A PARAMOUNT STORY

How the Hollywood Moguls fought a war against Anti Semitism in America.

Comedian Dave Chapelle recently joked on Saturday Night Live that ‘The Jews run Show business.”

This is the most recent Jewish ‘trope’ in a century filled with antisemitism.  Hollywood has had a major problem accepting its past, in no small part due to the challenges of antisemitism. The scandal that erupted when the Motion Picture Academy opened last year and excluded examining the industry’s founding fathers is just the latest example of an industry that has often been afraid to look at its roots. Roots that go back to small Jewish towns throughout central and east Europe over a century ago.

Film Historian and producer Marc Wanamaker explains the term Hollywood Mogul.

This love hate relationship with the entertainment industry’s founders is the central theme of the documentary, A Paramount Story. The show focuses on pioneer Adolph Zukor, a co-founder of Paramount Pictures and mogul’s mogul who is largely forgotten today.

A PERSONAL STORY

My family and the Zukors have a relationship that goes back to 1960 when Grandson Adolph Zukor 2nd and my mom started a TV production company. A PARAMOUNT STORY  is a continuation of a show they first developed and that I was given to finish years later.

My Bar Mitzvah. Right to left. Adolph Zukor 2nd, Trude Forsher, James Forsher, US Treasurer Ivy Baker Priest Stevens and her husband, Mr. Stevens.

FROM RAGS TO RICHES.

His was a true Horatio Alger story, immigrating from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1888 to America as a young teenager. He found his calling in the 1890’s when he fell in love with the potential of movies. Mr. Zukor would live to 104 years old and stayed at Paramount from 1912 when he co-founded it to 1976 when he died. He witnessed first-hand and helped shape the film business as it grew from penny arcades to an international business incorporating films, television and cable programming.

Excerpt. A Paramount Story, telling the story about seeing his first film. Film clip features Mr. Zukor, grandson James Zukor and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences film historian Warren Sherk.

In 1967, 94-year-old Zukor sat down for a filmed interview with my mother and his grandson, Adolph Zukor 2nd. Over an hour discussion, he shared his life story along with his philosophy of business and life. Through his words, we witness first-hand how he helped grow an industry from a novel technology used to entertain at penny arcades to the most powerful mass media ever invented.

L to R. Jesse Lasky, Will Hays, Thomas Edison, Adolph Zukor. 1922

Zukor’s story is also the story of the founding pioneers. His best friend was MGM’s Marcus Loew. He worked with Carl Laemmle and William Fox to overturn the Edison film patents. He battled Samuel Goldwyn for control of Paramount. He also teamed up in 1922 with all the studio heads to hire film czar Will Hays and keep both anti-Semitic groups and Washington DC politicians out of Hollywood.

The film examines the following key themes:

THE JOURNEY FROM EUROPE.

How Zukor and the other early film pioneers made their way from Austria/Hungary, Germany and Poland to the US and had the common vision of evolving the short films from novelty houses to creating the largest mass media industry the world had ever known.

FIGHTING NAZI’S IN HOLLYWOOD

Few people know about the efforts Zukor and the other moguls took during the 1930’s in fighting fascism in the United States. They created groups that organized a spy network that infiltrated Nazi supported groups and reported this information to government authorities in the days leading up to WW2. How this was done is part of A PARAMOUNT STORY.

A CENTURY OF ANTISEMITISM.

Dave Chapelle’s joking about ‘The Jews’ running show business on national TV in 2022 brought attention to a growing problem of rising antisemitism in America.

A Paramount Story tells the story of antisemitism over the past century and how it haunted the careers of countless studio heads, producers, directors, actors, writers and virtually any who has worked in the industry. It is a story that goes back a century to auto pioneer Henry Ford and his publications warning about the dangers of ‘International Jewry’ up to today, with Kanye West ‘going deathcom 3 on Jews’ tweets and comedian David Chapelle going on “Saturday Night Live” and proclaiming that ‘The Jews run Hollywood.’

A Paramount Story is told by Mr. Zukor and a wide variety of interviews with family members, producers, actors and actresses as well as historians. It includes re-enactments, -newsreels, feature films, 3d stereophonic still images, studio shorts and behind-the-scenes motion pictures that all combine to give the audience a first-hand accounting of how the industry of motion pictures took form during its first four decades while fighting millions of antisemites throughout America and around the world.

A PROJECT DECADES IN THE MAKING

The first cut of the show goes back to the early 1980’s. It has been one of those projects that was always on the backburner, waiting for the right time to finish it.

The producers decided recently it was an important story that needed to be told, shedding light on how recent antisemitism in America is tied to a century of hate. We might be able to learn something from the early moguls as they built an industry while at the same time fighting groups that wanted them literally to be kicked out of the country.

Talk about The Paramount Story. Central European University. March, 2023

ABOUT THE PREMIUMS

All contributors will get a year subscription to the www.thepopchannel.com premium TV channel. Episodes of A Paramount Story will be posted there over a 12 week period.

WHERE WILL THE MONEY GO

We recently received a Botstiber Fellowship that allowed us to complete a first rough cut and shoot a few additional interviews and location shots in Hungary.   The $9,000 we are asking for is intended to go toward hiring an editor to help in the completion of the feature-length documentary.

If we are fortunate enough to get more funding than requested, we will hire a name Hollywood talent to narrate the show as well as add additional graphics (sample below) and spend additional time finetuning our final edit and sound design.

SAMPLE ANIMATION

https://vimeo.com/839313844?share=copy 

Bringing a 100-year -old still photo to life.