Paramount News

Paramount News is the moniker for the newsreels that were produced by Paramount Pictures.

History

The Paramount Newsreel began operation in 1927 and distributed roughly two movie theater issues per week until their closing in 1957. Movie theaters across the country would run these issues, (usually on 35MM Nitrate stock). The Paramount News weekly issues typically ran from seven to nine minutes, with the average story running from forty to ninety seconds. At first, the newsreels ran silent, its action only listed via a title card. By the early 1930's, sound had been introduced to Paramount News, and a handful of voice over talent had been hired to now narrate the events over the filmed action (see below).

When the news warranted, as in the case of the bombing of Pearl Harbor (1941), the historic inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt's third-term as president (1941), a presentation of a Mid-Century Sports Poll (1950) where legendary sports figures such as Jim Thorpe, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Jack Dempsey, and Babe Didrikson (among others) were highlighted, or a recap of the All-American college football team of the previous year, the entire issue was devoted to one major story.

A typical issue began with a "hard" news item, which eventually wound its way down to "softer" news items as the issue progressed, usually ending with a recap of recent sports events.

Paramount cameramen shot some very exclusive footage in its day, putting Paramount News near the forefront of the competition of the other newsreel divisions at the time (Pathe News, Fox Movietone News and Universal News). Some exclusives included the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937, as police opened fire on striking workers outside the Republic Steel plant near Chicago, causing casualties and general mayhem and divided controversy, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain being introduced to the sports world at the age of seventeen years old, playing high school basketball and countless special coverage of Paramount movie premieres and stars, including Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Martin and Lewis and Jerry Lewis solo, Frank Sinatra at New York's Paramount Theater in 1944, with throngs of bobby-soxers swooning, and W.C. Fields on a Paramount set when the 1933 Los Angeles Earthquake hit.

Paramount mogul Adolph Zukor "presented" (produced) Paramount News and appeared in many of its newsreels throughout the years.

Voice Over Talent

Voice over talent included Gregory Abbott (Lived from 1900-1981 and was Paramount News' lead voice for its presentation of news and the only voice talent to stay for the entire series run. Paramount News incorporated sound into the newsreels during the early 1930's and Abbott was hired during its inception of sound and remained until the series ended in 1957), Gabriel Heatter (who had the distinction of introducing the voice over talent in a special issue release of Paramount News during the early 30's, Gregory Abbott being among those introduced) , Vincent Connoly, Maurice Joyce, Dennis James (who found later fame as a game show and variety show host), Gilbert Martyn and Frank Gallop among others. The sports voice over talent was handled first by Bill Slater in the early years and from 1948 to the end of the Paramount run in 1957 was handled by the ex-athlete and football player, who later became known as the voice of New York sports and a renowned legend in the sports broadcasting industry, Marty Glickman. Other legendary broadcasters like Johnny Most, Don Dunphy and Jackson Beck also lent their hand doing sports voice over for a few Paramount News releases (Jackson Beck also did a few "hard news" stories as well). In some instances as well, Gregory Abbott, Gilbert Martyn and Maurice Joyce also handled some sports stories.