taglines – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: Selling the New-Look Paul Newman – Pressbook for “The Hustler” (1961)

While Twentieth Century Fox head honcho Spyros Skouras initially balked at the title, with its connotations of prostitution, by the time the movie appeared that subject matter was less contentious thanks to critical and commercial big hitters Butterfield 8 (1960) and Never on Sunday (1960). Given that the idea of a movie set in a poolroom was going to be a hard sell to a female audience, despite the marquee lure of Paul Newman, the studio gave marketeers free rein to pitch it as a raw, sex-oriented drama.

There’s little sign of a pool cue in some of the artwork. Instead, we have Paul Newman lustily nuzzling Piper Laurie’s neck or bosom. The taglines promise something far removed from a sports picture.

“It probes the stranger…the pick up…the savage realities,” screamed the main tagline. Another tempted with: “It delves without compromise into the inner loneliness and hunger that lie deep within us all!” In other words we’re talking about sex, not love, and casual sex at that, the world of the one-night stand between consenting adults for whom marriage is the last thing on their minds. “The word for Robert Rossen’s The Hustler is prim-i-tive” suggested out of control lust.

Fast Eddie Felson (Newman) has “the animal instinct.” Sarah (Piper Laurie) has a “bottle, two glasses and a man’s razor always in her room.” Bert (George C. Scott) is on the look-out for the “sucker to skin alive.”

Those images which did show a cue and pool balls did not suggest an august sport like football or baseball, not with a tagline like “he was a winner, he was a loser, he was a hustler.”

With such talented actors to hand, the Pressbook wasn’t short of good stories relating to the actual movie rather than the kind of snippets that might appeal to an editor on a slow news day. So we learn that Piper Laurie continually limped, Method-style, around on the set. “When I limp in the picture, I don’t want to act it. It’s something that has to be a part of me, something of which I am no longer conscious, apart from its being a physical defect. I must be able to limp as if I had a bad foot from birth.”

Laurie had made so few pictures that her name wouldn’t be on any director’s wanted list and what she was best known for – ingénue roles when a contract player for Universal (who gave out that she bathed in milk to keep her skin soft) opposite the likes of Tony Curtis – wouldn’t have inspired confidence. Robert Rossen might well have spotted her in two Emmy-nominated performances in successive years including Days of Wine and Roses (1958), but instead said he remembered her for “a sensitive characterization” from a stage production of Rosemary.

Ames Billiards Academy had once been a Chinese restaurant so boasted a balcony. This was unseen in the picture but allowed director Robert Rossen to shoot from widely varied overhead angles. The crew took over the Manhattan Bus Terminal for a day and a night. A row of lunch booths was constructed in front of the existing lunch counter. “It looked so real,” we are told, “that passers-by sat down and waited for their orders to be taken.” A nice story, and the kind often furnished by Pressbook journos, but rather fanciful, since it would be obvious what with the crew milling around and the lights and cameras and miles of cable that this was a movie set with security posted to prevent trespassing.

Just how good a pool player was Jackie Gleason, who came to the picture with a reputation for handling a cue? Well, at one point, the affable television comedian with a top-rated show, potted 96 consecutive balls.

Paul Newman plays the iconic hero as a “figure cut from the fabric of our time.” He had a firm grasp of the character. “With him it’s a question of commitment. He is so wrapped up in his drive to win and be somebody that he has no time to give of himself that which others need. It is a disease of our time, both the ambition and the isolation. I want him to be understood.”

Needless to say there was no mention of author Walter Tevis. That wasn’t so unusual in the make-up of Pressbooks, but if the marketeers these days were looking for something to write about the eclectic Tevis would be prime. He followed up The Hustler, published in 1959, four years later with sci fi The Man Who Fell to Earth, filmed in 1976 with David Bowie. A sequel to The Hustler, The Color of Money, was directed in 1986 by Martin Scorsese with Newman reprising his role and managing Tom Cruise. Tevis also wrote The Queen’s Gambit, turned into an acclaimed television mini-series in 2020 with Anya Taylor-Joy.

