Wealth & Money Quote by Samuel Goldwyn

Hollywood logic, distilled to a single, self-contradicting command. Samuel Goldwyn's "Spare no expense to save money on this one" lands because it captures the producer's most familiar tightrope walk: spend lavishly in the right places so the audience believes in the whole illusion, and the investment comes back bigger. The line reads like a malapropism, but it's really a credo for an industry where thrift can't look like thrift. You can cut corners in accounting; you can't cut corners on the screen.

The intent is managerial and performative at once. Goldwyn isn't just authorizing spending; he's signaling priorities. Pay for the star, the set, the costume, the camera move - whatever sells "production value" - because credibility is the product. The subtext is that cheapness is expensive. A film that looks second-rate doesn't merely underwhelm; it weakens the studio brand, spooks exhibitors, and shrinks downstream revenue. So the "expense" is framed as cost control, not indulgence: a strategic splurge, with the math done in reputation as much as dollars.

Context matters: Goldwyn comes out of the early studio era, when moguls were simultaneously gamblers and factory managers, juggling budgets, schedules, and box office volatility. The charm of the quote is its accidental poetry - the paradox mirrors the business. Hollywood sells extravagance, but it has always been run by people nervously counting pennies behind the curtain.