User Reviews

Fans of old movies know the name of Carl Laemmle as the poor emigrant who became a successful merchandiser, then went into the movie business at the age of 40, who fought the Patents Trust successfully, founded Universal Studios, was instrumental in moving the industry to Hollywood. Perhaps you know that he was among the first to give actors star billing, that he gave his son, Carl Jr., control of the studio as a 21st birthday present, and they lost the studio when receipts didn't cover the money they poured into SHOW BOAT, which turned out to be a smash hit. He died in 1939, at the age of 72.

But there was a third act to Laemmle's life. This documentary from James L, Freeman tells the audience how, from 1932 on, he devoted his energy and fortune to raising awareness of the Nazi menace, and getting as many Jews out of Germany as possible. The U. S. State Department fought him, but in the end he got 150 families into the US by personally guaranteeing they would not become charges on the government.

Laemmle was not just generous to his family, giving relatives like William Wyler their starts. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people owe their survival, and their descendants their existence, to that generosity. The documentary ends with the narrator quoting Ogden Nash's couplet "Uncle Carl Laemmle has a very large faemmle", and the names of the people he saved.

Today, Universal is arguably the most well known movie distributor on planet Earth, but not enough people care to look into the origins of the company and how it came to exist in the first place. This recent documentary is an adequately thorough exploration of the life of Carl Laemmle: the immigrant from Germany who, unlike most other people of his time, foresaw that motion pictures had a future and place in this world. The film goes over how Carl, a Jewish German born in the town of Laupheim in 1867, was born in a particular area that had a long history of antisemitism. He had 11 siblings, but 8 of them were all killed by scarlet fever. In the 1880s, Carl emigrates to the US. At the time, there was no Statue of Liberty yet to greet him or the millions of other immigrants seeking a better life. While living in New York, he discovers movies for the first time, and makes a note to himself about how he wants to make films that not only made people laugh, but made them have a feeling of worth. Carl wanted immigrants to feel like they belonged in the US. We see how Thomas Edison tried literally hundreds of times to sue Carl, with Edison saying he was infringing his patent for motion pictures as a whole. Edison didn't win a single lawsuit. In 1912, Carl establishes Universal Studios, choosing this name because he believes movies are not the type of things that are restricted to the elites of society. After this, it's shown how Carl indulged a lot in nepotism, since he often gave friends of his family and the families of his friends prestigious positions in his studio. While this practice is typically looked down upon, Carl helped jumpstart the careers of many now legendary actors and directors, such as John Ford, William Wyler and Erich von Stroheim. As a birthday present to his 21 year old son, Carl made him head of production at the studio. A few years later, America gets involved in the First World War, and Carl wastes no time in producing anti-German films to stir up feelings of determination and aggression towards the enemy. However, he was a bit of a hypocrite at this juncture because Carl himself was a german immigrant. In the postwar era, Carl produces more classic movies, with one of the best films ever made being released from his company in 1930: All Quiet on the Western Front. This movie, based on a novel written by a german World War 1 veteran, depicts the horrors of the world's largest conflict (at the time) and how constant exposure to such carnage shattered the feeling among young soldiers that it was a glorious thing to die in battle. Around the time the film was released, Hitler was steadily gaining popularity in the german parliament. By the time Carl attempted to showcase his masterpiece in his native country, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels attempted to sabotage its premier by spreading a message about Carl. He said the film was anti-war, made the german military look like a bunch of cowards who are afraid to fight, and the person behind it is the same guy who produced all those anti-german movies during world war 1. Carl tried to fight against this, but the damage had been done. Hitler banned the movie, along with all other films made by Carl's studio. After Adolf becomes chancellor in 1933, he prevents jews from working in the movie industry, despite Goebbels' preference for films by jewish directors. Things become very drastic when in 1938, the nazis burn, loot and destroy jewish businesses across germany in what is today called Kristallnacht. Suddenly, Carl feels an obligation to help as many refugees out of the country as possible. Throughout the rest of the 1930s, Carl devotes much of his time to writing affidavits to the government so that he can assist important families wanting to flee germany into the US. When the government put a stop to it, he got his relatives to write them instead. Carl would eventually die in autumn 1939, right when World War II was getting started. I really enjoy when TCM plays things like this. Even though it's not an old movie, it still held my attention the whole time because it tells the story of how one of the most influential companies in the film industry came to be. It also helps that it has to do with both world wars. After seeing this, you'll understand why Carl was a great man, not only for helping many families escape Nazism's clutches, but also because his studio is responsible for countless amazing works of entertainment.

