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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Multiple Versions in France: Paramount-Paris and National film Style
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2004-03-01
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Cinéma & Cie
Charles O'Brien
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Carleton University
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Multiple Versions in France: Paramount-Paris and National film Style
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/19041/16801
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MULTIPLE VERSIONS IN FRANCE: PARAMOUNT-PARIS AND NATIONAL
FILM STYLE
Charles O’Brien, Carleton University




   In the established film-historical literature, multiple versions are discussed mainly as
an oddity deriving from conditions and forces singular to the first years of world cine-
ma’s conversion to sound.1 The literature’s frequent focus has been on operations at
Paramount’s Paris studio which have then been taken to exemplify the phenomenon of
multiple versions as a whole. Insofar as the phenomenon is thought significant, it is
studied for what it suggests about the uncertainty faced by the American film industry,
which, by the mid-1920s, is estimated to have relied on exports for roughly one-third of
its gross income.2 In this context, Paramount’s multiple versions show up as a very
costly stop-gap measure for maintaining the company’s place in the European film mar-
ket, with little relevance for the cinema’s subsequent artistic or economic evolution.
   In light of the marginality of multiple versions to general film historiography, the
project of the Spring School is provocative. My claim here will take off from the prem-
ise that Paramount’s multiple versions are more significant than is ordinarily assumed.
But what exactly is the nature of this significance, and in which film-industrial and aes-
thetic contexts might it become apparent? Most fundamentally, to what extent might
multiple versions, as simultaneously a national and international phenomenon,
impose the need for new contexts, and for bringing together new combinations of
archival and research methods? A many-faceted object of study, the multiple versions
invite economic, sociological, and aesthetic analysis, and possibilities for historical con-
textualization are themselves multiple. My intervention will situate Paramount’s mul-
tiple versions in the context of trends in national film style, juxtaposing film-sound
practices at Paramount-Paris to analogous developments in the French and German
film industries. The objective of the national comparisons is to suggest some ways in
which a consideration of Paramount’s multiple versions can illuminate aspects of
French film history, particularly with regard to the latter’s sound-film technique, which
was (and still is, in important respects) distinctive when compared to that of other
national cinemas.

  The following examination of possibilities for an explicitly comparative approach to
national cinema proceeds through three parts. Part One contrasts sound-film technique
at Paramount-Paris to that at the German company UFA, Paramount’s principal multi-
ple-version competitor in the French film market. Here the key issue concerns the sty-
listic implications of national differences in film-production practice: can the
Paramount-Paris films be said to have differed stylistically from films made in other stu-
dios in France, Germany, and the United States? In Part Two, the investigation turns
toward Paramount-Paris’ place within the history of American sound-film technique,

­80                                                           CINEMA & Cie, no. 4, Spring 2004
                                                              MULTIPLE VERSIONS IN FRANCE

emphasizing the difference between Paramount’s production of multiple versions dur-
ing 1930-1931 and a basic and permanent transformation in American sound-film style
during that same period, when multi-track technologies were being quickly adopted
throughout the American studio system. As Hollywood was shifting toward a multi-
track approach to film sound, in which voices were recorded separately from ambient
sound, films made at Paramount-Paris, with their emphasis on the “liveness” of actors’
direct-recorded performances appeared anachronistic and stylistically comparable
more to the “canned theatre” of the Vitaphone era than to the narrative-oriented multi-
track films defining Hollywood’s output of that moment.
   In the Conclusion, claims made before are brought together to outline a new hypoth-
esis that bears on the significance of Paramount’s multiple versions for the history of
film style. Put briefly, the hypothesis is that Paramount’s multiple versions, with their
direct-recorded soundtracks, served as exemplars for an approach to sound-film tech-
nique that would distinguish the French cinema stylistically from other national cine-
mas – including, paradoxically, the Hollywood cinema. In other words, by 1932, in the
wake of the American cinema’s adoption of dubbing in place of the making of multiple
versions, the direct-recorded “filmed theatre” – initially associated with both French
and American companies – came to define the French cinema exclusively. In this event,
the sound-film style that seemed international in 1930 and 1931 – when films featuring
stage performances recorded with multiple cameras and microphones were made in
both Europe and the United States – appears by 1932 to have evolved into a national
style that served to differentiate direct-recorded French films from dubbed American
imports.


