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.