British Paramount News

Dates

1931 - 1957

History

British Paramount News was a sound newsreel which began on 2 March 1931, as a subsidiary of the US Paramount company, and ran until 31 January 1957. The first editorial arrangements are unknown, but from 1934 the editor of British Paramount News was Tommy Cummins. In 1948 Cummins was replaced by Jim Wright, who remained editor until the closure of the reel.

Provenance

The information in this database does not come from the original issue sheets but from duplicated typescript copies that were produced at a later date, probably for use in the British Paramount News library. The Slade Film History Register file contains carbon copies of these sheets; there are also some photocopies of earlier typed lists of contents on which library numbers have been handwritten, and a very few photocopies of lists typed on British Paramount News’ headed paper.

Most of the listings give the content of the reel plus library numbers. The listings are typed in several different styles which suggests that there were several people involved in the project. There are also differences in type sizes, density of the image and alignment of typing which shows that the information on the sheets was not all recorded at once.

Other Information

The rights to British Paramount News are now held by Reuters Television and are managed for them by the ITN Archive. The ITN Source holds a largely complete run, though there is an unfortunate ‘gap’ of missing items for the late 1940s. The BFI National Archive holds a substantial amount of the original film material for the period 1931-1939, 1945-1951, and the Imperial War Museum Film & Video Archive for the war period, owing to an agreement to copy the original nitrate material with former owners Visnews.

Films in this series can be obtained from:

Film Archive

Name

Reuters Archive Licensing: Screen Ocean

Email

info@screenocean.com

Web

http://reuters.screenocean.com/

Phone

+44(0)1954 262052

Address

124 Horseferry Road,
London
SW1P 2TX

Notes

British Pathe Ltd (qv) also handles the Reuters Historical Collection, which includes the British Paramount, Empire British, Gaumont Graphic and Gaumont British newsreels.

Series held

View all series held by Reuters Archive Licensing: Screen Ocean