Sound-Film Technique at Paramount-Paris

   In film studies today Paramount’s Paris studio is known almost entirely for its pro-
duction of foreign-language versions of American films. In fact, however, Paramount-
Paris also produced many films that were not multiple versions, and during 1931,
Paramount’s production strategy had shifted away from multiple versions and toward
French-language originals, a majority of which were made in a single, French-language
version only.3 In light of its brevity, Paramount’s multiple-version effort shows up as a
costly, temporary strategy whereby the American film industry sought to maintain its
export market. Given that multiple versions were far more expensive than analogous
silent-era methods for ensuring a film’s exportability, the American film industry had a
pressing incentive to devise an alternative sound-era method. By 1931, such an alterna-
tive had emerged as technical developments allowed dubbing to become institutional-
ized at Hollywood’s major studios. By 1932, the American film industry had abandoned
regular production of multiple versions, and instead began dubbing and/or subtitling
films intended for export. By 1933, these films were generally exported “semi-finished,”
with the dubbing (and/or subtitling) undertaken in the countries where the films were
to be distributed. In this regard, the history of Paramount-Paris is exemplary: when the
company ceased producing multiple versions in 1931, its studios became a centre for
post-synchronization, where films made in the United States and in other countries
were dubbed for distribution in France and/or in other film-consuming nations in
Europe.

                                                                                      ­81
CHARLES O’BRIEN

  In the established literature on early sound film, multiple versions and dubbed films
are typically discussed as alternative ways of rendering sound films exportable to for-
eign-language markets. In other words, from the standpoint of the economics of film
distribution, the two approaches are seen as functionally equivalent – different ways of
accomplishing the same distribution-related objective. But when the frame of inquiry
extends beyond strictly economic questions to encompass matters of film aesthetics, it
becomes evident that these two methods of ensuring a sound film’s exportability
entailed fundamental differences. Moreover, the basic aesthetic distinctions carried
implications for distribution, as specific styles became associated with different forms
and degrees of marketability. Given Hollywood’s centrality to world cinema during the
early sound years, the systemic adoption there of multi-track sound proved consequen-
tial for other national cinemas, too, both aesthetically and economically.
  Before examining the relevance to French cinema of Hollywood’s adoption of dubbing
in place of the making of multiple versions, a closer look at production methods at
Paramount-Paris can help define the company relative to its Hollywood and German
counterparts. Paramount’s manufacture of multiple versions at its Paris studio complex
has been the focus of the English – and French – language literature on the early sound
period in which multiple versions are discussed the large scale of Paramount’s operation
– one hundred features and fifty shorts made during the studio’s first and only full year of
operation – has ensured the studio’s film-historical interest; when a film historian thinks
of multiple versions, the first instance that comes to mind is likely to be Paramount-
Paris.4 For the same reason, however, a study of multiple versions centering on
Paramount may yield a distorted view of the multiple-version phenomenon as a whole.
  The term “multiple version” might be understood in a variety of ways. What exactly
is a multiple version? Where, for instance, does one draw the line between a multiple
version and a remake? (Unlike UFA’s operettas, whose foreign-language versions were
made essentially simultaneously with the German-language originals, Paramount’s
multiples were, in some cases, made over a year after the original versions, and thus are
perhaps more appropriately thought of as remakes.) Another issue concerns historical
periodization: the multiple version phenomenon today associated mainly with
Paramount had antecedents during the silent era (e.g., the preparation of a second neg-
ative, taken by a second camera, for American and Canadian films intended for export
to Britain and Europe), and it endured, albeit on an artisanal rather than industrial
scale, throughout the 1930s, years after Paramount ceased making films in Paris, when
companies in France, Britain, Germany, and Italy continued to make one-off produc-
tions such as The Divine Spark (C. Gallone, 1935), the English language version of Casta
Diva (C. Gallone, 1935).5
  Examinations of the phenomenon of multiple versions invariably stress Paramount-
Paris’ large number of films and the repetitive character of its serial-manufacture pro-
duction process, as if Paramount’s practices were paradigmatic of the multiple-version
phenomenon as a whole.6 In fact, however, Paramount’s strategy of producing large
numbers of films, in serial fashion, was essentially unique – even among American pro-
duction companies, which had become famous for their industrialized methods. MGM
for instance also invested significantly in the making of multiple films, but devoted
more resources to each version, in light of an assessment of the expectations and tastes
of specific national audiences – as is evident in differences in costume, make-up, per-
formance, and mise-en-scène between the American and German versions of Anna

