Paramount Pictures – The Story Behind The Films
Posted on 16. Apr, 2009 by Danny Hoover in Arts and Entertainment
Adolph Zukor who was previously with the Famous Players Film Company, decided that he would like to make movies designed for the growing number of immigrants making their way into the States. It was 1912 when Paramount Pictures was born and within a year they had already created and released 5 films that were an instant success. To see today’s successes, you will need to visit a site like renting from Netflix.
Jesse L. Lasky at the same time was starting up the Lasky Feature Play Company and after borrowing from his brother and hiring Cecil B DeMille, he bag shooting the film The Squaw Man. By 1914, the two start-ups had chosen to join forces by becoming the Famous Players-Lasky and relied on a the newly formed Paramount to help distribute their films.
The Famous Players-Lasky was up and running. Lasky worked side by side with his brother handling the production of films while Cecil moved into handling the distribution; closely working with Paramount Pictures. Zukor on the other hand stayed behind the scenes planning the future of the two companies and by 1916 the two; Paramount and the Famous Players would merge.
It was Zukor that made most of the lightning happen and all from behind the scenes. He created the slogan for the company as well as sculpted stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Rudolph Valentino into successes. Zukor was the one that came up with the idea that when leasing the right to an actor, one had to pay for all of that year’s films. This concept which is known as block booking made Paramount rich.
Zukor just kept at it and made the perfect decision one right after another. He started building theaters all across America and had nearly 2,000 screens in all. He then took over control of the Balaban & Katz radio stations where he founded the Paramount Publix Theater chain in order to manage all those theaters showing Paramount Films. He built the chain just as Netflex DVD rental has been built up in more recent times.
At one point, due to the heavy expansion, Paramount Pictures was facing the potential of Bankruptcy. They other partners went their own separate ways with Zukor still at the helms. Through government reorganization the film studios were able to stay open although they had to stop the block booking by 1940. At this time, the government also separated the theater chains which resulted in Paramount becoming unstable. In the end they would change hands to Gulf and Western Industries before returning back into full swing as the Cinema International Corporation and finally in 1989 as Paramount Pictures once again.
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