In the summer of 1927, Paramount producer B. P. Schulberg offered, and Sternberg accepted, a position as "technical advisor for lighting and photography." Sternberg was tasked with salvaging director Frank Lloyd's "Children of Divorce", a movie that the studio executives had written off as "worthless". Working "three days of 20-hour shifts" Sternberg reconceived and reshot half the picture and presented Paramount with "a critical and box-office success." Impressed, Paramount arranged for Sternberg to film a major production based on journalist Ben Hecht's story about Chicago gangsters: "Underworld".