Carl is the smallest of 11 children in a Jewish German family who leaves Germany for the USA and goes on to found universal studios, establish Hollywood as the movie capital of the world, and rescue many family and friends from the rise of nazi-ism. The trailer intrigued me and the film didn't disappoint. It's rags to riches. It's about family, fighting bullies, about backing people. It's about backing yourself. I found it fascinating. You know what they say about the truth in Hollywood: don't let it get in the way of a good story. I can't say how sanitized this is. I hesitated to see it but I am glad I bought my ticket. It was definitely worth the admission.

Fairly straightforward documentary about a film visionary and morally good person (extraordinarily so if you're going by Hollywood exec standards). It also taught me stuff I didn't know, namely that Edison was not such a morally good person (i.e. Litigious, monopolistic old cob, wasn't he?) and that weather was not the only reason studios moved from East to West coast (i.e. They wanted to physically separate from Edison's grip and the appeals court in California was anti trust). A few quibbles. I would have liked to know more about the less sterling qualities of Laemmle like his associations with the Jewish mafia and why he promoted his feckless son's ineptitude in business to the point where Universal was run into the ground. And there are some odd omissions, like listing every single creative force behind "All Quiet" but leaving out Lew Ayres. And I could have done without Bogdanovich using Laemmle's story to promote a not very good film of his ("Nickelodeon"). But these are fairly minor niggles in what is an informative and entertaining film. Give it a B.

"Carl Laemmle" is a very well made documentary about the man who created Universal Pictures. However, it's not just about the studio but deals with many aspects of Laemmle's life that make you admire the man very much for his daring and heart. In addition to founding the studio, his efforts to create independent movie studios and his efforts to get Jews out of Germany in the 1930s make for an extremely compelling story. Well crafted and never dull, this is a film not just for film fanatics but for anyone wanting to learn about a truly interesting and decent man. Through the use of photos, interviews and film footage, the story is well told and is among the best of the film biographies I've seen...and I've seen a lot!

This is an outstanding documentary on an early movie mogul who doesn't get that much attention, and when he does, the attention is often somewhat negative. Or, at best, Laemmle is presented as somewhat of an oddity, rather like his movies.

The film tells the story of his entire life, starting with his birth and childhood in Laupheim, Germany. After his mother's death he comes to New York at age 17. He worked his way up in retail, married the boss' daughter, and was doing very well, but it was a far cry from the big success he wanted to be when he first came to America. So at age 39, with a family to support, he got into the Nickelodeon business. Edison acting like the mob with the Nickelodeon operators, and for that matter with the entire film industry, actually caused Laemmle to expand his business into film distribution and then film production. He finally went west to escape Edison, like so many other filmmakers did, and it was in 1912 when he was 45 years old, that Universal Pictures was founded.

Laemmle gave so many talented people their big breaks, many related to him, but some, like John Ford, were not. There are plenty of documentaries out there that talk about Universal's unique output product - I'd recommend the excellent "Universal Horror" for that - but this is more about the motivation of the man and what set him apart from other early movie moguls, many of whom had the same immigrant experience and Jewish heritage that he had. Mainly - He was a truly kind person who never forgot where he came from.

Turning the running of Universal over to his son n 1929, and then the family losing control of Universal completely in 1936, Laemmle could devote himself to other interests. And starting in 1932 that interest was getting Jews out of Germany. The problem was not that the Germans did not want to let the Jews go - they were glad to see them go, and the door was wide open. The problem was, especially with the Great Depression making jobs scarce, the door being slammed shut in countries they might go to, including the United States. So Laemmle had to get creative in how he managed to get German Jews into the country.

