim Jews to America ^[3] . During Lemle's stay in Europe, young Irving Talberg was in charge of the studio.

As a gift for the day of majority in 1928, Lemme handed over the management of the studio to his 21-year-old son, Karl Jr. Under the conditions of the Great Depression, the younger Lemmle proved to be an unimportant leader. Inspired by the success of Phantom of the Opera (1925), he launched a series of classic horror films , but made a major stake on costly productions such as the screen version of the novel On the Western Front Without Changes (1930) and the musical Floating Theater (1929).

Although Father and Son Lemle were proud for a long time without any debts, the failure of the musical at the box office in the difficult conditions of Hollywood’s transition to sound forced them to compensate for the loss with a large loan. A program of total cost optimization was launched, the budgets of new productions were cut several times (from which Dracula and Frankenstein suffered); The most highly paid stars went to competitors. By the mid-1930s, Universal had moved into the category of producers of low-budget films ^[1] . Having pledged their rights to the studio, Lemle had to part with them in 1936 for only $ 5 million.

• Shortly after the death of movie mogul Harold Robbins published the novel “ Dreammen ”, based on his own impressions of the work of Lemmle.