IT WAS AROUND this time that I bought into something called Multicolor. I had used the Technicolor process for the ballroom scene in Hell’s Angels. I looked into the future and could see that one day nearly all movies would be made in color. I was dead right, but I was premature. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but it’s often best to let some genius do the spadework and suffer the heartbreaks, and then, if you’ve got the capital and the knowhow, you move in at the right time and take advantage of the other guy’s pioneering. But it went against my grain to do that, and still does, because in that sense I’m more of a pioneer than a hardheaded businessman. I’m willing to take the risks if I believe strongly enough in something. So in 1930 I bought the Multicolor process from its inventors, a couple of men named Fraser and Worthington, and we started a small company. I found a vacant lot on Romaine Street in Hollywood, built a laboratory, and wound up more than $400,000 in the red.
