Ludwig Blattner (5 February 1880 – 29 October 1935) was a German-born inventor, film producer, director and studio owner in the United Kingdom, and developer of one of the earliest magnetic sound recording devices.The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History, edited by William D. Rubinstein, Michael Jolles, Hilary L. Rubinstein Palgrave Macmillan, 15 March 2011,
Career Ludwig Blattner, also known as Louis Blattner,"Louis Blattner", BFI, retrieved 8 January 2014 was a pioneer of early magnetic sound recording, licensing a steel wire-based design from German inventor Dr. Kurt Stille, and enhancing it to use steel tape instead of wire, thereby creating an early form of tape recorder. This device was marketed as the Blattnerphone."Blattnerphone", Orbem.co.uk, retrieved 25 December 2013 Whilst on a promotional tour of his sound recording technology in 1928 he would choose ladies from the audience to dance with to music being played from a Blattnerphone.The History of Magnetic Recording in the United States, 1888–1978 David L. Morton, Jr., PhD thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, December 1995
Prior to the First World War, Blattner was involved in the entertainment industry in the Liverpool City Region: he managed the "La Scala" cinema in Wallasey from 1912 to 1914, conducted the cinema's orchestra, and composed a waltz "The Ladies of Wallasey".History of Wallasey Cinemas Part 2 retrieved 7 July 2016 In about 1920 he moved to Manchester where he managed a chain of cinemas. There, in 1923 he composed and published a piece of music about the film actress Pola Negri titled "Pola Negri Grand Souvenir March".The Silent Cinema in Song, 1896–1929 An Illustrated History and Catalog of Songs Inspired by the Movies and Stars, with a List of Recordings Ken Wlaschin, pub. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London, 2009. p.254 Later in the 1920s, he bought the British film rights to Lion Feuchtwanger's novel Jew Süss although the film was not made until 1934 after Blattner had sold the rights to Gaumont British. In early 1928, press reports appeared saying that Blattner was planning a 400-acre "Hollywood, England" complex with a hospital, 150 room hotel, aeroplane club and the largest collection of studios in the world, for which he was planning to spend between 2 million and 5 million pounds.[£5,000,000 ? British Film Scheme "HOLLYWOOD, ENGLAND ?"] The Sun, Sydney, New South Wales, 01 Jan 1928 Blattner later formed the Ludwig Blattner Picture Corporation in Borehamwood in the studio complex that is now known as BBC Elstree Centre, buying the Ideal Film Company studio (formerly known as Neptune Studios) in 1928, renaming it as Blattner Studios. In 1928 his company produced a series of short films of musical performances such as "Albert Sandler and His Violin [Serenade – Schubert]" and "Teddy Brown and His Xylophone". The best known films produced by his film company were A Knight in London (1929) and My Lucky Star (1933), which was co-directed by Blattner. Films produced by other companies at the Blattner Studios included Dorothy Gish and Charles Laughton's first drama talkie Wolves (1930), the 1934 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart", Rookery Nook (1930) and A Lucky Sweep (1932).British Films 1927 - 1939 Linda Wood, BFI National Library, London, 1986
Ludwig Blattner was also involved in an early colour motion picture process: in about 1929 he bought the rights for the use outside the USA of a lenticular colour process called Keller-Dorian cinematography. This process was then known as the Blattner Keller-Dorian process,"Pathe International Corp. to Handle Color Films", Motion Picture News, Volume 39, Jan–Mar 1929, held at Internet Archive retrieved 27 January 2014 which lost out to rival colour systems.
Ludwig Blattner originally intended the Blattnerphone to be used as a system of recording and playback for talking pictures, but the BBC saw its potential to record and "timeshift" BBC radio programmes for use with the BBC Empire Service, and rented several Blattnerphones from 1930 onwards, one of which was used to record King George V's speech at the opening of the India Round Table Conference on 12 November 1930. The 1932 BBC Year Book (covering November 1930 to October 1931) said:The BBC Year-Book 1932 p.101, British Broadcasting Corporation, London W.1, retrieved 30 September 2015 In 1939, the BBC used a Blattnerphone (not the later Marconi-Stille recorder) to record Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's announcement to Britain of the outbreak of World War II., BBC Media Centre, retrieved 5 February 2014
In 1930, Blattner promoted a version of his Blattnerphone technology as one of the first telephone answering machines,Telephonic Device Records Messages Armour Tech News vol.5 no.10 p.2, 29 April 1930 and in 1931 Blatter promoted a version of the Blattnerphone as the Blattner Book Reader, an early Audiobook playback system for the blind.Ludwig Blattner Film Corp. LearnAboutMoviePosters.com (LAMP), retrieved 23 February 2014The Museum Of Blindiana Official Opening New Beacon, Vol. XV. No. 175. 15 July 1931, p.162, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 from "American Foundation for the Blind inc." source, retrieved 23 February 2014
Despite being a "promoter of genius with far-seeing ideas about technical developments in sound and colour" according to the film director Michael Powell,Life in the Fast Lane: George King, Jerry Jackson and low-budget production in the 1930s, Robert Murphy, retrieved 28 June 2016 business problems with the studio, due to the advent of rival talking picture systems, led to heavy financial loss, and in 1934 Joe Rock leased Elstree Studios from Ludwig Blattner, and bought it outright in 1936, a year after Blattner's suicide."Heavy financial loss", The Straits Times, Singapore, 9 November 1935, p.9. Retrieved 25 December 2013
Personal life Born into a Jewish family in Altona, Hamburg, Blattner first visited Great Britain in 1897. He appears to have returned later and worked for a while in the publicity department of Mellin's Food probably arranged through family contact with Gustav Mellin. "Louis Blattner", British Film Institute Film & TV Database, retrieved 10 February 2014Kinematograph Year Book 1929, p.268. Retrieved 24 January 2017 He moved to Birkenhead by 1901 and settled in New Brighton, Merseyside where he married Margaret Mary Gracey and they had two British-born children, Gerry Blattner (born 1913 in Liverpool),"Gerry Blattner", British Film Institute (BFI), retrieved 8 January 2014 and Betty Blattner (born in 1914 in Cheshire)."Elizabeth Blattner", BFI, retrieved 8 January 2014 They both followed their father into the film business, Gerry as a producer and Betty as a makeup artist."Betty Blattner", IMDB, retrieved 8 January 2014 Ludwig Blattner never became a British citizen, and during the First World War he remained in an internment camp, which interrupted his management of the Gaiety cinema in Wallasey.History of Wallasey Cinemas Part 1 retrieved 22 October 2014 The hearsay based suggestion in a letter by Jay Leyda in 1968 that he married Else (also known as Elisabeth), the widow of Edmund Meisel the composer of the score for Battleship Potemkin, some time after Meisel's death in 1930, is without any hard evidence. Indeed, he was resident with his wife Margaret Mary at the Country Club in Elstree when he took his own life in 1935.letter from Jay Leyda , 17 December 1968, University of Minnesota Libraries, Arthur Kleiner Collection, retrieved 16 December 2016
Ludwig hanged himself at the Elstree Country Club in October 1935, when his son was 22 and his daughter was 21. Ludwig and Gerry were honoured by the naming of Blattner Close in Elstree in the mid-1990s."Dying to be famous", Paul Welsh, Borehamwood and Elstree Times, 6 June 2007, retrieved 8 January 2014"Nicoll Farm Stables, Allum Lane, Elstree" planning application meeting report, application no. TP/13/0021, Nicoll Farm Stables. Hertsmere Borough Council, 18 April 2013
References
External links Blattnerphone at the BBC's A History of the World
Blattner Close at streetmap.co.uk