Behind the Scenes: Selling Judy Garland – “A Child Is Waiting” (1963) Pressbook

This proved the impossible sell. And Judy Garland was no help. The star was well past her best and if she wasn’t singing it was difficult to attract audience interest. So beyond her name above the title, United Artists did very ittle to use her presence as a distinct marketing tool.

Just like I Thank a Fool the previous year, the subject matter of A Child is Waiting did not lend itself to cross promotion. That did not prevent marketeers doing their level best. However, it was a rather bold suggestion to assume banks would be a natural port of call even under the guise that every child was waiting for their parents to start a savings account to see them through college.

The title seemed to incite temporary madness in the marketing department. How about this for a tie-in approach to a toy department? “A child is waiting for the most exciting game ever devised – Monopoly.”

Groups most likely to respond were identified as psychiatrists, teachers and PTA members but cinemas were warned to avoid giving the “impression that the film is a clinical or documentary one.”

By far the easiest avenue for promotion was a book tie-in. Popular Library had issued a paperback novelization by Abby Mann of his original screenplay with stars Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland on the cover and at the very least that would receive window displays in bookstores and on the carousels of drugstores.

Also limited were the number of taglines on a poster. In those days a movie could be advertised with as many as a dozen different taglines appealing to different market sectors. United Artists stuck to three main taglines with two subsidiary ones. Sometimes both subsidiaries were on the same poster, other times only one.

“Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland ignite a motion picture that gives so much…goes so far…looks so deep into the feelings of man and woman.” This alternated with “Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland take an untouched theme – and make it touching and unforgettable” and “Only Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland could take this untold story…and make your heart tell it over and over again.”

The subsidiary taglines ran to: “If this were flesh of your flesh – would you hold it close…Protect it…Love it…Or would you turn your back and run” and “A child can be so many things, warmth…love…laughter…and sometimes a child can be heartbreak!”

Mainly what marketeers were asking of Lancaster and Garland was a miracle, as if their names alone could drag audiences into theaters.

Even though the Pressbook was relatively small – eight pages A3 – two-thirds of the space was allocated to repeating the adverts, just in different sizes.

The section normally aimed at getting editors to carry snippets of news about the movie provided scant material. There was little to catch the journalistic eye, nothing new about either of the stars, just a rehash of careers. Usually, cinema managers would scour this section looking for a titbit to offer to a reporter, an unusual hobby, something odd that occurred during filming, details about the location or an element that went wrong during shooting.

If you were relying on this Pressbook to fuel demand from exhibitors, you would be sorely disappointed.

Behind the Scenes: Do As You’re Told: Selling Marlon Brando in “One-Eyed Jacks (1961): The Pressbook

Pressbooks/Marketing Manuals were intended as guides for the better promotion of a picture. At best, they were viewed as suggestive, devised in the spirit of cooperation. Paramount took a different perspective for One-Eyed Jacks. It laid down the law. This was “do as you’re told” under a new guise.

In the first place, it was an uncommonly sumptuous Pressbook, the distinctive cover printed on thick paper. It was larger, too, than the standard A2.

But at the heart of the marketing was almost a command for cinemas to follow a stringent campaign of advertisements running for seven days prior to showing the picture. This was contained in an immeasurably large section, a double fold-out running to 46 inches wide by 19 inches high. In other words so huge it could not help but catch the eye.

Unusually, the campaign was a before-and-after promotion. Of the seven days delineated, five were in advance of opening, the final two post-opening. Cinemas could choose between four sizes of campaign. Size was measured in “lines” – the unit of measurement rather than inches employed by newspapers. The more lines, the bigger the advert. Thus, Campaign AA was intended to run for 2,700-2,800 lines with the biggest advert reserved for opening day. Campaign 1 was set for 1,900-2,100 lines; Campaign 2 for 800-900 lines; and Campaign 3 for 550-650 lines. The last two campaigns were limited to three days.

