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RKO Radio Pictures 1937-38 ("RKO Radio is ready for your biggest show year"), the 1937 spiral-bound campaign book sent to theater owners to encourage them to show RKO movies. The book includes one and two-page spreads on RKO's upcoming movies and top stars. Some of the movies and stars listed include "Stage Door" (Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn), "Music for Madame" (Joan Fontaine), "Perfect Harmony" (Charles Boyer and Ginger Rogers), "Irene" (Ginger Rogers), a great full-color ad for Walt Disney's "Mickey Mouse" and "Silly Symphonies", Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin, Miriam Hopkins, Barbara Stanwyck, Wheeler & Woolsey, George O'Brien, and many more! There are a number of artwork ads, some of which are signed, and some of which are not, and quite a few are especially distinctive, including a great one for Wheeler and Woolsey, which looks sort of like a combination of Hirschfeld and Kapralik art. 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!). 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! 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)! 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). 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 we have only once before auctioned this campaign book, and that example had water staining, which caused a number of the pages to be stuck together, including some of the best ads, and yet it still sold for $118! Also note that RKO did something unusual in the printing of this specific campaign book! They apparently realized that many theater owners liked to look at the ads, and lay the book flat, and in previous years, they must have gotten complaints that the books cracked at the spine, because for this year, they printed the book with a spiral binding included, which means that the book could be completely opened flat without the slightest damage to the book! Apparently, this was too expensive to do, because I have only ever seen it on a couple of other campaign books, but it really does let you much better look at and appreciate this book without fear of damaging it!

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