The House That Shadows Built

The House That Shadows Built (1931) is a feature compilation film from Paramount Pictures, made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the studio's founding in 1912. The film was a promotional film for exhibitors and never had a regular theatrical release.

The House That Shadows Built
Produced by	Adolph Zukor Jesse L. Lasky
Production company	Paramount Pictures
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	July 8, 1931 (1931-07-08)
Running time	47 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The film includes a brief history of Paramount, interviews with various actors, and clips from upcoming projects (some of which never came to fruition). The title comes from a biography of Paramount founder Adolph Zukor, The House That Shadows Built (1928), by William Henry Irwin.

Marx Brothers segment

The film is best known for a six-minute segment starring the Marx Brothers (Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx and Zeppo Marx), with Ben Taggart playing Mr. Lee, Theatrical Producer, which was intended to promote their forthcoming 1931 film Monkey Business.

The segment, containing material which was never included in any other Marx Brothers film, is a re-working of the first scene of their first successful Broadway revue I'll Say She Is (1924),^[1] which Groucho considered to have been the funniest work in the Brothers' career.

Except for some name changes and a few additional gags, the scene is nearly the same as the script used for the stage production. A few of the gags from I'll Say She Is were worked into the lobby scene in The Cocoanuts (1929), and a bit involving a series of Maurice Chevalier imitations was incorporated into the script of Monkey Business.

The Marx Brothers' segment is currently available as a special feature on the direct-to-DVD documentary film Inside the Marx Brothers, albeit in poor condition. Marx Brothers fans sometimes refer to this segment simply as I'll Say She Is, in light of its source material.

Scenes from silent Paramount films

Several films presented are now considered lost. The clips presented represent the only known surviving footage.

Year*	Title	Star(s)	Notes	Ref
1912	Queen Elizabeth	Sarah Bernhardt	Produced in France	[2]
1913	The Prisoner of Zenda	J. K. Hackett, playing a dual role		[3]
1914	The Squaw Man	Dustin Farnum		[4]
1914	A Good Little Devil	Mary Pickford	One reel survives	[5]
1915	Carmen	Geraldine Farrar		[6]
1914	The Call of the North	Robert Edeson and Theodore Roberts		[7]
1915	The Captive	Blanche Sweet		[8]
1917	Giving Becky a Chance	Vivian Martin and Jack Holt	Lost film	[9]
1917	The Undying Flame	Olga Petrova and Mahlon Hamilton	Lost film	[10]
1918	Huck and Tom	Jack Pickford and Robert Gordon		[11]
1915	The Cheat	Sessue Hayakawa, Fannie Ward, and Jack Dean		[12]
1916	The Heart of Nora Flynn	Marie Doro		[13]
1918	The Whispering Chorus	Elliott Dexter, Kathlyn Williams, and Raymond Hatton		[14]
1918	Battling Jane	Dorothy Gish	Lost film	[15]
1918	Headin' South	Douglas Fairbanks	Lost film	[16]
1917	The Little American	Mary Pickford		[17]
1918	The Squaw Man	Elliott Dexter	Survives incomplete	[18]
1919	For Better, for Worse	Gloria Swanson and Elliott Dexter		[19]
1920	Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	John Barrymore		[20]
1920	Homer Comes Home	Charles Ray		[21]
1919	The Miracle Man	Lon Chaney, Betty Compson, Thomas Meighan and J. M. Dumont	Lost film	[22]
1919	True Heart Susie	Lillian Gish		[23]
1919	Male and Female	Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan		[24]
1921	The Little Minister	Betty Compson		[25]
1919	The Roaring Road	Wallace Reid and Theodore Roberts		[26]
1920	On With the Dance	Mae Murray		[27]
1921	Sentimental Tommy	Gareth Hughes and May McAvoy	Lost film	[28]
1921	The Sheik	Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres		[29]
1922	Nice People	Conrad Nagel, Bebe Daniels, William Boyd, and Wallace Reid	Lost film	[30]
1923	The Covered Wagon			[31]
1924	Peter Pan	Betty Bronson and Mary Brian		[32]
1923	Wild Bill Hickok	William S. Hart and Kathleen O'Connor		[33]
1926	The Grand Duchess and the Waiter	Adolphe Menjou and Florence Vidor		[34]
1925	The Light of Western Stars	Noah Beery, Billie Dove, and Jack Holt	Lost film	[35]
1923	The Ten Commandments			[36]
1926	Behind the Front	Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton		[37]
1924	Forbidden Paradise	Pola Negri and Rod La Rocque		[38]
1925	The Vanishing American	Richard Dix		[39]
1925	Varieté	Emil Jannings and Lya De Putti	Produced in Germany	[40]
1926	Beau Geste	Ronald Colman, Ralph Forbes, and Noah Beery		[41]
1927	It	Clara Bow		[42]
1927	The Kid Brother	Harold Lloyd and Constantine Romanoff		[43]
1927	Underworld	George Bancroft		[44]
1927	Wings	Gary Cooper, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and Richard Arlen		[45]
*Sorts in order presented in the film

Silent film performers in unidentified silent films

• George M. Cohan, possible films: Broadway Jones (1917), Seven Keys to Baldpate (1917), and Hit-The-Trail Holliday (1918)
• George Beban
• Elsie Ferguson, possible films: The Lie (1918) and The Avalanche (1919)
• Dorothy Dalton
• Marguerite Clark, film clip likely from Snow white (1916)
• Billie Burke, film clip is most definitely from The Land of Promise (1917)
• Ethel Clayton
• Lila Lee
• Pauline Frederick
• Bryant Washburn
• Irene Castle