The tagline for the opening Advert ran: “The motion picture that starts its own tradition of greatness” with the subsidiary “Marlon Brando’s most brilliant performance as Johnny Rio, the wildest one-eyed jack ever flung into the game of life. Here is love and courage, sin and violence – in one of the most explosively dramatic excitement in screen history!” In the AA campaign this was twice as wide (14 inches) as it was high.

The Second Day’s advert was much smaller – 9.5 inches wide and 4.5 inches high – and while keeping the main tagline dispensed entirely with the subsidiary.

Day Three was the opposite – the biggest advert yet – at 36 inches wide by 9 inches high. There was a new tagline: “A new experience in excitement…A new height in greatness!” and the subsidiary was just the first sentence of the original.

Day Four was bigger again – 40 inches wide by 8 inches high. The same tagline and subsidiary as Day Three with the addition of: “In vengeance he taught the enemy’s daughter the ways of love. Now the dawn would come up like gunfire.”

Opening Day (Day Five) was the biggest of them all – 57 inches wide by 9.5 inches high. Same tagline and subsidiary as Day Four but with a different addition: “His enemy’s daughter clinging to him in the night…this was just the beginning of his vengeance.”

Day Six (First Day After Opening) was remarkably small – 4 inches by 2 inches – literally just a reminder and carrying only the main tagline. The Final Day was 11 inches by 5.5 inches and with the same tagline.

Anticipating success, the marketeers had supplied adverts that announced “Held over for a 2^nd big week.”

Whether cinemas signed up for such a promotional exercise they could be in no doubt about the studio’s commitment. Claiming it was the most publicized picture in recent history, Paramount pointed to articles in Life, Look, Coronet, Argosy, McCalls, Newsweek, Pageant, Glamour, Seventeen, Mademoiselle, American Weekly, Parade, Woman’s Day, This Week and the New York Times Magazine.

Music was a better cross-promotion prospect than anything else with both a soundtrack album and a single on the market. In addition, piano duo Ferrante and Teicher had recorded an instrumental. Two songs from the film were published in sheet music format.

Unusually, presumably assuming the movie had received all the editorial coverage it required – some or all of the articles run in the magazines mentioned would have been syndicated to local and national newspapers – the Pressbook was devoid of the usual run of star biography or journalistic snippets.

Behind the Scenes: Selling “Zulu” (1964) – The Pressbook

“Dwarfing the Mightiest! Towering over the Greatest!” wasn’t just the movie’s tagline. It could have easily been used to describe the Pressbook. This folded out into a colossal 40 inches wide by 20 inches high, one of the biggest pressbooks ever produced.

The marketing team produced an impressive list of ideas. Cinema managers were urged to get war correspondents and war heroes involved and to blow up photos of the Victoria Cross. Hanging on the name of the star was a “Baker’s Dozen” competition, inviting people to list the thirteen movies featuring Stanley Baker. Quite how they thought a promotion involving banks would go down is anybody’s guess. Especially as this was the notion: “Zulus are allowed as many wives as they want, provided they can afford to pay for them. The price ranges between six and twenty head of cattle per wife. For an interesting tie-in, get local banks to display money and other barter materials. Give them a montage of still from the picture to display.” Culturally tone-deaf doesn’t cut it.

To attract children there was a coloring-in competition and a school study guide. The movie was available in 70mm Super Technirama so there was a special advertisement linked in to that for cinema going down that route.

Other taglines included: “The supreme spectacle that had to come thundering out of the most thrilling continent!” and “These are the days and nights of fury and honor and courage and cowardice that an entire century of empire-making and film-making can never surpass!”

And in case hyperbole wasn’t enough, one of the ads spelled out the exciting details. “The Massacre of Isandlwana! The Mating Song of the Zulu Maidens! The Incredible Siege of Ishiwane! Night of the 40,000 Spears! Days That Saved a Continent! Mass Wedding of 2,000 Warriors and 2,000 Virgins! Amid the Battle’s Heat…the Flash of Passion!”