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Christie (C. Brown, 1930). Moreover, in the French context, Paramount by no means rep-
resented the only major option with regard to multiple versions. A principal alternative
approach was that pursued by the German company UFA, and also by Tobis-Klangfilm,
which, a few months prior to Paramount, had also opened a production subsidiary in
Paris. Like Paramount, UFA and Tobis were struggling to maintain the national film
industry’s sizable export market, and also like their American counterparts, the major
German companies adopted the strategy of multiple versions, beginning in 1930 and
continuing through 1932. According to Joseph Garncarz, multiple versions made up
some 22 per cent of the German film industry’s total output during this time.7 Similar
to the majority of the films made at Paramount, the German-made multiple versions
were intended mainly for the French film market; indeed virtually all German films
chosen for multiple-version production were made in a French version. These French-
language operettas proved very popular in France, where they also drew considerable
critical acclaim, and where René Clair – perhaps the most famous director of the
moment – cited them as a key inspiration for his own work.
  One important point to be made regarding the high reputation of the UFA films con-
cerns the distinctiveness of UFA’s production methods relative to those employed at
Paramount-Paris, and also at French companies such as Pathé-Natan. The films made at
Paramount were known for scenes that amounted to straight recordings of performanc-
es by vaudeville and music-hall actors familiar to the national theatre-going public. For
the multiple versions, the typical practice at Joinville was to shoot all of the scenes for
one version prior to scenes for any additional version. Thus all the scenes for the French
version would be shot, then the French cast and crew would vacate the sets to be next
used for the shooting of all scenes for the Spanish version, or Swedish version, and so on.
The production process was notoriously rapid, particularly in late 1930, during the stu-
dio’s first half-year of operation, with minimal time devoted to scripting, pre-production
planning and rehearsal. Moreover, the reliance on multiple-camera shooting produced
aesthetic results that have been characterized as formulaic, characterized by their uni-
formly flat, high-key lighting and predictable patterns of staging and cutting.8
  UFA’s multiple versions were made according to methods that differed significantly. At
UFA, by contrast, scenes were broken into individual shots, and the shots for each ver-
sion were recorded immediately after one another. So, instead of completing all shooting
for one version before beginning the shooting of additional versions, at UFA German and
French versions were made essentially simultaneously, scene by scene, one shot set-up at
a time.9 Thus, production stills of films such as Quick (R. Siodmak, 1932) show French
and German actors on the set at the same time, both in costume, waiting their turns in
front of the camera. At UFA, considerable emphasis was placed on pre-production plan-
ning and rehearsal – far more so than was the norm at Paramount or at Pathé-Natan,
where the actors, already thoroughly familiar with their parts from having played them
on stage, often improvised their film performances. In contrast, producer Erich Pommer,
in an article published in April 1930 in the French trade press, discussed the careful man-
ner in which scenes for the multiple versions made at UFA’s Neubabelsberg studios were
scripted and rehearsed.10 When scenes included song and dance performances, actors
there rehearsed with a metronome to ensure that their movements matched the rhythm
of the music that was to be added in during post-production. Multiple camera shooting
was also employed at UFA (cf. Dactylo, the French-language version of Die
Privatsekretärin, both W. Thiele, 1931), but appears to have been less common there

