They reflect our society of the times. They’re bigger than life, slices of fantasy, red-hot pokers of social injustices, Romances, Westerns, Sci-fi, Drama, Action-every possible genre is represented.
They permeate everything we do, see, purchase and often represent or influence our choices and decisions about life.
First and foremost movies are a business. Studios-big and small-hope their movies make a profit.
Whether a film is a blockbuster or a bust they all require advertising.
When movies first started advertising venues were few and far between. This forced movie studios and theaters to devise clever and attention grabbing advertisement.
That was no more apparent than in newspaper advertising.
Author John McElwee and GoodKnight Books present ‘The Art Of Selling Movies’ that explores in great depth how newspaper and print advertising (coupled with clever theater and drive-in décor and events) sold movies to the public.
Discover how the advertising transformed over the decades up until the 1960s when it took a slow and painful fall to almost total obscurity.
Print advertising for movies has dwindled to a trickle, replaced by technical mumbo-jumbo on the web, TV and even at the movies themselves.
The book make for a fascinating read as you get to explore the ingenious and clever ways movies were promoted. Factual and historically laced text is complemented by black and white and color reproductions of print advertising and movie displays.