There was a seven-foot high standee and a three-foot 3D illuminated standee.

To help sell the picture to local journalists, little articles were planted that could hook an editor’s interest. For example, when director Cy Endfield glimpsed some soldiers firing their rifles left-handed, he stopped filming, because British soldiers were required to shoot right-handed. The film was shot in the shadows of the Darkensberg Mountains. The river which flowed past Rorke’s Drift was slower than it had been at the time of the battle so the course was altered and dammed to increase the flow. Out of sight of the cameras but essential to filming were the modern villages constructed to house cast and crew, stores, catering and compounds for horses and oxen.

The cast were on set at 6.30am for make-up. The Zulus spent more time in make-up than the British soldiers, as the costume department ensured every aspect of their outfits was historically correct. A total of 100lb of small colored beads was crafted by made by local women for the maidens to wear. A primitive method of making necklaces, strung together with animal sinew and rolled by hand, was employed incorporating a further 100lb of wild syringa seeds which were dyed.

The warrior loincloths of softened animal skins were made the traditional way using stones aqnd animal fat. Shields were also made from animal skin. The teeth of tigers and baboons formed their necklaces. They kept snuff in a small gourd worn round the waist. The purpose of a porcupine quill tucked into their hair was to extract thorns after a long march.

Three cameras were utilized to shoot the blaze that burned down the hospital. “Undress rehearsal” was the name given to the marriage ritual scenes of bare-breasted women.

Though Michael Caine was being touted for stardom, as far as the Pressbook was concerned he was relegated to section below Jack Hawkins, James Booth and Ulla Jacobsen who had smaller parts. The movie was a notable change for Jack Hawkins, who saw action in World War Two. Instead of playing his usual hero, he was a weakling and drunk. It was the second English-language film for Swede Jacobsen after Love Is a Ball / All This and Money Too (1963).

Behind the Scenes: “Two Weeks in Another Town” (1962)

Until a technological invention first used in Once a Thief (1965) it was impossible to shoot “day for night” without it appearing very obvious. So when director Vincente Minnelli aimed for as much verisimilitude as possible for the Rome-set drama it meant half the shoot took place at night. “Minnelli could sleep easily during the day,” recalled star Kirk Douglas (The Arrangement, 1969), “sometimes till six o’clock in the evening, but I couldn’t so there were three unpleasant weeks of night shooting and not much sleep.”

But the movie suffered, Douglas later complained, by studio interference at the editing stage. When the movie fell foul of the Production Code, change of MGM management vetoed the more salacious aspects of the movie – the worst aspects of “La Dolce Vita” including a sequence in a nightclub where guests watched an unseen sexual act. Fifteen minutes were cut including a scene that showed Cyd Charisse’s character in a more sympathetic light. In an ironic reflection of the film’s narrative, Minnelli played no part in the editing, not due to production deadlines as in the movie, but out of choice.

The actual producer John Houseman – producer of Douglas starrers The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Lust for Life (1956) though later best known as an actor in Rollerball (1975) etc – backed out of any tussle with MGM head honcho Joseph Vogel. Douglas implored Vogel and editor Margaret Booth, to no avail. Consequently, in Douglas’s opinion, the film was “emasculated.” He argued MGM had turned an “adult” picture into a “family” film. Quite how this could be squared with marketing that promised a “shocking intimate view of Rome’s international film set” (see below) was not mentioned.

Following the commercial and artistic success of Spartacus (1960), Douglas was at the peak of his career, though his last three pictures had been flops. After nabbing an Oscar for Gigi (1959), Minnelli also enjoyed a career high, and although best known for musicals like Meet Me in St Louis (1944) and An American in Paris (1951) was equally adept at drama like The Bad and the Beautiful, Lust for Life (1956) and Some Came Running (1958). But he, too, was running empty, his last three serious films – Home from the Hill (1960), All the Fine Young Cannibals (1961) and big-budget roadshow The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) coming up short at the box office.

