Adolph Zukor was born in Hungary in 1889 but emigrated to the United States at age 16, humble but full of dreams. Residing in New York he managed to make a decent living in several jobs. He looked rich and he certainly acted it. He bought a great deal of acreage that had a large house, a nine-hole golf course and swimming pool. Zukor soon added another nine holes, a clubhouse, garages, greenhouses, staff quarters and a movie theater.
A cousin who had a theater chain in upstate New York asked Zukor for a loan and he agreed provided it came with a partnership. Adolph Zukor was in the movie business. It was 1903. They opened an arcade in Manhattan that featured nickelodeons, phonographs and other amusements that kept the bright lights popping and the customers arriving in droves.
By 1912 Zukor needed more. He established Famous Players Film Company which would use stage actors to appear in full-length movies of plays. At the same time another entrepreneur by the name of Jesse Lasky had formed Lasky Feature Play Company which was doing essentially the same thing as Zukor. These were both production companies that needed a distribution arm. They heard of a little start-up company called Paramount that did just that. Soon the three companies merged, thanks mainly to Zukor's machinations and before long he was running the whole thing. It would now be known as Paramount Pictures. The goal of Famous Players-- to use stage actors to appear in movies based on plays-- was never far from Zukor's thoughts.
By the time the California facility was opened in 1926 (on Melrose Avenue, where it stands to this day), Zukor was the man. About that, there was no doubt. He knew what he wanted and he would have it. He would run a tight ship but he always regarded himself as fair. Not everyone agreed with that.
Universal may have opened its doors before Paramount, but it never acquired the luster that Paramount did. Paramount was, in fact, obsessed with its own prestige, concerned that it always needed to top itself. Zukor didn't think his studio followed tradition but rather established it and that became a weighty responsibility which took the form of competitiveness.
Two areas in which Paramount thought it was highly competitive was in its company of actors and all the theaters it owned. Zukor owned one hell of a lot of theaters and as he realized how important that was to the financial success of the company, he acquired even more. The reasoning is simple: the studio guaranteed exhibition for its own productions and it could pocket the profits that would normally have gone to independent theater owners.
Several things stand out that seem peculiar to Paramount. This was the studio that was obsessed with sex. Zukor knew that sex sold and he was going to make it do just that in his films. It was the studio of society comedies or sex comedies or boudoir satires as they were often called in the day and were certainly a forerunner of the present-day romantic comedies. Mae West would never have been hired at MGM but Zukor didn't hesitate to bring her on board. Other studios might have hired Marlene Dietrich but Zukor is the one who did. Gary Cooper sold sex and later on so did Alan Ladd. Paramount knew they would.
It's always been whispered about that the studio obsessed with the glare of eroticism is the same one that has an association with some of Hollywood's biggest scandals of their days. There was Wallace Reid's death from drug addiction, the Fatty Arbuckle rape case, the William Desmond Taylor murder involving Mary Miles Minter, Clara Bow's ugly lawsuit against her secretary and a bit later Frances Farmer's public deterioration into madness. All were Paramount employees. Frankly, the onslaught of censorship in 1934 caused its own scandal and if any performer had a starring role in that it would have been Mae West.
One of the perhaps more unusual traits at Paramount was that it was basically run by its directors. MGM was known as a producers' studio and Warner Bros more as a writers' studio but Paramount threw all its weight behind directors. If Clark Gable didn't like something his director said or did or wanted at MGM, he just went over the director's head. That sure couldn't be said at Paramount. If a director didn't like a star there, that star's career could be in jeopardy.
Paramount's first director and one of its most powerful was Cecil B. DeMille. He came with the package that was Lasky and after he made his first film, The Squaw Man, those at Paramount thought he was a god. For some time DeMille was known for his little boudoir satires but when the talkies came along, he suddenly changed to historical epics, usually involving religion. He had a spell when he switched to epics about the settling of America. The Plainsman, Union Pacific, Reap the Wild Wind and Unconquered were my favorites from DeMille along with that little circus movie he made in 1952. Hmmm, what was that called?
He was an autocratic, moralizing s.o.b. who ran his sets with a fearsome power and who was disliked and demeaned by many in Hollywood. So consumed was he with authority that he felt the need to narrate most of his films.
Mitchell Leisen, a former set and costumer designer, was also a big deal at Paramount. Like the others, he was contracted to direct as many of those sex comedies as he could. He and the studio's longest acting contractee, Claudette Colbert, made a number of tasty films together that perhaps could have been a bit tastier had they not also starred Ray Milland (bland Milland) or Fred MacMurray (downright dull). Leisen was lucky indeed to frequently have Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder writing his scripts and by the time each of them began directing their own films, Leisen's films were less bright and shiny.
Sturges had a short but most impressive directing career with zany sex comedies (which he also wrote) that usually focused on courtship, marriage and infidelity with troublesome family members at the ready. He raised the bar on 1930's screwball comedies by making them ahead of their times with their adult dialogue and situations, sometimes begging the question...were the censors napping? Seven films he directed in a row in the forties-- The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero-- are to this day well-regarded comedies for Paramount.
Wilder gets my praise for directing three brilliant film noirs at Paramount. The funny thing is that the studio never really got behind film noir or maybe they simply found them too dark. Double Indemnity (1944) is one of the top three in the genre ever. Frequent Paramount visitor, Barbara Stanwyck, turned in the performance of her long career and someone slapped MacMurray out of his dullness to give a vivid performance. Sunset Blvd. (1950), of course, provided legendary performances in a noir as macabre as they come. Ace in the Hole (1951) is not as famous but the story of a cynical reporter covering a mine cave-in deserves its place in the film noir pantheon and as one of the director's finest movie.
