Paramount on Parade
William Powell and Clive Brook as Philo Vance and Sherlock Holmes in "Murder Will Out" sequence
Directed by	Edmund Goulding and 10 other directors
Written by	Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Produced by	Jesse L. Lasky Adolph Zukor Albert S. Kaufman
Starring	Jean Arthur Richard Arlen Clara Bow Evelyn Brent Mary Brian Nancy Carroll Maurice Chevalier Kay Francis Richard "Skeets" Gallagher James Hall Helen Kane Fredric March Jack Oakie William Powell Charles "Buddy" Rogers Lillian Roth
Cinematography	Victor Milner Harry Fischbeck
Edited by	Merrill G. White
Music by	Harold Jackson Richard A. Whiting Elsie Janis
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	April 22, 1930 (1930-04-22)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English

Paramount on Parade (1930) is a all-star revue released by Paramount Pictures, directed by several directors including Edmund Goulding, Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Rowland V. Lee, A. Edward Sutherland, Victor Heerman, Lothar Mendes, Otto Brower, Edwin H. Knopf, Frank Tuttle, and Victor Schertzinger -- all supervised by the production supervisor, singer, actress, and songwriter Elsie Janis.

Featured stars included Jean Arthur, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow, Evelyn Brent, Buddy Rogers, Jack Oakie, Helen Kane, Maurice Chevalier, Nancy Carroll, George Bancroft, Kay Francis, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Gary Cooper, Fay Wray, Lillian Roth and many other Paramount stars. The screenplay was written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky, with cinematography by Victor Milner and Harry Fischbeck.

Production

Paramount on Parade, released on April 22, 1930, was Paramount's answer to all-star revues like Hollywood Revue of 1929 from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, The Show of Shows from Warner Brothers, and King of Jazz from Universal Studios.^[1][2] The film had 20 individual segments—several of them in two-strip Technicolor — directed by 11 directors, and almost every star on the Paramount roster except Claudette Colbert and the Marx Brothers.

Internet Movie Database says the Jeanette MacDonald segment — showing her and Metropolitan Opera tenor Nino Martini just before he sings "Come Back to Sorrento" — was cut from the release print, but may still exist in Galas de la Paramount, the Spanish-language version of the film. Paramount also produced a French-language version Paramount en Parade directed by Charles de Rochefort and a Romanian-language version Parada Paramount (see IMDB links below). Chevalier and Martini also starred in the French version, and Romanian actress Pola Illéry starred in the Romanian version. There was also a Dutch version, Paramount op Parade with Theo Frenkel.

Preservation status

The film, including some of its Technicolor sequences, has been restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The original title sequence and chorus girl number immediately following it, however, are still lost. Futhermore, the sound for two of the Technicolor sequences (Gallows Song and Dream Girl sequence) is still missing.

According to Robert Gitt, film archivist now retired from UCLA, in a lecture at Pacific Film Archive at UC Berkeley, the film was also released with sound-on-disc for those theaters not equipped for sound-on-film. The archive had a report of the soundtrack for this film still existing on disc until the 1994 Northridge earthquake destroyed a set of discs that a collector was planning to donate.

In August 2010, CapitolFest in Rome, New York showed a 102-minute version restored by UCLA Film and Television Archive. Some sequences are still missing the sound, for some sequences only the soundtrack exists.

List of Sequences

• "Title Sequence" during Credits with Kay Francis and George Bancroft (Lost Footage; Only Sound Survives)^[3]
• "Showgirls on Parade" with Mitzi Mayfair (Lost Technicolor Footage; Only Sound Survives)^[4]
• "Introduction" Jack Oakie, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, and Leon Errol introduce themselves as MC's
• "Love Time" Buddy Rogers and Lillian Roth
• "Murder Will Out" William Powell, Clive Brook, Warner Oland, Eugene Pallette, and Oakie
• "Origin of the Apache" Maurice Chevalier and Evelyn Brent do a parody of an Apache dance
• "Song of the Gondolier" Nino Martini sings "Come Back to Sorrento" (Technicolor; Survives Complete)
• "In a Hospital" Leon Errol, and David Newell
• "In a Girl's Gym" Jack Oakie and Zelma O'Neal
• "The Toreador" Kay Francis and Harry Green (as Isadore the Toreador) parody Carmen (Technicolor; Survives Complete)
• "The Montmartre Girl" Ruth Chatterton, Stu Erwin, and Fredric March
• "Park in Paris" Maurice Chevalier
• "Mitzi Herself" Mitzi Green
• "The Schoolroom" Helen Kane, Mitzi Green Kane sings "What Did Cleopatra Say?" to her class
• "The Gallows Song" Skeets Gallagher and Dennis King (Technicolor Footage Survives; Sound Missing)^[5]
• "Dance Mad" Nancy Carroll and Abe Lyman's Band
• "Dream Girl" Richard Arlen, Jean Arthur, Mary Brian, James Hall, Gary Cooper, and Fay Wray sing "Let Us Drink To The Girl Of My Dreams" (Technicolor Footage Survives; Sound Missing)^[6]
• "The Redhead" Clara Bow, and 42 Navy men sing "True to the Navy"
• "Impulses" George Bancroft, Kay Francis, and Cecil Cunningham
• "Rainbow Revels" finale Chevalier and girls' chorus (including Iris Adrian and Virginia Bruce) sing "Sweeping the Clouds Away" (in Technicolor; Survives Only in Black and White)^[7]

The opening fanfare from this film, also known as "Paramount on Parade" (Elsie Janis and Jack King), was used as music over the credits for many later Paramount newsreels and short films. The lyrics were "Proud of the crowd that will never be loud, it's Paramount on Parade".

Foreign-language versions

• Galas de la Paramount (Spanish) premiered in Buenos Aires 28 August 1930 and in Los Angeles 7 August 1930
• Paramount en parade (French) with Saint-Granier, Marguerite Morenao, Boucot fils, and Charles de Rochemont (Rochemont also co-directed with Dimitri Buchowetzki)
• Parada Paramount (Romanian) with Paula Illery
• Paramount op Parade (Dutch) with Theo Frenkel Jr., Mien Duymaer van Twist, and Louis Davids

Ernst Rolf and his Norwegian wife, Tutta Berntzen, filmed introductions and sequences for the Scandinavian version, and Japanese comedian Suisei Matsui introduced the film in Japan. Paramount filmed Czech, Hungarian, Serbian, and Italian versions at their Joinville studio in Paris.