Paramount on Parade
Director: Various
Year: 1930
Rating:
4.0
Back in 1929 and 1930 musicals were the name
of the game. Sound brought them in like a hurricane. The major studios didn't
have a lot of musical talent not having needed it but they put on these revues
with the talent they had - a combination of songs and skits. Paramount basically
had Maurice Chevalier who had just come off Lubitch's musical The Love Parade
and so they put him out there for three songs. The film had some 20 songs
and skits and most range very mediocre to stick a pin in my eye with a few
exceptions. A couple made me want to go back in time and slap someone.
There were a few that received the Technicolor
treatment but they were lost for some time until a few were restored - but
not on this version I saw - so I missed the Song of the Gondolier by Nino
Martini. The Toreador a parody of Carmen with Kay Francis, The Gallows Song
with Skeets Gallagher, Let Us Drink to the Girl of My Dreams. Somebody up
there took mercy on me. A few that sadly didn't get lost had Lilian Roth,
Leon Errol, Jack Oakie, Ruth Chatterton, Mitzi Green and Nancy Carroll in
them. The skit was awful but "Murder Will Out' has William Powell as Philo
Vance, Clive Brook as Sherlock Holmes, Warner Oland as Fu Manchu - all roles
they had played in films. Highlights were Chevalier and every girl on the
Paramount lot doing Rainbow Revels, The Redhead with Clara Bow and that was
about it. These are interesting as time capsules but not much more.
