We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Public Notice To
A^o. 25^ Straight from the Shoulder Talk, by Carl Laemmle, President, Universal Film Manufacturing Company
HEREAFTER when you try to induce artists under contract with the Universal to break their contracts, I shall call you by name. I shall dangle you up before the eyes of the exhibitors of the world and show that these dishonest practices of yours are the direct cause of the frightful increase in the cost of making pictures.
Some of you are now trying to get-Mr. Erich von Stroheim because his picture, "Blind Husbands," proves that he is the greatest discovery in years in the matter of directors; and because you have heard that his second picture, "The Devil's Passkey," is even a greater triumph. Unfortunately for you, von Stroheim comes of good old stock and your money and your wiles cannot tempt him from the path of honor.
When Mr. von Stroheim was untried and unknown as a director, why didn't you gamble on him, as the Universal did ? Why didn't you have vision enough to see that he had the makings of a great director? Failing to do this, why do you now hang over him like vultures seeking to grab him by hook or crook, with the accent on the crook ?
Have you no sense of decency or honor? Don't you know that any profit you might make by causing another man to violate his written word of honor is polluted profit, tainted money which is unfit to spend on your wives and your children ? Don't you know that star-stealing or even attempted star-stealing is a specie of pimping which is loathsome in the eyes of civilized men and women ?
I serve notice on you here and now that Erich von Stroheim is under contract with the Universal for years to come. And so is Priscilla Dean, whose great production soon to be released will make your smirking mouths water with desire to smash her contract. And so is Harry Carey. And so are Eddie Lyons, Lee Moran, Marie Walcamp, Eddie Polo, Edith Roberts, Frank Mayo, Tod Browning, Rollin Sturgeon, Jack Ford, Allen Holubar, Dorothy Phillips and Robert Andersen.
Do you imagine that by hiding behind "agents" and fake corporations you can still violate all principle and all honor and continue to get away with it unharmed?