I had always wondered why Laemmle's family had a devotion to him that lasted decades past his death, and this documentary explained a great deal. The end of the film is quite touching, with photos of Jewish families that came to the United States due to Carl Laemmle's dogged determination, and then photos of the extended families of these same people today. I highly recommend this film.

Documentary currently showing on turner classics. Think oskar schindler. Written and directed by james freedman. Laemmle had founded universal studios by merging a bunch of smaller studios. Interesting to learn that there was a stigma against the jewish people in germany dating back to the 1700s. I had though that had started in the 1900s. Laemmle had come to the states in the 1880s. Before telephones, movies, before so many inventions. He took on edison's "patent trust", which was actually a monopoly. Instead of paying edison's patent fee, laemmle just started making his own films. And was among the first to allow actors to be credited in the film. Even had many women in positions of power, which was rare in those days. He enjoyed making the horror movies, when most studios were scared to touch them. It's educational, interesting, and fun to watch. One improvement I would have made, is to always show who is speaking. There are many times when someone is speaking, either with or without a picture of the speaker, and we aren't sure who it is. This story outlines the various battles and monopolies that laemmle had to fight. In addition to his contributions to film, he helped many jews to leave germany. He also donated time, money, and much effort to rebuild his hometown in laupheim, germany after the war. Really interesting to watch. What a life! Cousin to william wyler.

Visionary Carl Laemmle, affectionately known as Uncle Carl by many, lived a truly remarkable life. This documentary does a fine job of sharing his life story with the audience.

Raised as one of the youngest children in a poor Jewish family in Germany, seventeen-year-old Carl emigrated to the United States for a better life with fifty dollars in his pocket in 1884, before the Statue of Liberty was there to greet him. He lived a fairly uneventful life as a bookkeeper in Michigan until he was thirty-nine, at which point he began buying nickelodeons in Chicago after falling in love with movies. Carl, a visionary, saw great things for the future of movies and their potential to entertain to a degree that others did not yet envision.

As Laemmle's success in the film industry increased, Thomas Edison hit him with a slew of lawsuits, claiming a monopoly on moving pictures. Laemmle found ways to challenge Edison, including innovating the star system, which promotes individual actors and garners them a following. This enticed the top actors to work with the independent studios. After founding Independent Motion Pictures in New York, Laemmle wanted to get away from Edison's legal hounding, so he put distance between them by moving to Los Angeles.

In California Carl was a maverick in the Hollywood film business; he formed Universal Pictures and built Universal Studios in the San Fernando Valley, utilized nepotism to employ many in his large family, and made classic, hit films about monsters, (including Dracula and Frankenstein), as those on screen were better than the real life political monsters the world was dealing with.

Oh and nothing much else except that Uncle Carl also worked tirelessly to get Jews out of Hitler's Germany -- he saved over 300 Jewish families.

This film is interesting and inspiring. I saw it on Kanopy. I think it's streaming on various platforms.

This is a biopic of cinema pioneer Carl Laemmle who founded Universal Studios. He's a German Jew who immigrated to America. After wanting to break out of his job, he starts a nickelodeon which over time leads a battle against Thomas Edison's monopolistic patent regime. He builds his independent film group into Universal Studios. With his young son and heir, they create a star led system and monster movies. As the Nazis rise in power, he works to oppose them and save Jewish families from their oppression.

I knew the basics of the battle against Thomas Edison and his ruthless business practices. I didn't know anything about Carl Laemmle. The parade of movie stars and old cinema is interesting, but that is a bit of a slow spot. I'm more interested in the monster movies. The most emotional section is certainly the post-Universal story and his battle against the State Department. At the end of the day, this is actually about family like the Fast and Furious catchphrase. In fact, they should put that in the title without the Fast and Furious reference.