                                                                                        ­83
CHARLES O’BRIEN

than at Paramount or at Pathé-Natan. For certain scenes, each shot was set up and filmed
separately, with a single camera, in the multiple-take manner familiar to the silent era.
In some cases, the length of the shots was decided in advance, and the actors were timed
with a stop watch, thus ensuring that the delivery of particular fragments of dialogue
would coincide exactly with particular shot lengths.11
   Implicit in these practices is an understanding of the scene that differs radically
from that suggested by practices at Paramount and also at French companies such as
Pathé-Natan. Rather than think of the scene as the recording of a performance, pro-
duction personnel at UFA conceived of it as an assemblage of separate shots. Thus,
while the “filmed theatre” productions made at Paramount and at Pathé-Natan pow-
erfully simulated the “liveness” of the event of the actors’ performances, the UFA
films could be said to have offered a fundamentally different experience, contingent
on the viewer’s absorption into the sort of self-contained story-world that is unique to
cinema. UFA operettas such as Le Chemin du paradis (W. Thiele, M. de Vaucorbeil,
1930), the French version of Die Drei von der Tankstelle (W. Thiele, 1930), were
praised for having recovered the formal coherence and mutability familiar to the best
film comedies of the late silent era.12 Like the cartoons of Walt Disney and the
Fleischer Brothers, these films opened possibilities for a sound-film style free from
the technical constraints associated with dialogue recording.13 In contrast, the
French-language films made at Paramount-Paris offered a different kind of sound-film
experience, one resting on an astonishingly effective simulation of the liveness of a
stage show or radio broadcast.


Style Differences Between Paramount-Paris’ Multiple Versions and Dubbed
Hollywood Films

  Conditions that sustained this configuration of national film styles started eroding in
late 1930, as the American film industry began abandoning the multiple-version strate-
gy in favour of dubbing, a method of preparing films for export with radically different
implications for film style. Crucial in this regard was the chief technical characteristic
of the multiple versions relative to the dubbed alternative: in the multiple versions,
actors’ voices and ambient sounds were recorded simultaneously with the image, thus
ensuring that the unity of actor’s voice and body was never in question. In these direct-
recorded films, with their consistent, lock-tight lip synchronization, actors’ voices
seemed to originate from the actors shown speaking rather than from a loudspeaker or
some other source in the auditorium. In France, the liveness characteristic of the
Paramount films, and also of the théâtre filmé produced at Pathé-Natan, proved com-
mercially significant, with exhibitors reporting that films with direct-recorded voices
attracted significantly more viewers into their theatres than did films sonores, i.e., films
that had been shot silent and then supplemented with a soundtrack during post-pro-
duction.14 French-language films parlants – made by French companies, and, in many
cases, featuring the same music-hall, boulevard stage, circus, and vaudeville entertain-
ers who had appeared in the Paramount films – routinely topped exhibitors’ polls of the
most popular films for French audiences.15
  Given the national preference for direct-recorded speech, companies producing
dubbed films for the French market faced a formidable challenge. How might the post-

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                                                                MULTIPLE VERSIONS IN FRANCE

