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THE LIFE & ADVENTURES OF CARL LAEMMLE -- John Drinkwater -- Putnam ($3.50).*

"When it was announced that I was writing the life of Carl Laemmle," says John Drinkwater, "a number of anxious critics asked, Why? . . . Wasn't that a very odd thing for the biographer of Lincoln, Lee, Byron, and the rest, to do?'' If you postpone asking this question yourself until after reading this Horatio-Algeresque biography, you may still feel like asking it--unless you think the answer is obvious. From Mr. Laemmle's point of view, of course, there was nothing "odd" about it. People hire artists to paint their portraits, don't they?

Carl Laemmle (pronounced Lemmly), 64, president of Universal Pictures Corp., born of Jewish parents in Laupheim, Germany, seemed at first destined for a mercantile rather than an artistic career. For his 17th birthday he was given a steerage ticket to the U. S. From Manhattan he headed west to Chicago, thence to Oshkosh, Wis., where, he made a small competency and reputation in the clothing business. At 39, he branched out for himself, bought a Chicago nickelodeon (primitive cinema theater) and broke into the entertainment racket. From that out, his rise was picturesquely, Algeresquely steady. Motion Picture Patents Co. tried to freeze him out. Laemmle fought back tooth & nail with loud-barking publicity, many a lawsuit (289 in less than three years), lived to see his enemies scattered by legal mandate, his own fortune secured.

Now Laemmle lords it in his own Universal City, outskirt of Hollywood, proudly watching his son, Carl Jr., turn out lavish super-cinemas (All Quiet on the Western Front, The King of Jazz). He remembers with a grin earlier Laemmle productions such as the 988-ft. Hiawatha. Of the human Carl Laemmle Biographer Drinkwater is unwilling or unable to tell much. "I understand that he plays poker for nickels or dollars with application and some skill, and that he has a palate for champagne which, it is whispered, he is in a position to indulge. He is generous in his benefactions, and he collects autographs. . . . His taste in the arts is unpretentious, but it is his own and not Sir Joseph Duveen's. He has a partiality for race courses, and usually contrives to put a little on the loser. When he is traveling, his aversion to solitude at breakfast taxes the ingenuity of his secretaries, who have to provide a daily quota of guests at unseasonable hours. He is a Jew, not disciplinarian in practice, and he dresses with scrupulous care. Good American as he is, he prefers to buy his ties in London."

The Author. In a pitter-pattering introduction, Will H. Hays, Tsar of the cinema, thinks it "not without significance" that ''John Drinkwater, the distinguished dramatic poet . . . should have turned to industry for a new subject." Originally in the insurance business, John Drinkwater first attracted England's attention as a poet, then wrote plays in verse, then in prose. Some of them: Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Alary Stuart. He has also written biographies: Mr. Charles, King of England, The Pilgrim of Eternity.

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