Paramount Pictures

“ Their organization, under the name of the Paramount Pictures Corporation, requisitioned one hundred and four films a year, of which our company agreed to supply thirty-six. As this was just three times the number we had planned to produce, you will see the urgency of growth. It is equally evident why our capitalisation now increased from the original67 twenty thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
But the domestic market by no means exhausted our outlet. Always I have been penetrated by a sense of international possibilities in the film industry. ”

“ Distributed by Paramount Television. 30 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (The Brady bunch) © Paramount Pictures Corporation; 24Oct69; LP44657.
LP44658.
A-camping we will go. Paramount Pictures Corporation. Produced in association with Redwood Productions, Inc. Distributed by Paramount Television. 30 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (The Brady bunch) © Paramount Pictures Corporation; 31Oct69; LP44658.
LP44659.
Every boy does it once. Paramount Pictures Corporation. Produced in association with Redwood Productions, Inc. Distributed by Paramount Television. 30 min., sd., color, 16 mm. ”

“ BLONDIE'S LUCKY DAY, a photoplay in 7 reels by Columbia Pictures Corp. © 4Apr46; L265. King Features Syndicate, a division of Hearst Corp. (PWH) ; 16May73; R552012.
BLUE DAHLIA, a photoplay in 10 reels by Paramount Pictures. © 5Feb46; L261. Emka, division of Universal City Studios, Inc. (PWH) ; 29Mar73; R548938.
BLUE SIERRA, a photoplay in 10 reels by Loew's. © 25Apr46; L291. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. (PWH) ; 26Apr73; R550988.
BLUE WINNERS, a motion picture in 1 reel by Paramount Pictures. © 23Feb45; M15670. National Telefilm Associates, Inc. (PWH) ; 3Jan73; R542429. ”

“ FLYING BLIND. Paramount Pictures Inc., c1941. 7 reels, sd.
Credits: Producers, William H. Pine, William C. Thomas; director, Frank McDonald; original screenplay, Maxwell Shane, Richard Murphy; photography, Fred Jackman, Jr.; editor, Robert Crandall.
© Paramount Pictures Inc.; 29Aug41; LP10952.
FLYING CADETS. Universal Pictures Co., Inc., c1941. 6 reels, sd.
Credits: Associate producer, Paul Malvern; director, Erle C. Kenton; original screenplay, Joseph West, Roy Chanslor, Stanley Rubin; photography, John W. Boyle; film editor, Otto Ludwig. ”

“ Presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 9 reels, sd. Based on an idea by Bradford Ropes and Val Burton.
Credits: Producer, Louis K. Sidney; director, Edwin L. Marin; screenplay, Nat Perrin; music director, Georgie Stoll; orchestration, Leo Arnaud, George Bassman, Paul Marquardt, Robert Van Eps; film editor, Conrad A. Nervig.
© Loew's Inc.; 29Oct40; LP10046.
HULLABA-LULU. Paramount Pictures Inc., c1944. 1 reel, sd.
Credits: Director, Seymour Kneitel; story, Joe Stultz, Graham Place.
© Paramount Pictures Inc.; 17Mar44; LP12547.
THE HUMAN BODY. Walt Disney Productions, c1945. 1 reel, sd., color, 16mm. ”

“ Such posters, known in the trade as standard accessories, embody copy-righted matter from the motion pictures being advertised. Until recent years, standard accessories could be purchased directly from the motion picture companies themselves. Beginning with Paramount in 1939, however, the eight major producers granted to National Screen Service Corporation the exclusive right to manufacture and distribute various advertising materials, including standard accessories as well as specialty accessories and film trailers, for their motion pictures. ”

“ The barrier between real writers and the studios is, I am convinced, the greatest obstacle to the advance of motion pictures and the real trouble I can sum up in one sentence: “The picture stories are not written by authors, they are written by executives!” ”

“ Cinematography is dependent mainly upon a bright light; thus the success of a film, at least in Great Britain, is never certain beforehand. When the elements are adverse it is difficult indeed to collect the news. The operator may wait for hours to film a subject, or perhaps he makes his exposures in despair, and with a blind trust in luck. When heavy fogs hang like blankets over the great centres, passing events of importance defy recording, and it is a sheer waste of film to endeavour to secure pictures. ”

“ He attracts interest because he takes interest. Talk with any of the big men in the motion-picture industry, that is, those with brains and education, and they will tell you that personality counts more in pictures than it does on the stage.
H. B. Aitken, president of the Triangle Film Corporation, said to me: "The screen is intimate. The camera brings the actor right into your lap. In the speaking drama, make-up and footlights change and hide, but not the least flicker of expression is lost in the picture. It's a test of real-ness, and it takes a real man or a real woman to stand it. ”

“ Profit and pleasure combine to win recruits for the art of animated photography. As an entertainment offered to the public, the moving-pictures have had no rival. Their popularity has been remarkable and universal. It increases daily, and, since we are only now beginning to see the magnitude of what the cinematograph can effect, it is not likely to diminish. This development has stirred the ambition of the amateur or independent photographer because the field is so vast, fertile, and promising. ”