synchronized voice be matched to the actor’s image so as to achieve the naturalism
characteristic of the direct-recorded film? From the technical standpoint, the principal
objective was to efface any indication that voices had been added to the image in post-
production. By some accounts, the goal was achieved during 1931, when dubbing tech-
nique had evolved to the point where, in certain cases, the matching of one actor’s voice
with another’s body was sufficiently illusionistic to appear indistinguishable from a
direct-recorded multiple version. Examples cited in the French trade press included
Paramount’s Derelict, starring George Bancroft, and released in France in the summer
of 1931 under the title Desemparée.16 But “successful” dubbed films appear to have
been exceptions that had required special, ad hoc efforts. Such was the case with
Desemparée, which had been dubbed in Paris, under the supervision of Robert Kane,
the head of the Paramount studio. Also cited in France as an example of acceptable dub-
bing was Dance, Fool, Dance, an MGM feature starring Joan Crawford, which was
released in France as La Pente (1931); in this case, the dubbing had been performed in
Culver City under the supervision of Claude Autant-Lara, who employed special meth-
ods, i.e., the original American actors spoke French rather than American, thus facili-
tating synchronization of the dubbed voices in close-ups.17
   The majority of the dubbed American films of that year, however, and of the next few
years, appear to have been less well-crafted. Dubbed films drew complaints from
exhibitors in France and in other countries, and until mid-decade, technicians in
Hollywood continued to struggle to dub images satisfactorily – particularly close-ups:
“For every successful example of such ‘dubbing’ one can count a dozen rank failures,”
reported one dubbing specialist in February 1934.18 Such failures posed particular
problems in France, where the resistance to dubbed films was said to have remained
strong throughout the 1930s.19 Thus, stylistic differences between dubbed and direct-
recorded films remained relevant for at least several years after Hollywood’s abandon-
ment of multiple versions, as audiences in France continued to prefer direct-recorded
national popular films over dubbed imports. In this post-1931 context, the style initial-
ly associated with the multiple versions made at Paramount-Paris took on a new iden-
tity, becoming exclusive to French production firms. Given the national audience’s
resistance to dubbed films, the entry of such films into France, ironically, could be char-
acterized as advantageous to French producers, on the grounds that such entry
enhanced the national product’s attractiveness relative to the imported alternative.20
   Within the field of film-historical study, dubbed films, like multiple versions, have
attracted relatively little interest, including in works concerned with the history of film
technique. With developments in dubbing practice carrying major implications for
film sound as a whole, and vice versa, the neglect has had the unfortunate effect of
obscuring the international dimension of the sound-film practice of the early 1930s.
One point to be made here concerns the close relationship between Hollywood’s intro-
duction of dubbing in 1931 and the American film industry’s simultaneous adoption of
multi-track techniques. Hollywood’s approach to dubbing presupposed another, more
fundamental change in sound technique: the industry-wide standardization of a multi-
track approach to film sound whereby voices were recorded separately from other
sounds. It was only when the American film industry adopted multi-track sound – at
extraordinary cost, and after protracted trial-and-error effort – that dubbing became a
cost-effective alternative to the strategy of multiple versions. Hollywood’s adoption of
dubbing involved much more than the addition of a new technique to its established

                                                                                        ­85
CHARLES O’BRIEN

set of practices but instead depended upon what has been characterized in recent schol-
arship as a fundamental industry-wide change in film-sound technique.21 Instead of
most sound, including music, being recorded simultaneously with the image – as it had
been in the majority of American talkies made in the 1920s – following the film season
of 1930-1931, most sound, except for dialogue, was recorded independently, onto sepa-
rate tracks, and then mixed together in post-production.
  The stylistic impact of this basic change in sound-film practice is evident, for
instance, in the opening prison yard sequence from the French and American versions
of MGM’s The Big House (respectively P. Fejos and G. Hill, 1930). While the French ver-
sion of the sequence features French actors speaking French, it is otherwise sonically
identical to the American version, featuring the same mix of noises of the truck motor,
the siren, the footsteps, the din of prison-yard chatter, and so on. This layered sort of
soundtrack exhibits clear stylistic differences from the direct-recorded “filmed theatre”
made at Paramount and at Pathé-Natan – to the point of implying a different sort of
style altogether, one centered no longer on the recording of actors’ performances but on
the creation of a coherent story-world. As Nataša Ďurovičová has observed, the direct-
recorded multiple versions made at Paramount-Paris and the dubbed American films of
1931 imply basically different modes of spectatorship: whereas Paramount’s multiple
versions offered “a collective, ‘public’ experience of the stage space,” the dubbed films
provided the “‘private’ (if mass-produced) experience of the lit screen.”22 In this regard,
the dubbed films can be compared to UFA’s operettas: in both cases, the implied view-
er is sufficiently absorbed in the viewing experience to become oblivious to his/her
physical location in the theatre auditorium. In contrast, the Paramount films, as well
as the filmed-theatre productions made at French companies such as Pathé-Natan,
exhibit an alternative mode of address in which the viewer is invited to become aware
of his/her membership in a collectivity of fans, gathered in a theatre to see a show. This
distinction can also be explored at the level of national differences in the conditions of
exhibition, with attention directed to the role of full-size film-theatre orchestras and
live stage-show entertainment which, although discontinued in the United States
around 1929, endured in major movie houses in Paris through the mid-1930s.23 In the
context of these national film-cultural differences, Hollywood’s abandonment of mul-
tiple versions in favour of dubbing appears to have altered the range of technical
options in France in a way that allowed direct-recorded théâtre en conserve to evolve
from an international to a national genre.


