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Auction History Result 5d026 RKO RADIO PICTURES 1932-33 foil hardcover campaign book '32 incredible King Kong 2-page ad! Date Sold 3/12/2017 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Hardcover Movie Campaign Book (measures 9 1/2" x 12 1/2" [24 x 32 cm]; 58 pages) (Learn More) RKO Radio Pictures 1932-33, the 1932 campaign book sent to theater owners to encourage them to show RKO movies. The book includes many pages with one and two-page spreads on RKO's upcoming movies and their best stars. Some of the movies and stars promoted include "King Kong", "The Most Dangerous Game" (Leslie Banks), "The Sun Also Rises" (Constance Bennett), "The Animal Kingdom" (Ann Harding & Leslie Howard), "The Moon and Sixpence" (John Barrymore), "Thirteen Women", "Bring 'Em Back Alive" (Frank Buck), and many more! Note that, because RKO at this time did not have the biggest name stars, they sometimes relied on movies with very lurid and sensational material, and they created images for this campaign book that are both extremely colorful and often downright sexy! We have included images of the front cover of the book and many of the two-page spreads (but we wish we could have photographed the entire book, because there are so many great images!). While this book is not quite as nice as some of the earlier RKO ones, because there are not as many two-page full-color spreads, but that is offset by having King Kong and The Most Dangerous Game! We have only pictured a small portion of the book, but many of the ones that are not pictured are just as nice as the ones that ARE pictured! Note that even though this campaign book was sent to many theater owners, it appears that very few examples have survived. I have been a collector of campaign books and related material for many years, and I know for certain that this campaign book is extremely rare! Note that studios almost always spent far more money preparing campaign books than they did preparing movie posters (often hiring very talented and well-known illustration artists), because campaign books directly benefited the studio in getting theaters to book the movies, whereas posters more benefited the theaters, rather than the studios (although of course, what was good for the theaters was ultimately good for the studios as well). Also note that, as was often the case with these campaign books, some of the movies advertised were either never made, had their titles changed before they were released, or were made with different casts than those announced in the campaign book (I do not have time to research the titles in this campaign book to see which had changed titles or were never made, but if anyone has more information about any of these, please e-mail us and we will post it here)! Finally, note that campaign books in general are extremely rare, and the best of them have often sold for hundreds of dollars, and in the case of the very finest, thousands of dollars! NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. Important Added Info: Note that RKO prepared this campaign book in the usual way, in softcover version. But they also chose to have it printed in a special hardcover edition that has foil covers and the first two pages in the front and back of the book are also foil, and are completely blank. It is extremely likely that these hardcover versions were solely made for important executives, and perhaps for major theater owners, because we have never seen this book before, and the one we are auctioning has the name "G. Ralph Branton" printed on the front cover, so obviously, this was his personalized copy! Some quick research shows that Mr. Branton was a longtime movie executive, which reinforces what we wrote above. It is very clear that this hardcover version is FAR more rare than the regular softcover version. Condition: good. The foil covers and the blank foil interior pages have much scuffing. There are stains at the spine of the interior foil pages. The entire book received water damage that was in the bottom right of all pages (a triangle area approximately 3" x 3"), and across the bottom 1" or so of all pages, with a slight amount down the right border and approximately 1/2" across the top border. None of the interior pages are stuck together, and while all are rippled in that bottom right corner and around the edges, the major effect of the water staining is some light red staining in the bottom right of bottom left corner of the affected pages. This is true of the 2-page King Kong spread, where there is slight red staining in the bottom left corner of the left page and in the bottom right corner of the right page (see our images). We leave it to the bidders to decide how important these above defects are. Of course, it would be great if one could find an example of this book in better condition, but we have never seen another hardcover example of it, so it might be a very long wait! Learn More about condition grades 
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