Paramount News

Paramount News is the name on the newsreels produced by Paramount Pictures (1927-1957).

The Paramount Newsreel began operation in 1927 with Emanuel Cohen, as an Editor, 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 film stock. In the early days all Paramount footage was filmed by silent Debrie Le Parvo silent cameras, with unique Paramount logo and slogan "The Eyes of the World". (its estimated that around 15 of those cameras were bought by Paramount and only few survived today, one can be seen at Paramount Studio)

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 1930s, 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). Bill Slater (1903-1965) was the narrator for Paramount News for many years.

When the news warranted, the entire issue was devoted to one major story, as for 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 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.

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 rare footage in its day, putting Paramount News near the forefront of the competition of the other newsreel divisions such as Pathé News (1910-1956), Fox Movietone News (1928-1963), Hearst Metrotone News/News of the Day (1914-1967), Universal Newsreel (1929-1967), and The March of Time (1935-1951).

...
Wikipedia