Best movies like Paramount on Parade

A film company hires a gangster to mock himself holding up a bank, but he succeeds too well and makes off with the money. But all ends well.

Dozens of star and character-actor cameos and a message about the Variety Club (a show-business charity) are woven into a framework about two hopeful young ladies who come to Hollywood, exchange identities, and cause comic confusion (with slapstick interludes) throughout the Paramount studio.

Henny Brown, talent scout for the Margaret Ames Film Agency in Hollywood, mistakes Broadway show understudies Judy and Marian, for stars Betty and Eileen, and signs them up for movies. Margaret, furious with Henny for the blunder, fires him---but only temporarily. Another agent, Marty Allen, once married to and still in love with Margaret, signs Betty and Eileen. Henny arrives with Judy and Marian, and the nightclub manager asks Henny to emcee the show. Though he is not sure himself what they can do, Henny introduces the girls and they make a hit in a dramatic sketch. Big-time movie producer R. J. signs them to a film contract. Judy joins the WAVES, Marian the WACS and Marty the Marines and all have two weeks before induction, and that is more than long enough to shoot a Monogram musical-within-a-Monogram musical and have a few days to spare.

Fox musical.

Phil and Pete compete for Mary's love and also in a contest for best song written by a college student.

Rubber-legged comedian Leon Errol made his talkie starring bow in Paramount's Only Saps Work. Based on a play by Owen Davis Sr., the film casts Errol as James Wilson, a kleptomaniac who starts with picking pockets and ends up robbing a bank. Wilson's friend Lawrence Payne (Richard Arlen) inadvertently aids our hero during one of his heists, ending up in deep doo-doo with the law. Before Wilson is able to extricate Payne from his dilemma for the sake of heroine Barbara Tanner (Mary Brian), he pauses long enough to pose as a private eye -- and even gives bellboy Oscar (Stu Erwin) tips on how to spot a crook! If only all of Leon Errol's feature films had been as consistently hilarious as Only Saps Work.

A radio announcer gets caught up with a fake clairvoyant and his gang of thieves.

Rhythm and Blues Revue is a plotless variety show, one of several compiled for theatrical exhibition from the made-for-television short films produced by Snader and Studio Telescriptions, with newly-filmed host segments by Willie Bryant. Originally 86 minutes, the "short" version available on public domain collections and websites is missing a reel

The president of a settlement-house group puts on a benefit variety show.

The top brass at a radio station believe their popular new star singer is paying more attention to his love life than to his career.

A glamorous film star rebels against the studio, her pushy press agent and a family of hangers-on.

Promoter "Smoothie" King helps a pair of phonies con their way into a movie company. As Wanda heads toward stardom, she turns more and more from King toward the matinée idol. King must decide between his plans and her happiness.

An all-star revue featuring MGM contract players.

Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.

A night club singer falls for a gangster.

In order to use the publicity to get re-elected, a judge sentences a notorious gangster to fight in the war.

Saxophone player Clyde meets a woman named Flowers, and teaches her to dance. He later discovers that gangster boss "Blackjack" is also in love with her. "Blackjack" is also battling gang boss Mike Luego in a violent turf war.

An Eddie Cantor look-alike organizes an all-star show to help the war effort.

Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East beauty, John Barrymore in a Shakespearean soliloquy (adding an on-screen voice to his legendary profile for the first time) and Winnie Lightner famously warbling the joys of Singing in the Bathtub. Watch, rinse, repeat!

Pop, a security guard at Paramount has told his son that he's the head of the studio. When his son arrives in Hollywood on shore leave with his buddies, Pop enlists the aid of the studio's dizzy switchboard operator in pulling off the charade. Things get more complicated when Pop agrees to put together a show for the Navy starring Paramount's top contract players.

The road-show troupe of a top Broadway show go cross-country while taking the audience along on the on-stage scenes as well as what happens and is happening back stage of the production. The spectacular dancing ensembles and colorful costumes and pulchritude on-stage offers a contrasting background to the drabness of the backstage, where joy, sorrow, tragedies, deception, and romance are intertwined.

A cream-of-the-crop gathering of 1930's radio stars, who lend themselves to a storyline about a failing radio station which needs to put on a huge ratings winner to have any chance of continued operation. An interesting mixture of the stars whose fame continued to grow, those who became bit players in show business history, and those who have been forgotten entirely, except at the Internet Movie Database of course!

Gopher City Kansas hosts a beauty contest. The winner, Elvira Plunkett, and her mother go to Hollywood. The Chamber of Commerce also provides Elvira with an agent, Gopher City's own Elmer J. Butz. Elmer likes Elvira and the shy Elvira likes him, but Mrs. Plunkett, a formidable woman, has little use for hapless Elmer. On the train west, they meet movie star Larry Mitchell, who takes a shine to Elvira and helps her meet MGM directors once they get to Tinsel Town. Elmer, meanwhile, wants to help Elvira with her career and he also wants to be her man. Movie stardom does come to the Gopher City entourage, but to whom is a surprise. And who will win the lovely Elvira's hand?

Norma Martin is an American movie star in France trying to avoid the attention of men. Going to visit a friend in Southern France, she finds herself "married" to a playboy song writer Ralph Forbes she hadn't yet met. Some of his lady friends then show up. Some very good sequences, but also some flat spots. Her "husband's" house is very Hollywood deco and some of the costumes are very good.

