**SPOILERS** Movie about a man who started out as a sweeper or clean up man at the Chicago Cub's ballpark Wrigley field and ended up cornering the world's match market. That's until all his sleazy back-room wheeling and dealings finally caught up with him.
Paul Kroll was anything but modest in his achievements even when he was sweeping cigarette butts and spent matches as a sweeper in Chicago's Wrigely Field. Kroll took over his family's small match factory in Sweden that was about to go bankrupt and turned It into a world wide conglomerate that covered some 40 countries with over 250 match factories. Becoming the undisputed "Match King" of the world Kroll was always a step ahead of his creditors in paying off his bills, amounting to over 150 million dollars, in a number of Ponzie schemes that he dreamed up.
In the film "The Match King" we see what a smooth operator Kroll was not only in the world of business but the world of romance as well. Always out to get what he's after Kroll turned his sights on German actress Marta Molnar and, despite her wanting to have nothing to do with him, finally ended up getting her to fall in love with him. Kroll did this by getting Marta's favorite entertainer Gypsy violinist Trino to cancel his concert appearances in order to serenade her, as well as himself, wherever she went. Always looking to be king of the hill in the match business Kroll went as far and having the socially minded and somewhat naive chemist Christian Hobe committed into a mental institution because he invented a match that was self sustaining and would never burn out. This would have put Kroll and his world-wide match empire out of business as well as put him back in "friendly confines" of Wrigley Field sweeping up the matches that his, by then closed down, match factories once manufactured!
***SPOILERS*** It was after the stock market crash of 1929 that Kroll's unbroken string of luck suddenly ran out. Afer getting Italian financial crook Scarlatti to sell him 50 million dollars worth of forged Italian bond notes Kroll had him killed, in a staged boat accident, so he wouldn't have to pay him, something like pennies on the dollar, for them as well has having Scarlatti not in the position of blackmailing him! This all backfired on Kroll in that with Scarlatti not being around to cover up the truth about the fraudulent Italian bonds it soon came to light that, with the bonds shown to be fakes, he didn't have the money to pay off the banks whom he was deeply in debt to! The final nail in the coffin for the by now desperate Kroll was that his love of loves, and he had many of them in the film, Marta Molnar left him for another man! That man turned out to be non other then the Gypsy violinist Trino that Kroll himself introduced her to! With the walls closing in all round him all that was left for Kroll was to go back was the gutter from where he, in his job as a clean up man in good old Chicago's Wrigley field, came from. And that's exactly where he ended up!
P,S The movie was based on the real Match King Ivar Kreuger who, after getting wiped out in the crash of 1929, blew his brains out in his Paris Hotel on March 12, 1932. Which happened just eight months before the movie "The Match King" was released!
Paul Kroll was anything but modest in his achievements even when he was sweeping cigarette butts and spent matches as a sweeper in Chicago's Wrigely Field. Kroll took over his family's small match factory in Sweden that was about to go bankrupt and turned It into a world wide conglomerate that covered some 40 countries with over 250 match factories. Becoming the undisputed "Match King" of the world Kroll was always a step ahead of his creditors in paying off his bills, amounting to over 150 million dollars, in a number of Ponzie schemes that he dreamed up.
In the film "The Match King" we see what a smooth operator Kroll was not only in the world of business but the world of romance as well. Always out to get what he's after Kroll turned his sights on German actress Marta Molnar and, despite her wanting to have nothing to do with him, finally ended up getting her to fall in love with him. Kroll did this by getting Marta's favorite entertainer Gypsy violinist Trino to cancel his concert appearances in order to serenade her, as well as himself, wherever she went. Always looking to be king of the hill in the match business Kroll went as far and having the socially minded and somewhat naive chemist Christian Hobe committed into a mental institution because he invented a match that was self sustaining and would never burn out. This would have put Kroll and his world-wide match empire out of business as well as put him back in "friendly confines" of Wrigley Field sweeping up the matches that his, by then closed down, match factories once manufactured!
***SPOILERS*** It was after the stock market crash of 1929 that Kroll's unbroken string of luck suddenly ran out. Afer getting Italian financial crook Scarlatti to sell him 50 million dollars worth of forged Italian bond notes Kroll had him killed, in a staged boat accident, so he wouldn't have to pay him, something like pennies on the dollar, for them as well has having Scarlatti not in the position of blackmailing him! This all backfired on Kroll in that with Scarlatti not being around to cover up the truth about the fraudulent Italian bonds it soon came to light that, with the bonds shown to be fakes, he didn't have the money to pay off the banks whom he was deeply in debt to! The final nail in the coffin for the by now desperate Kroll was that his love of loves, and he had many of them in the film, Marta Molnar left him for another man! That man turned out to be non other then the Gypsy violinist Trino that Kroll himself introduced her to! With the walls closing in all round him all that was left for Kroll was to go back was the gutter from where he, in his job as a clean up man in good old Chicago's Wrigley field, came from. And that's exactly where he ended up!
P,S The movie was based on the real Match King Ivar Kreuger who, after getting wiped out in the crash of 1929, blew his brains out in his Paris Hotel on March 12, 1932. Which happened just eight months before the movie "The Match King" was released!