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| Said to be inspired by Ben Lomond Mountain in Utah |
It would certainly be a disservice to noir lovers and Paramount to not give a nod to one of Paramount's great teams, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Their crime ventures This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key, both 1942, and The Blue Dahlia (1946) electrified audiences. They were all good but not great. Still, the public wanted to see them again. She was popular for her peekaboo hairstyle and a sullen personality and he was sexy and dangerous and Paramount was ecstatic while it lasted.
Other directors who wielded just as much power were Ernst Lubitsch, Rouben Mamoulian, Howard Hawks, Josef von Sternberg, William Dieterle and Alfred Hitchcock.
What Paramount gave to these directors in essence was their own production units. No other studio ever turned over such clout to its directors as Paramount. They were able to pursue their own goals, direct the pictures they wanted to, hire their own staffs and do it without interference from Zukor or other honchos over the years. There can be no doubt that most directors wanted to work at Paramount.
Zukor knew that movies would succeed on the strength of its stars. It was stars who brought in the public and made everyone rich. But Zukor never wanted to befriend them particularly, unless it concerned some savvy business situation about which only he knew. He thought as actors became true stars, they became demanding and obnoxious and always clamoring about earning more money. He always thought they were overpaid. Unlike some of his competitors, he wasn't as interested in grooming them but rather expected they'd arrive swathed in talent and camera-ready. Attractive was great and manageable a must. He didn't always get either one of them. Zukor expected to have the greatest stars and gee, I hate to say it, but I've always been a little on the fence on that one.
His earliest stars were the stars of the time, no doubt... Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Pola Negri, Wallace Reid, Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow and the Gish sisters, among others. There was also Gloria Swanson who was a favorite of DeMille's and the Queen of Paramount for many years. Zukor's notion was that as long as stars made money for the studio and caused little trouble, they could stay. Some of those mentioned in this paragraph would leave the studio in a bit of a huff because they didn't like the way things were done.
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| Swanson and DeMille |
Others to join the studio as the next bumper-crop of actors were Carole Lombard, Miriam Hopkins, Fredric March, Cary Grant, Herbert Marshall, William Powell, Jean Arthur, Jeanette MacDonald, Maurice Chevalier, Joel McCrea, W.C. Fields, Fay Wray, Brian Donlevy and Frances Farmer.
In 1928 the studio went into the cartoon business. They wanted to give Disney a run for its money. That never happened although Popeye and Betty Boop are among Paramount's notable creations.
The Depression almost caused the company to topple. It was close. But they elected to cut staff, cut back on the number of productions and generally be more cost-effective in all areas.
One genre Paramount didn't especially get into in the 30s and 40s was musicals... and yet, right there on the ever-growing lot, was Bing Crosby. He was indeed a good singer and an enormously popular one but singing was about all he could really do. His acting was not outstanding, he was a lousy dancer and he was rather blah in the romance department. He did sing in his films, but they were normally not big splashy musicals. This would all change one day, with and without Crosby, but Paramount is generally not regarded as a studio of musicals.
Crosby gained more popularity when singer-comedian Bob Hope came on aboard and the duo began a series of Road movies beginning with The Road to Singapore in 1940. Popular Paramount princess Dorothy Lamour was along as well.
Unquestionably it could be said that Paramount was about comedies. Always. We'll recall those sex comedies. The Road movies, which don't hold up well at all, were just plain silly but Paramount didn't mind silly. Why else would they hire W. C. Fields, Mae West, Burns and Allen, the Marx Brothers or in the 50s, Martin and Lewis? You want silly?
In the 40s came Paulette Goddard, William Holden, Eddie Bracken, Diana Lynn, Robert Preston, Lizabeth Scott, Joan Caulfield, Gail Russell, Sterling Hayden, John Lund and two with whom Paramount would have a devil of a time, Betty Hutton and Veronica Lake. Both were high-strung actresses, given to temper tantrums, barking threats and stomping off movie sets. Paramount was again embarrassed because the trouble became very public. Both actresses asserted Paramount was a terrible place to work and both led very sad lives after leaving the studio.
In 1946, the smooth sailing enjoyed by Paramount and some of the other studios came to an end. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that movie studios could no longer own movie theater chains. Production and exhibition had to be handled separately. This decision broke up Zukor's creation and effectively brought an end to the longtime Hollywood studio system as it had been known. Also ended as a result was Hollywood's Golden Age.
Over the years names such as B. P. Schulberg, former songwriter Buddy DeSylva and Y. Frank Freeman would be in charge of the studio's production... folks at the top of the roster who reported only to Zukor. After he was bumped up to founder emeritus in 1936, Barney Balaban took over the presidency His philosophy was that Paramount had a responsibility to explain America (customs, people, opportunities, etc) to the world. Some would say he succeeded in his endeavor. Oh yes, there's one more name... Edith Head, surely the most famous movie costumer in history.
Of course, since the 1960s Paramount, like all of Hollywood, has seen splits, mergers, buyouts, sellouts. It has had numerous leaders, some achieving celebrity status usually only accorded its talent. In 1966 it was sold to Gulf & Western. As might be expected, Hollywood has for years now been run by businessmen who seem to have far fewer creative sensibilities than there predecessors. I'm jus' sayin'.
As for Oscar-winning best pictures, Paramount won the first one, in 1927 for Wings. It went on to win best picture Oscars for Going My Way (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), Ordinary People (1980), Terms of Endearment (1983), Forrest Gump (1994) and Titanic (1997).
Next posting:
a good 30s film
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