The Lon Chaney Sr. segment is one of only two short sequences which survive from The Miracle Man (1919). The other clip is featured in one of Paramount's Movie Milestone series, Movie Memories (1935), showcasing the studios' greatest achievements. This latter clip shows both a segment from the conclave in Chinatown as well as the healing scene which is in The House That Shadows Built. A nitrate print of Movie Memories is reportedly at the UCLA Film and Television Archive but has not yet been preserved.^[46]

Then-current Paramount stars

The film moves on to show segments with Paramount players of the 1931–32 season, including George Bancroft, Nancy Carroll, the Four Marx Brothers, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Clive Brook, Phillips Holmes, Sylvia Sidney, Eleanor Boardman, Frances Dee, Jackie Searl, Kay Francis, Judith Wood, Regis Toomey, Peggy Shannon, Jackie Coogan, Lilyan Tashman, Eugene Pallette, Anna May Wong, Juliette Compton, Stuart Erwin, William Boyd, Miriam Hopkins, Wynne Gibson, Jack Oakie, Ginger Rogers, Robert Coogan, Carmen Barnes, Charlie Ruggles, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Mitzi Green, Richard Arlen, Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, Paul Lukas, Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper, Ruth Chatterton, Marlene Dietrich, and Maurice Chevalier.

These stars are announced as appearing in upcoming films, including some never produced or released by Paramount:

• An Entirely Different Woman with Marlene Dietrich (never produced, based on the German novel Eine ganz andere Frau by Georg Froschel)
• No One Man from the Rupert Hughes novel
• Daughter of the Dragon with Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, and Sessue Hayakawa
• 24 Hours with Clive Brook, Kay Francis, and Regis Toomey
• Girls About Town with Kay Francis, Lilyan Tashman, and Eugene Pallette
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins
• Personal Maid with Nancy Carroll
• Uncertain Woman with Claudette Colbert (based on Edgar Wallace novel The Girl from Scotland Yard, never produced)
• The Road to Reno with Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Lilyan Tashman
• The Round-Up with Eugene Pallette, Stuart Erwin, Skeets Gallagher, and Frances Dee (not produced by Paramount until 1941)
• Silence with Clive Brook, Marjorie Rambeau, and Peggy Shannon
• A Farewell to Arms with Gary Cooper and Eleanor Boardman (Helen Hayes replaced Boardman in the final film)
• My Sin with Tallulah Bankhead and Fredric March
• Ladies of the Big House
• Huckleberry Finn with Jackie Coogan, Mitzi Green, Junior Durkin, and Jackie Searl
• Rich Man's Folly with George Bancroft
• The Man With Red Hair (horror film based on novel Portrait of a Man With Red Hair by Hugh Walpole, never produced)
• The Lives of a Bengal Lancer filmed by Ernest B. Schoedsack (not made until 1935, using footage shot in India by Schoedsack in 1931)
• Tomorrow and Tomorrow with Ruth Chatterton

Scenes are shown that were shot for the following films:

• An American Tragedy with Phillips Holmes, Sylvia Sidney, and Frances Dee
• Secrets of a Secretary with Claudette Colbert, Herbert Marshall, and Georges Metaxa
• Sooky directed by Norman Taurog, with Jackie Cooper and Robert Coogan
• Murder by the Clock with William Boyd, Lilyan Tashman, Regis Toomey, and Irving Pichel
• Monkey Business with the Marx Brothers (see above section)
• Stepdaughters of War with Ruth Chatterton and directed by Dorothy Arzner (never released)
• The Smiling Lieutenant directed by Ernst Lubitsch with Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Charlie Ruggles, and Miriam Hopkins

See also

• A Trip to Paramountown (1922 promotional film made by Paramount)

References

1. Coniam, Matthew (February 5, 2015). The Annotated Marx Brothers: A Filmgoer's Guide to In-Jokes, Obscure References and Sly Details. McFarland & Company. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-7864-9705-8. Retrieved August 21, 2022.
2. "Queen Elizabeth". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
3. "The Prisoner of Zenda". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
4. "The Squaw Man". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
5. "A Good Little Devil". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
6. "Carmen". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
7. "The Call of the North". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
8. "The Captive". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
9. "Giving Becky a Chance". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
10. "The Undying Flame". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
11. "Huck and Tom". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
12. "The Cheat". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
13. "The Heart of Nora Flynn". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
14. "The Whispering Chorus". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
15. "Battling Jane". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
16. "Headin' South". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
17. "The Little American". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
18. "The Squaw Man". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
19. "For Better, for Worse". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
20. "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
21. "Homer Comes Home". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
22. "The Miracle Man". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
23. "True Heart Susie". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
24. "Male and Female". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
25. "The Little Minister". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
26. "The Roaring Road". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
27. "On With the Dance". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
28. "Sentimental Tommy". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
29. "The Sheik". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
30. "Nice People". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
31. "The Covered Wagon". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
32. "Peter Pan". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
33. "Wild Bill Hickok". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
34. "The Grand Duchess and the Waiter". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
35. "The Light of Western Stars". American Silent Feature Film Database. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
36. "The Ten Commandments". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
37. "Behind the Front". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
38. "Forbidden Paradise". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
39. "The Vanishing American". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
40. "Varieté". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
41. "Beau Geste". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
42. "It". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
43. "The Kid Brother". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
44. "Underworld". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
45. "Wings". Silent Era. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
46. "SilentEra entry".

External links

• The House That Shadows Built at IMDb
• The House That Shadows Built at the TCM Movie Database
• clip from Monkey Business trailer