Paramount on Parade

1930
Passed
1h 42m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

A musical revue that has Paramount stars and contract-players doing unrelated short sketches and elaborately staged song-and-dance numbers like a duet on a giant cuckoo clock and Clara Bow s... Read allA musical revue that has Paramount stars and contract-players doing unrelated short sketches and elaborately staged song-and-dance numbers like a duet on a giant cuckoo clock and Clara Bow singing aboard a navy vessel.A musical revue that has Paramount stars and contract-players doing unrelated short sketches and elaborately staged song-and-dance numbers like a duet on a giant cuckoo clock and Clara Bow singing aboard a navy vessel.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.7/10

391

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
Of the original 20 individual sequences, seven of them were filmed in 2-strip Technicolor: the opening sequence: 'Showgirls on Parade', Nino Martini's 'Come Back to Sorrento,' Harry Green's 'Isadore the Toreador' with Kay Francis, Dennis King's 'Nitchavo,' 'Girl of My Dreams', with Richard Arlen, Jean Arthur, Mary Brian, Virginia Bruce, Gary Cooper, James Hall, Phillips Holmes, David Newell, Joan Peers, and Fay Wray, of which only the B&W introduction survives, and the 'Rainbow Revels' finale featuring Maurice Chevalier singing 'Sweeping the Clouds Away', which also survives in B&W. The total Technicolor footage was 2517 feet (768 m), or about 28 minutes.

Goofs
The re-release opening credits credit producer Jesse L. Lasky as "Jessie" L. Lasky.

Quotes
Jack Oakie: It's a mystery play written especially for me!

Alternate versions
Version for distribution of the original film in Romania, titled Parada Paramount (1930) included additional sketches by Romanian actors Ion Ian-Covescu and Pola Iliescu

Connections
Alternate-language version of Parada Paramount (1930)

Soundtracks
All I Want Is Just One Girl
Music by Richard A. Whiting
Lyrics by Leo Robin
Sung by Maurice Chevalier
Sung also by Mitzi Green

User reviews17

Review

Featured review

Clara Bow, Maurice Chevalier & Nancy Carroll Are Winners

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.