Paramount on Parade

Well much of this Paramount landmark talkie is missing but what remains is entertaining and it's fun to see the old stars in their primes. Copying MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929, which earned a best picture Oscar nomination and was a smash, Paramount on Parade has a lot of talent but the film seems cheesy compared to the MGM revue. However, this served as the talkie debut of a lot of stars on the Paramount lot. Among the major names: Clara Bow, Maurice Chevalier, Kay Francis, William Powell, Jean Arthur, Gary Cooper, Nancy Carroll, Ruth Chatterton, Fay Wray, Fredric March, Lillian Roth, Buddy Rogers. And also Jack Oakie, Mitzi Green, Leon Errol, Harry Green, Stu Erwin, Cecil Cunningham, Warner Oland, Eugene Palette, Clive Brook, Skeets Gallagher, Al Norman, Mary Brian, Zelma O'Neal, Helen Kane, George Bancroft, Mischa Auer, etc.

Most of the skits are duds but the musical numbers of funny and snappy, especially Chevalier in "Sweeping Away the Clouds," Helen Kane in a "Poop-a-Doop" classroom number, 8-year-old Mitzi Green doing impressions, Clara Bow in her splashy Navy number, Nancy Carroll quite good in her "shoe" dance, and Jack Oakie and Zelma O'Neal in their gym number.

Where the MGM film had unity via a master of ceremony (Jack Benny) this film seems like a bunch of "shorts" strung together but maybe that's because of the missing material.

Most at ease among the many big stars are Clara Bow and Maurice Chevalier who are energetic, snappy, and not afraid of the mike..... Worth a look.

You get to see dozens of early talkie stars in this hodgepodge. The short "drama" sequences and most of the "comedy" sequences are awful, but the singing and dancing routines are tops. My favorites are the "I'm in Training for You" routine (Jack Oakie and Zelma O'Neal), the "Dancing to Save Your Soul" routine (Nancy Carroll and an uncredited Al Norman - the great deadpan rubberlegs dancer), Maurice Chevalier singing "All I Want is Just One" and "Sweeping the Clouds Away" and little Mitzi Green imitating Chevalier.

"Paramount On Parade" is both a musical revue and a collection of skits by Hollywood stars who can sing and some who cannot. The entertainment value is uneven as some of their stints in front of the camera range from pretty good to mediocre, from Maurice Chevalier to George Bancroft, whose forte was gangster roles. The movie was an excuse for Paramount to showcase as much of their stable of stars as they could assemble, and there were quite a lot of them. I understand that there were a spate of star revue-type pictures produced around the start of the sound era, and this was another one in that mold.

The main reason to see this picture in 2010, I found, was as a museum piece, watching old stars that I had only heard of. Hadn't seen much of Mitzi Green to speak of, ditto Skeets Gallagher, and had never seen Harry Green before. From that standpoint it was fascinating, but maybe not for moviegoers older than me. There was a good skit with four old-time movie sleuths, Warner Oland, William Powell, Clive Brook and Eugene Palette (who was more of a movie dim-witted cop).

On the IMDb site it is clocked at 77 minutes but at Capitolfest in Rome,N.Y. (8/10), a 102 minute 35mm print restored by the UCLA film department was shown which made it extra special.

A couple of years into the Talkie revolution, several studios put on feature-length revues to promote their brand, of which Paramount's effort seems to have been better than most, even though it has not worn particularly well since. (Also the print I watched was notably fuzzy and dim.)

Deservedly, it gives generous exposure to Maurice Chevalier, who had just rescued the studio's fortunes with his Ruritanian romance 'The Love Parade', just as the Wall Street crash was threatening to ruin Hollywood. In particular, his energetic closing act, 'Sweeping the Clouds Away', accompanied by an endless line of leggy beauties, was clearly meant as a cheer-up call for the Depression-hit masses.

As for the other performers, I can only say that they remind us of the transience of fame (at a range of nearly a century). Not one in ten of these names mean anything to us today. Jack Oakie seems to occupy second place, and although I have often enjoyed his work, I think he was personality rather than artistry. Interesting to catch a glimpse of the young Frederick March. Otherwise, Gary Cooper, Clara Bow and Fay Wray more-or-less complete the roll of memorable stars.

This was the type of variety show which most of the studios made which was popular in the early days of sound. In this case, the film consists of various short sketches, including musical numbers, comedy bits, and even a dramatic scene. The stars include Maurice Chevalier, Clara Bow, Ruth Chatterton, Fredric March, Gary Cooper, George Bancroft, Jack Oakie, Skeets Gallagher, Buddy Rogers, Kay Francis, Jean Arthur, Mary Brian, Fay Wray, Evelyn Brent, Leon Errol, William Powell, Warner Oland, Clive Brook, Eugene Pallette, Lillian Roth, Stu Erwin, Helen Kane, Nancy Carroll, and Mitzi Green.

Paramount also enlisted a posse of directors, including Edmund Goulding, Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Rowland V. Lee, Victor Scherzinger, and more. Several of the film's segments, including a few in early Technicolor, were missing from the copy that I watched. In fact, the segment featuring Cooper, Brian, Arthur and Wray only consisted of the intro. My favorite segments include the very silly detective bit with Clive Brook as Sherlock Holmes, Powell as Philo Vance, and Oland as Fu Manchu; Chevalier and Brent in a lover's quarrel; Ruth Chatterton as a sad French prostitute who sings a song to American G. I.s (including March) about to return home from WWI; and a comedy piece with Chevalier as a gendarme patrolling a park popular with lovers. Most of the song and dance numbers were largely forgettable, though. Still, it was nice to see for a different look at the various stars.