Ludwig Blattner

Ludwig Blattner
Born	1881 Germany
Died	30 October 1935 Elstree, United Kingdom
Cause of death	Suicide by hanging
Occupation	Producer, Inventor
Spouse(s)	Lise/Elisabeth
Children	Gerard, Elizabeth

Ludwig Blattner (born 1881; died 1935) was a German-born inventor, film producer and studio owner in the United Kingdom, and developer of one of the earliest sound recording devices.

Ludwig Blattner, also known as Louis Blattner, 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. 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.

Prior to the First World War, Blattner was involved in the entertainment industry in Merseyside: 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". In about 1920 he moved to Manchester where he managed a chain of cinemas. 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 sold on the rights to Gaumont British. Blattner formed the Ludwig Blattner Picture Corporation in Borehamwood in the late 1920s in the studio complex that is now known as Elstree Studios, buying the Ideal Film Company studio (formerly known as Neptune Studios) in Clarendon Road 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 in 1929 and My Lucky Star in 1933, whilst films produced by other companies at the Blattner Studios included Dorothy Gish and Charles Laughton's first drama talkie Wolves in 1930 and the 1934 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Tell-Tale Heart.

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