Douglas earned $500,000 and a percentage of the profits (though none were forthcoming – it made a loss of $3 million) and top-billing. Although co-star Edward G. Robinson (Seven Thieves, 1960) appeared above the title, Douglas refused to accord female lead Cyd Charisse (Maroc 7, 1967), on one-tenth of his salary, that concession.

Douglas recalled that he build up his acting skills through wrestling. A college wrestling champ, he barnstormed across the country in a carnival, playing the cocky person reputedly from the audience who challenged the giant resident wrestler. “My job was to make the audience think he was going to murder me,” Douglas told the Pressbook/Campaign Manual. “And the way to do this was by expressions on my face. To yell out in pain would seem cowardly. But I learned a hundred and one ways of showing it through use of my eyes and the muscles in my face.”

The actor escaped serious injury when lightning, preceding one of the worst thunderstorms in a decade, struck a 200-year-old clock on the top of the church in Santa Maria Square. Four huge iron numerals were torn off and crashed to the ground, one grazing Douglas’s head.

In fact, the movie’s authenticity owed much to being filmed on the streets of Rome rather than reconstructed on the studio lot. In particular, scenes utilizing the Via Veneto, two long blocks of sidewalk cafes where the movie industry socialized, created a realistic atmosphere, especially when a hundred or so of the extra employed were actually people who would naturally populate the location. So, for example, when the script called for an opera star among the extras, casting director Guidarino Guidi used Bostonian Ann English, an opera singer studying in Rome. Among those sitting in the background at café tables were a promising young painter, a poet and a librettist.

George Hamilton (Act One, 1963), who had worked in Home from the Hill and just finished Light in the Piazza (1962) also shot in Rome, reckoned he couldn’t have been more miscast given his role called for a “funky James-Dean type.” He got the role through the influence of Betty Spiegel, wife of producer Sam, and her friend Denise Gigante, the director’s current girlfriend (later wife). Hamilton drove around in a red Ferrari costing $18,000 (ten times that at today’s prices) and, as he put it, “Italians knew how to worship” Hollywood stars.

Hamilton reckoned part of the problem of the film was that Minnelli was so “besotted with Denise that he had lost his vision.” Jumping to the defence of Cyd Charisse against a tirade from journalist Oriana Fallaci at the Venice Film Festival won Hamilton, unexpectedly, the cover of Paris-Match.

Daliah Lavi owed her career break to Douglas. As a nine-year-old in Hiffa, Israel, she struck up a friendship with the actor when he was filming The Juggler there in 1952. The actor and other stars attended her birthday party, Douglas presenting her with a ballet dress. Later a dancer and then an actress, this was her Hollywood debut. Erich von Stroheim Jr, making his movie acting debut, had his head shaved to make him appear more like his famed director father. Originally employed as an assistant director on the picture, Minnelli decided he would make a good Ravinski, the “fast-talking press agent.”

Chauvinism reared its ugly head, especially when women had to apologise for being on the receiving end. “What goes on in the minds of beautiful women when they get slapped for the cameras?” mused the editor of the Pressbook/Campaign Manual. Rossano Schiaffino’s response regarding being whacked on the behind by Douglas: “He hits hard so charmingly I didn’t mind standing up for a day of two.”

The actress proved tougher than many of her colleagues. She turned down the offer of a double for a scene in which she jumped into a lake. That might not have been such an undertaking had the sequence been shot in the hot Italian sunshine at the height of summer. But the MGM studio tank on Lot 3 was a different – and much colder – proposition. “She shrugged off her stunt with the remark that heated pools are unknown where she comes from.”

Irwin Shaw, author of the best-selling source novel, wasn’t too upset at the way the movie turned out. “An author who wants complete control of his work on the screen is in something of a cleft stick,” he observed. “He can either go into production himself, which is often neither possible nor desirable, or he can refuse to sell his work to the movies. Minor deviations in screen conception don’t send me reeling back a stricken man. I think I’m sufficiently realistic to know that even in the most enlightened films there must be some compromise if they are to be a success. What does matter very strongly to me is that the theme of the novel…should come over on the screen.”