Bob Preston, publicity man for Superba Pictures, uses his publicity skills in an attempt to make this fiancée June Dale the most famous movie star in the world. But in doing so, he forgets that women want to be attended to for themselves, not as objects of fame.

A famous singer and matinée idol helps a pretty young theater usher in her dreams of becoming a singer, but when her career begins to take off and she becomes engaged to a wealthy young man, he realizes he's fallen for her and plots to break up her impending marriage.

This film is a compilation, with narration by Steve Allen, of comedies from the old Mack Sennett silent studio. Sennett, himself, appears in a cameo at the end of the film.

A secretary catches the eye of her amorous boss while her regular boyfriend keeps trying to propose marriage to her.

A filmed version of the Broadway show starring comedienne Gilda Radner, complete with the characters she made famous on the TV show "Saturday Night Live."

Pretty female attorney Abigail "AJ" Furnival is hired to keep high-flying cowboy movie star Ben Castle out of trouble in Las Vegas. Despite his many faults, Abigail falls in love with and marries Ben, with the hope that she can mold him into the virtuous hero he plays on the screen.

When sponsor Nottingham cancels King Russell's radio program, The Hot Shots try to change his mind. They not only fail but Nottingham's son forces them to take him back to Russell's ranch. Once there he starts playing practical jokes. With everyone disliking him and learning his father is coming, he has a plan to redeem himself.

Fame goes to a priggish singer's head and almost costs him his girlfriend.

Promoters set up a radio contest to find the average American and use him to sell food, apparel and notions. All goes well until he falls in love with a girl who upsets things.

Wise-guy carnival barker Windy bilks a group of cowboys out of their money, gets caught and is forced into working off the debt on their ranch. He falls in love with Molly, the pretty owner of the ranch, but runs afoul of foreman Steve, who also loves Molly.

A naïve farm girl is duped by con men who promise her movie stardom in exchange for her savings.

Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers—all lavishly staged by veteran theater director John Murray Anderson.

A series of 19 musical and comedy "vaudeville" sketches presented in the form of a live television broadcast hosted by Tommy Handley (as himself).

Three young girls working in an agency have build a singing trio. They want to "lease" the Dictaphone of their boss to make a record of their singing, but they are caught and fired. When they are not able to pay their rent any longer, they decide to try it on an amateur contest at a radio station.

The company of a musical comedy gets shipwrecked on a tropical island inhabited by a "king" from Brooklyn and his coterie of wild native girls.

Lila Beaumont is an understudy in a Broadway musical. Her boyfriend, George Shelby, arrives in New York hoping to take Lila back home with him to marry.

Benny and Flo are a husband and wife dance team, Sloane and Darrel, traveling around the country as part of a revue. The revue gets picked up and taken to New York City, to be on Broadway. However, it quickly folds, and the two are forced to look for other employment. They eventually find work in a nightclub, becoming famous.But while performing at the nightclub, Flo becomes entranced by a young, sophisticated millionaire playboy, Winston.

Vicki Wallace takes great pleasure in teasing her husband Tony who takes no pleasure at all in being teased and it isn't long before he ups and clips her on the chin. Vicki's friend and attorney Vernon Thorpe secures a divorce for her, and Vicki and Vernon are soon married. Vicki's yen for wearing revealing clothes and a penchant for inviting ex-husband to dinner soon provokes the easily-provoked Vernon into belting one on her himself. She goes to Tony's apartment, where Tony is entertaining Bonnie, who is not all that entertained by the presence of Vicki, especially after Vicki shows every intent of moving in and staying.

Hughie Mack, a not so nice western singer, is discovered by Clover Doyle as the next movie cowboy hero. His name is changed to Slim Carter and a promotional buildup begins. Leo Gallaher, an orphan boy wins the contest to spend a month with Slim. Leo is a good influence on his cowboy hero. Clover sees the good and more in Slim. Montana Burriss is Slim's double.

A campus flirt who has been "pinned" by most of the boys of Sigma Chi fraternity falls for a no-nonsense athlete who doesn't have time for such diversions as women.

A man who believes that love is more animal and chemical than spiritual, bets that by controlling the circumstances, he can get any man and woman to fall for with each other and get engaged within a month.

Young man just out of college tries to persuade his father, who owns a record company, to start signing up rock 'n' roll acts.

Kay Arnold is a gold digger who wanders from party to party with the intention of catching a rich suitor. Jerry Strong is a young man from a wealthy family who strives to succeed as an artist. What begins as a relationship of mutual convenience soon turns into something else.

Broadway dancing star Adele Dorey who, overworked and exhausted, suddenly ups and leaves New York in favor of a country village. But when promoter Bobby Lewis (Egan) of the barnstorming Gay Girlies Burlesque Company arrives in town, he picks an incognito Adele among all the pretty village girls to star in his new show. On a lark, Adele introduces her maid Jane (Louise Fazenda) as her mother and accepts a contract. When Adele's identity is finally revealed, the slumming star apologizes for her deception by offering Bobby a Broadway job.

A Mexican crooner tries to put off fans by faking marriage to his American co-star.

A Musical Revue featuring a number of prominent vaudeville and theatrical British artists of the day in songs, dances, dramatic and musical sketches.