eMoviePoster.com

What are the objects in the corners of some images? Learn More

Paramount 15th Birthday Group campaign book, sent to theater owners to encourage them to show Paramount movies. The book includes many pages with one and two-page spreads on Paramount's upcoming movies. Some of the movies listed include "Metropolis" (Fritz Lang's masterpiece, which Paramount co-produced with Germany's UFA, which is why it is advertised here; interestingly, Paramount would also include an ad for Metropolis in their 1927-28 campaign book, and that ad is a completely different full-color ad from this one!), "Aloma of the South Seas", "Fine Manners" (Gloria Swanson), "Harold Lloyd" (titles to be announced), "Glorfying the American Girl" (Ziegfeld), "New York", "Old Ironsides", "The College Flirt" (Bebe Daniels), "The Show Off" (Louise Brooks), "Casey at the Bat", "The Mysterious Rider" (Zane Grey), "Sorrows of Satan" (D.W. Griffith), "The Quarterback" (Richard Dix), "The Wedding March" (Erich von Stroheim), "So's Your Old Man" and "The Wild Man of Borneo" (W.C. Fields), "The Greatest Show on Earth" (P.T. Barnum), "Beau Geste", and many more! Note that many of the pages have signed artwork, by many different (quite talented) artists (and the art for "Glorifying the American Girl" is by legendary pinup Alberto Vargas, and it is signed "Albert Vargas"). Note that, because Paramount at this time was one of the very leading studios, and had many of the biggest name stars and directors, and also had lots of money to spend, they made lots of great movies this year, and they also created really wonderful artwork campaigns for them in this campaign book! We have included images of the cover of the book and many of the two-page spreads (and we did not make a big effort to find the best ones!). 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 some of the movies listed in this book may never have been made at all, and some had their titles changed, and some had their cast or director changed! 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 this is one of the greatest of campaign books! Obviously, Paramount recognized that they had an incredible lineup this year (the highlight being Metropolis, but so many other wonderful movies), and they made an incredible book. But they did something else that was amazing. They printed the book in two different sizes (likely the bigger size was sent to the best theaters). The smaller size measured 9 1/4" x 12 1/4", and had 84 pages, and the larger size measured 12 1/4" x 16", and had 92 pages! In addition, they made several deluxe versions of the larger size. Note: We have 12 images of the campaign books in this set, but due to a space limitation, only TEN of the 12 images are displayed above. However, there is a "supersize" link to the right of those images that lets you see the other 2.

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775