Conclusion

  In the account of Paramount-Paris in the preceding pages, the studio’s production of
multiple versions is situated in the context of national film-cultural differences that
conditioned the particular relevance of the Paramount films to French film practice.
Given the brevity of the investigation, its international scope, and the limitations of the
documentation, the claims made here must be seen as tentative, and subject to revision
in light of the emergence of new evidence. With respect to evidence for the period’s
broad national film-style trends, one research method likely to prove essential is the sta-
tistical analysis of film style, which, at the least, can provide a relatively firm empirical
basis for claims regarding the prevalence of particular sound techniques in particular

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national cinemas. Of course, such an analysis will require considerable labour in the
gathering of data, and may ultimately entail a collaborative effort involving scholars
from different countries. It must also confront familiar limitations relating to the
unavailability of films of the period. Such limitations appear imposing concerning
Paramount, of whose three hundred some films made at the studio between 1930 and
1933 only few appear to have survived. Until more films become available to
researchers, it is difficult to imagine what a definitive account of the studio’s output
might look like.24 Finally, given the complexity of multiple versions as an object of
study, the historiographical challenge extends beyond the archival domain to include
basic questions bearing on how the object is to be conceptualized. Relevant here are
attempts to revise the concept of national cinema in a way that differs from what might
be called the traditional model, whereby the national film corpus centers on films pro-
duced within a particular nation-state by auteur filmmakers. In other words, multiple
versions invite the historiographical “gestalt-shift” proposed by Andrew Higson and
others, whereby national cinema is understood in terms not only of production but also
consumption. In the event of such a shift, the analysis must encompass the range of
films shown in a country’s theatres, including films made by foreign companies, and at
studio facilities located either within or without the national borders.



1 See, for instance, the survey of the film-historical literature on Paramount-Paris in Ginette
  Vincendeau, “Hollywood Babel: The Coming of Sound and the Multiple-Language Version,”
  in Andrew Higson, Richard Maltby (eds.), “Film Europe” and “Film America”: Cinema,
  Commerce and Cultural Exchange, 1920-1939 (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999), pp.
  207-224.
2 Regarding Hollywood’s international market during this time, see Ruth Vasey, The World
  According to Hollywood, 1918-1939 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997).
3 See “La nouvelle production Paramount,” La Cinématographie française, Vol. 13, no. 650
  (April 18, 1931), p. 17.
4 On the studio’s output, see for instance “Anniversaire des Studios Paramount de Joinville,”
  Ibidem.
5 Regarding the ongoing production of multiple versions by French companies subsequent to
  the early 1930s, see, for example, Lacroix de Malte, “Films en deux versions,” Le Film sonore
  (February 1936), p. 2; and “Films en deux versions,” Le Film sonore (March 1936), p. 2.
6 See, for instance, the chapter on Paramount-Paris in Ilya Ehrenbourg, Usine de rêves (Paris:
  Gallimard, 1936 [1932]), pp. 117-131.
7 Joseph Garncarz, “Made in Germany: Multiple-Language Versions and the Early German
  Sound Cinema,” in A. Higson, R. Maltby (eds.), op cit., especially pp. 253-255.
8 See the report on shooting practices at Paramount by cinematographer Michel Kelber, in the
  interview in Kevin Macdonald, “From Vigo to the Nouvelle Vague: A Cameraman’s Career,” in
  John Boorman (ed.), Projections 6 (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), pp. 232-238. Intriguing
  counter-examples can be found in Marius (A. Korda, 1931), whose shot framings, in which
  speaking actors are shown from the back rather than the front, differ from the norms Kelber
  describes.
9 I am grateful to Hans-Michael Bock and Thomas Elsaesser for their comments regarding film-
  production practice in Germany.

