Paramount Around the World (1927)

T H E ! FOREIGN ; LEG ion! PLEDGE THE FOREIGN LEGION PLEDGE of Paramount is published in the interests of Paramount Legionnaires the World over. It is accepted that they know the contents to be Strictly Confidential. ADJUTANT: J. H. Seidelman. EDITOR: O. R. Geyer. EDITOR (Pro. Tern.): Albert Deane. ASSOCIATE EDITORS: R. M. “Dick” Blumenthal, George Weltner. FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDITORS: J. Ventura Sureda, Arthur Coelho, Jose Cunha, N. Vandensteen, Miss Gertrud Wiethake. Vol. III. December 1, 1927 No. 1. NEW YEAR AND NEW PLANS More graphically than ever words could hope to do, this picture tells the story of what the end of December will bring us. We all have our plans and our hopes for 1928, and with them we have the firm and unshakable conviction that we are going to make them all come true. It is no idle conviction, either, for it has been builded upon those months and years of experience and effort which have slipped into the pleasant portals of memory. The picture, with its superb symbolism of youth being more attractive than old age, and bright clouds more welcome than dark, is commended to the earnest study of every Legionnaire. Characters posed by Emil Jannings and Sally Blane. SINCERE THANKS TO O.V.T. The ver}' inspiring array of Division One news and contributions in this issue (as well as the extra material from Great Britain which we are compelled to hold over until next issue), could not have been possible without the splendid co-operation of Ollie V. Traggardh, assistant to Managing Director John C. Graham. It was Ollie who sleuthed after the British Legionnaires and gained from them in writing the splendid advance stories of the Paramount greatness that will embellish the year of 1928. The excellence of the Division One news section is its own tribute to Mr. Traggardh’s newsgathering achievement. MANY-TONGUED ISSUE I Ever anxious to indicate the true inter | I nationalism of the contents of The For | I eign Legion Pledge, we take pleasure in | I pointing out that the following languages | I are incorporated in the compilation of | I this issue: I ENGLISH, I FRENCH, 1 GERMAN, I PORTUGUESE, I CZECH, Page Two SPANISH, RUSSIAN, DUTCH, ITALIAN, JEWISH. A Message to Paramount Legionnaires addressed to you Srom _ PARIS ^ liUlllNllltlllllllllKIIIIIIII On the broad highway of the Atlantic, traveling across to this fair land of France, we passed a tiny sailing vessel of about a hundred tons, battling against a head wind. It is doubtful whether the little windjammer was making more than two knots an hour, and then those two were on a zig-zag course. Yet we, with our forty-seven thousand tons of steel, were cleaving through that same head wind at a speed of at least ten times that of the sailing ship. The happening was more than a shipboard incident; it was significant — svmbolic of the giant progress of our organization — prophetic, almost, of the very mission which was hurrying us to Paris. For more potently than words could ever tell, this very incident pictured the giant strides that the motion picture has made, from the flickering little “windjammer” nickelodeon of a score of years ago to the towering and palatial “Aquitania” photoplay palace of today. And the incident was prophetic because the very mission which was taking us to Paris was that of being present at the opening of the Paramount-Vaudeville Theatre, Europe’s finest house of motion picture entertainment. Today I have seen this theatre which is to o{)en within a few days from now. I have glimpsed its lieauties through a maze of hurrying carpenters and plasterers ; and in thus seeing it in its uncompleted state I have been privileged to see go into its building the great love, the great toil, and the sterling work of Le ? gionnaires who have car i ried the Paramount | Trade Mark around the •• — • — • world. No great and lasting building is ever wrought from money and stone and electric wires; for the money may be the flesh, the stones may be the bones and the wires may he the nerves — hut there has to he a sjnrit go into it to make it real. And the spirit of the Paramount Legionnaires has gone into this Paramount-Vaudeville Theatre here in Paris, even as it went into the Paramount Puilding and Theatre at the Crossroads of the W'orld, and into every other great Paramount achievement around the globe. I knew this positively as I stood in the centre of the auditorium and wondered for a few moments how the work was all going to be completed on time ; until I recalled the state of New York’s Paramount less than twenty-four hours before the opening. Here was a further expression of the Paramount spirit. A few' days ago we set the date of opening as at November 24th. It seemed impossilde to the hrench w'orkmen at the time, but they pledged that it would he lived up to. They had caught i CHRISTMAS 1927 At this time of the year, when the sentimental wishes of all are centered upon the ideal of having still greater happiness come to their friends, and newer and finer vistas of prosperity open up before them, it is particularly appropriate that The Foreign Legion Pledge convey to Paramount Legionnaires throughout the world the fact that no good wishes that these Legionnaires may receive could hope to be more sincere and more heartfelt than are those of this, your own magazine. NEW YEAR 1928 the Paramount Spirit, and judging from the happy way in which they were working all around me while I was in the theatre, it is not a bad “infection” for them to be suffering from. But they have got to get It a lot worse to be on a par with the Paramounteers I have met in London, Berlin and here in the world’s one and only Paris. I have seen Paramounteers in Europe in every one of the years for quite a while past, but this ^ ^ Nineteen Twenty-seven * *** has produced an electrical enthusiasm which leaves the demonstrations of previous years more or less like dull sparks by comparison. Mr. Seidelman reported it as such a few months ago, and glowingly as he painted the picture, I am sure that there have been a few thousand more volts switched on since then. 'I'he end of the year's Drive for the Desks is going to produce some mighty interesting reading; for not only will there be pride in the hearts of those of who have won the Desks, but there should be the glow of satisfaction of having done their very best in the hearts of all the other Divisions. For if the Drive of this year has proven one thing, it has proven that every Legionnaire was away up on his tip toes, delivering his best, every second of the Drive. And now to the opening of the ParamountVaudeville. France can well be proud of this finest theatre in all Europe, for did not she play a major part in the invention and development of the Motion Picture! And in so doing she played her great part in the ultimate creation of the Paramount organization and of the Famous Foreign Legion of Paramount.