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Seeing Paris With Paramount
By MELVILLE A, SHAUER Chief of the Personal Guide Division of Paramount’s European Tourist Bureau
When I stepped from the boat train at St. Lazaire — the railway station, not the prison — it became instantly apparent to me that Paris needed a personal guide system. The very raucousness of the tooting taxi cabs, the clinking of glasses in the pavement cafes and the shrilling of the gendarmerie’s whistles bespoke the fact that sightseeing service with a satisfied smile was badly needed if visiting Americans were to be allowed to see the real city and still have enough cash left to hire a steamer chair on the return trip to the States of Unity.
Business premises in a favorable location were the first consideration. Fortunately I was able to secure, not without the overcoming of certain legal technicalities, a wonderful site at Number Two, Boulevard des Capucines. It was the legal Number Two, so there were no resultant disputes. The site, by a curious coincidence, happened to be the building of the old Vaudeville Theatre. This I at once had renovated and turned into a modern motion picture theatre, where I planned that tourists could be entertained while awaiting guides to be assigned them. Upstairs I arranged offices, reading rooms, handball courts, a swimming pool and several tennis courts for the convenience of the guests. All American newspapers were placed on file, but I soon had to restrict these to the tabloids, owing to the crowded nature of the rooms.
Business in the tourist trade was instant and prolific. It was not long before Messrs. Cunard, French and White Star were running special ships with passengers destined exclusively for Paramount’s European Tourist Bureau. Soon I had to import an assistant solely for the work of booking pictures into the Bureau's private film theatre and count the cash paid by those unable to secure complimentary tickets.
Within a week I expect my corps of secretaries to complete the count of our customers during the first summer of operations. The figure is expected to be abnormally high, and were it not for the fact that all of the service -■as conducted on a basis of Free Tours for Free People From the Land of Liberty, I sincerely believe that our stockholders (if we had any) would be receiving a dividend somewhat in excess of one thousand percent.
The only red mark on our ledger, apart from that of the upkeep of our charming establishment at Number Two Boulevard des Capucines, is the entry concerning the 1245 tourists who were compelled to return before winter set in without benefiting to the full by our complete, comprehensive and understanding knowledge of Paris.
Next summer the offices of the Paramount European Tourist Bureau will be stationed on the shores of Lake Baikal — if you know where that is.
PEP-O-GRAMS Page Thirty-eight