[Hollywood]

Paramount Product Announcement, 1932-1933. [Hollywood Films]

Hollywood: Paramount, 1932. Folio, original printed wraps with cloth spine, 435 x 298 mm. Unpag (108 pp), mainly printed in shades of red and black. Some light wear to wraps and edges, lower corner of rear wrap creased. A mark to a Maurice Chevalier image, some red in the margin last page, otherwise very clean. Very good condition. Scarce.

A large illustrated compendium advertising forthcoming Paramount films, aimed at cinema exhibitors. The long roll call of films and stars includes Harold Lloyd, the Marx Brothers, Marlene Dietrich ("Blonde Venus"), the Ernst Lubitsch production "Not Married" (now known as "Design for Living"), Cecil B. DeMille's "The Sign of the Cross", Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, Talullah Bankhead, "The Glass Key", "If I Had a Million", "Lives of a Bengal Lancer", "The Lusitania Secret", "The Song of Songs", "Girl Without a Room", "No Bed of Her Own", and many more. Other advertisements splash only the title and that the actors will be "chosen from" a given list of stars (an artefact of the studio system of signing actors). The images are very striking: for example a full-page illustration of Marlene Dietrich signed Hans Flato for a film called "Promised", and an array of vampish women, handsome men, historical heroes, and crime capers. Each advertisement is lavishly illustrated, often with a double page colour spread. Interestingly, some of the films announced appear to have never been made, at least in that form: for example 'Blood and Sand', set in Spain and starring Cary Grant and Tallulah Bankhead, or "The West Pointer" starring "handsome he-man Cary Grant" as "a famous Indian [!] athlete". These advertisements show a glimpse into an alternative history, one for example with what would have been the first filmed adaptation of Karel Capek's play "R.U.R." about robots (directed by Rouben Mamoulian, or which would have given Dorothy Arzner an additional directing credit for "The Mirrors of Washington", never filmed. Apart from the advertisements, there is also a section dedicated to photographs and a brief biography (e.g. Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Sylvia Sidney, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott and Cary Grant). and section about the studio and highlighting promotions available to Paramount film exhibitors. An important and scarce slice of early movie history, Item #104552

Price (AUD): $1,400.00   Other currencies