“ The next few years of the industry’s history is the tale of numerous patent suits that wound in and out of the courts. The legal battles accentuated the naturally bitter competition to be expected in exploiting the new wonder. But the public had given a hearty welcome to the latest form of entertainment, and the picture-makers waxed prosperous, despite the handicap of internal strife. Theaters in all the big cities were showing the pictures as novelties, and traveling exhibitors were frequent. ”

“ Let us now take up some points more closely identified with the photoplay. We have learned how to look for ideas, we have seen how a plot is built; now we must find out how to tell our story on the screen. It should be unnecessary to tell aspirants that since all photoplays are told by means of pantomime, “action” is a prime necessity. The audience wants to see the characters do everything worth while in the story. It feels cheated if you insert a subtitle saying, “Helen loves John because he saved her from death in a factory fire.” ”

“ How can the art of cinematography be brought within the reach of the amateur? This is the absorbing question of the moment. Moving pictures having become so popular, the traveller wishes to secure animated records of the scenes which he has witnessed in foreign climes, to reveal them to his friends, exactly as he saw them, within the home circle. Unfortunately, such an achievement is impossible under existing conditions. The apparatus, both recording and projecting, is expensive; the film is costly; while the problem incidental to the illuminant is not easily solved in the average home. ”

“ Motion pictures are still changing so much, in their development from year to year, that any survey of this vast, chaotic new industry is in danger of being out-of-date long before its time. With this in mind, I have attempted to stress those phases of movie-making, and of the story-telling that underlies each photoplay, that do not change. A generation hence, the fundamental problems confronting the makers—how to show real people, doing interesting things in interesting places—will be the same. ”

“ Don’t pay any attention to stories of the glamour and excitement of Hollywood. It’s just a dull place, a grand spot for winter golf, but a wash-out for any mature person who depends in the least upon mental stimulation; there isn’t any. The picture business is the second, or the third, or the first or some such silly number among the world’s industries, which is probably what’s the matter 216with Hollywood and with the motion pictures. ”

“ To-day the short picture, though still forming the bulk of the output, is somewhat neglected, for the quickest way to the public’s fancy seems to lie in the big production that rivals the stage-play. In Europe the long picture is declining in favor, and the picture of one and two thousand feet returning to popularity. In the United States, however, it would seem that the future of the motion picture lies in the production that gives an entire evening’s entertainment, offering, as it does, opportunities for the exercise of artistic effort that are denied by the fifteen or thirty minute picture. ”

“ Another grave mistake is to allow a slide to be shown at the same theater several weeks in succession, for movie fans are accustomed to a varied daily change of program and hate seeing the same thing over again.
My main reason for favoring a film is because it is the right vehicle in the right place. The twenty million Americans go to see pictures in motion, and it has been proved from experience that the average movie patron does not object to a film which combines either instruction or entertainment. ”

“ Great lady of the movie screen
3-4-78
As recently as 10 years ago, most of the motion pictures filmed in this country had a single run at the theatres, and then were seldom seen or heard from again.
Television has changed that. Now, with longer broadcasting hours and the abundance of new channels, vintage movies are enjoying a second life, often with a bigger audience than the first time. Maybe that's why the name Maureen O'Sullivan is practically a household word even today. ”

“ The old ways of doing were being revolutionized day by day with the introduction of the close-up, switchback,95 light effects, and screen acting that could be recognized as a portrayal of human conduct. Exhibitors soon began clamoring for A. B. pictures, not only for the U. S. A. but for foreign countries as well; and as Mr. Griffith had a commission on every foot of film sold, it was an easy matter for us to judge our ever-increasing popularity. ”

“ Along with this new public demand for better pictorial qualities in the motion pictures have come higher ideals to those who make and distribute motion pictures. The producers are awakening to their opportunities. They are no longer content with resurrecting defunct stage plays and picturizing them hurriedly, with only enough additions to the bare plot to make the photoplay last five reels. It is not now so much a question of fixing over something old, as of constructing something new. ”

“ MOVIE ADVERTISING FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF A FAN
You may hardly credit it when I assert that motion-picture audiences are the most critical in the world. They do not outwardly show their disapproval of things, but after they resolved that the photoplay was here to stay, anything as a motion picture would no longer satisfy them. So the film producers had to humor the folks who had made their wealth, and to-day the fans have been educated up to such a pitch that nothing but the best will satisfy them. Here, then, is the class of readers represented by moving-picture publicity. ”

“ Finally the use of the tug was secured, cameras were loaded with the reels of sensitive film, other reels in their light-tight metal boxes were packed for transportation, and shipping cases, so that the exposed reels could be sent to the film company in New York for developing and printing, were taken along.
Not only were Blake and Joe without facilities for developing the films they took, but it is very hard to make negatives in hot countries. If you have ever tried to develop pictures on a hot day, without an ice water bath, you can understand this. ”