Broadway and Hollywood "Movies" (Jan - Aug 1934)

“MOVIES’ HARRY LACHMAN Artist, Director, Producer and Writer By Mary A. Roberts ARRY LACHMAN’S studio home is in one of the little cottages that make up Directors’ Row at the Hills. We found him there, at leisure. His “The Face in The Sky” was just completed. The script for his forthcoming production, just completed, was for “Paddy, the Next Best Thing.” Mr. Lachman is one of Hollywood’s latest acquisitions. From the other side of the Atlantic, lie comes. Yet, he is one of our own; La Salle, Illinois, claims him for her son. Hollywood has opened the eyes of many new-comers. It is our belief that Mr. Lachman will do much to open the apathetic ones of Hollywood. To the casual observer, Harry Lachman looks the part of a well-groomed business man, in the late thirties. He’s almost six foot tall and heavy set. His black hair holds those interesting streaks of grey. His hazel eyes have a quizzically mischievous glint. A cigar, his almost constant companion, defies his most persistent efforts at keeping it aglow. How did it come about, we wanted to know, that this man was known to European audiences and not to us. Why had his talents been recognized abroad, not here? “Oh, 1 tried to get in over here, long ago,” he said. “It didn’t work. At that time I had been doing a lot of poster work.” Mr. Lachman, early in the century was recognized as one of our foremost illustrators. The Saturday Evening Post , Sparemoments Magazine and several others used many of his drawings. I^ater, he did illustrations for the Chicago Tribune in their crusade against child labor. Landscaping finally appealed to him as his proper medium. Several of his canvasses were reproduced in The American Art Student and Commercial Artist magazine. Working with nature as his subject, it was but natural that the camera should interest him. Photography became his hobby, then his pursuit. “In those days, before the war, the movies really didn’t amount to much. They didn’t have any backbone. They tried to ape the stage. In many instances, they still do. I had an idea that I could improve on the work being put out, and as I had some friends who were influential, I decided to crash the gate. I believed and still do, that motion pictures should have an identity separate and distinct from the stage. There should he a real art, a cinema art. Define it as a series of pictures that move. Then you have it.” Mr. Lachman’s cigar again needed attention. He looked at it thoughtfully a moment, then questioningly at us. He chuckled in answer to our question as to “how”. “Oh, no, they didn’t let me in. I armed myself with letters of introduction, and approached one of the big magnates of the day. This was about ten years ago,” he paused in explanation. “Then, more than now, were brambled and stony the paths of new thoughts and ideas.” Let us picture the interview between this disciple of individuality and one who rested on the heights of movie land. True, he was a young man. His life, though, had given him an understanding of the difficulties and hurdles of the world. The man had struggled every inch of his way. He had learned to portray sensations, emotions, desires, the beauties and the harshnesses of nature on ageless canvass. Harry Lachman, at the age of ten years was orphaned. From that time on, he was independent, working as newsie, at anything that would enable him to grasp his birthright: an education. That he was successful in this, his work proves. This, then was the young man sitting opposite one of the mighty. The older man was scahning the letter which had been this artist’s “ open sesame” to him. As he read, the thought in his mind was of a law. A law that would prevent well-meaning friends from writing such letters as these. “What experience have you in the field?” “None. But I am an artist. I’ve watched the industry. I see wherein it fails. 1 would not do worse and I know I could do much better than those who now make our pictures.” “Yes, yes, I suppose so,” muttered the magnate, to himself. Then, gently but ever so firmly. he dismissed the young man. Without experience, he could not be used, and there was no way for that experience to be had because the doors of Hollywood were closed against him. In the course of time, Harry Lachman, as do most artists, went abroad. He worked, and out of fifty-five canvasses displayed in one exhibition, forty were sold. Of that number, two were bought by the French Government. At another exhibition, the following year, the State purchased two canvasses to hang in the Luxemburg. It is to be remembered that the great Whistler has but three, in that Musee. And then Mr. Lachman met a compatriot from the United States, Rex Ingram. Still interested in the movies, Mr. Lachman gladly accepted an offer to go with Rex Ingram to Nice, there to make some pictures. Then Paramount in Paris signed him. Afterwards, he directed several pictures i n England, the critics acclaiming him one of the great. ( Continued on page 44.) Director Harry Lachman