                                                                                            ­87
CHARLES O’BRIEN

10 Erich Pommer, “Ce que dit Erich Pommer sur le film sonore et sa technique,” Comoedia (April
   22, 1930), p. 6.
11 See, Ibid.; and Jean Lenauer, “Hanns Schwarz et le premier ‘talkie’ allemand,” Pour vous, no.
   48 (October 17, 1929), p. 2.
12 See, for instance, Emile Vuillermoz, “Le Chemin du paradis,” Nouvelles littéraires (November
   22, 1930); Jean Fayard, “Le Chemin du paradis,” Candide (November 21, 1930).
13 See comments by music publisher Francis Salabert in Philippe Roland, “Une Visite aux
   Studios Salabert,” La Technique cinématographique, Vol. 4, no. 34 (October 1933), p. 521.
14 See P.A. Harlé, “Ne confondons pas films parlants et films sonorisées,” La Cinématographie
   française, Vol. 12, no. 600 (May 3, 1930), p. 11.
15 See, for instance, the results of the exhibitors’ poll reported in Pierre Autré, “Les Films à
   grosse recette en 1932,” La Cinématographie française, Vol. 15, no. 760 (May 27, 1933), p. 13,
   according to which, the top six films – which received more than double the number of votes
   of the other films listed – were all French-made, with the quasi-exception of Marius, a
   Paramount production.
16 See L.M., “Il faut mettre au point la question du ‘dubbing,’” Pour vous, no. 129 (May 7, 1931),
   p. 2.
17 See Pierre Autré, “Le triomphe du dubbing La Pente,” La Cinématographie française, Vol. 13,
   no. 686 (December 26, 1931), p. 3.
18 In William Stull, “New System for Foreign Translations,” American Cinematographer, Vol.
   14, no. 10 (February 1934), p. 400.
19 Concerning this point, see Martin Danan, “Hollywood’s Hegemonic Strategies: Overcoming
   French Nationalism with the Advent of Sound,” in A. Higson, R. Maltby (eds.), op cit., pp. 230
   ff.
20 See, for instance, claims made in Jean Morienval, “Le Doublage, ses necessities et ses limites,”
   Le Cinéopse, no. 152 (April 1932), p. 158. “N’oublions pas […] que le film français est déjà pro-
   tégé parce qu’en France il aura évidemment la supériorité sur un film en doublage.”
21 See, for instance, Donald Crafton, The Talkies: American Cinema’s Transition to sound, 1926-
   1931 (Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997); James Lastra, Sound
   Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity (New York:
   Columbia University Press, 2000).
22 Nataša Ďurovičová, “Translating America: The Hollywood Multilinguals 1929-1933,” in
   Rick Altman (ed.), Sound Theory, Sound Practice (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 153.
23 Additional discussion of this topic can be found in: Charles O’ Brien, Cinema’s Conversion to
   Sound, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming September 2004).
24 For a survey of the studio’s total output during these years, based mainly on film reviews and
   other print sources, see Harry Waldman, Paramount-Paris: 300 Films Produced at the
   Joinville Studios, 1930-1933 (Lanham, Maryland-London: Scarecrow Press, 1998).




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