Music trivia: Kirk Douglas was the first big Hollywood star to perform “The Twist” on screen and the song “Don’t Blame Me” was reprised from The Bad and the Beautiful, sung here sung by Leslie Uggams and in the older film by Peggy King.

French designer Pierre Balmain created the dresses, allowing a marketing campaign to be built around those stores which supplied his clothes. TWA, which flew directly to Rome, was suggested to cinema owners as an ideal tie-in. Not only did New American Library issue a new movie tie-in paperback/soft cover but cinemas were encouraged to build a campaign around a director, many of whose films would be well-known to audiences. The marketeers also had material to tie in with stores retailing music, women’s sportswear, menswear, men’s sweaters, beauty and hair styling.

The 16-page A3 Pressbook/Campaign Manual offered a selection of advertisements and taglines. The key advert tagline ran “Another town…another kind of love…one he couldn’t resist…the other he couldn’t escape.” But there were alternatives: “Only in Rome could this story be filmed/Every town has women like Carlotta and Veronica and the kind of man they both want!/From Irwin Shaw’s great best seller.”

Or you could opt for: “Irwin Shaw’s shocking intimate view of Rome’s international film set. The world only sees the glamor. This is the drama behind it!.” Or: “Only in Rome could this story happen. Only in Rome could this story be filmed!”

SOURCES: Kirk Douglas, The Ragman’s Son (Simon and Schuster paperback, 2010) p342-344; George Hamilton, Don’t Mind If I Do (JR Book hardback 2009)pp 155-159; Pressbook/ Campaign Manual, Two Weeks in Another Town (MGM).

Behind the Scenes: Selling that Old-Time Religion – The Pressbook for “Elmer Gantry” (1960)

The one element that every movie requires – advance publicity – was denied Elmer Gantry. Shooting took place on a closed set with all visitors carefully screened. Only six actors were given access to a complete screenplay while a general synopsis was denied distributors and cinema owners.

Over 30 years after publication of the source novel by Sinclair Lewis, its contents were considered so volatile and contentious that, rather than be pre-judged by the industry on expectations of what the movie may contain, director Richard Brooks took to issuing baffling statements such as describing Elmer Gantry as “The All-American Boy.”

Even the 12-page A3 Pressbook/Campaign Book, the prime source of marketing contact between studio and theater owner, was niggardly in the extreme. Narrative detail was limited to “the story of a spellbinding evangelist” rather anything approaching a synopsis.

Stuck with how to woo an audience in advance, United Artists fell back on a teaser campaign comprising six separate ads. The sequence was as follows: “Elmer Gantry Is Coming!” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming!” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! starring Burt Lancaster”/ “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! Starring Jean Simmons” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons”. The last advert was coupled with a quote from the New York Times with the final salvo the same ad repeated but with a different quote from the New York Post.

The New York campaign – in those days a movie might take a few months to spread out from initial opening locale to other cities allowing promotional ideas that worked in one area to be publicized – relied on the first two teasers. But they went out in saturation – in railroad stations, subways, buses and race tracks with additional displays on poles, stilts and drums.

The major print advertising onslaught was led by two bold large-sized adverts intended to run facing each other on the same page. “Bless Him! Tens of thousands of believers shouted his praises!” was accompanied by the iconic illustration, Bible in hand, of Burt Lancaster. “Damn Him! Three women damned his soul” showed Lancaster grappling with Jean Simmons with Shirley Jones and Patti Paige in the background in more revealing clothing. But these two elements could also be fitted into the one ad, as shown above.

There were nearly a dozen full-size advertisements with a range of taglines. In all Lancaster is shown in the same pose with the Bible while Simmons is presented clutching a Bible and gazing heavenward. Shirley Jones appears in even skimpier outfits.

As was standard at the time, taglines could stand on their own or mix and match. Snippets for other ads were edited from this main ad: “Nobel Prize Winner Sinclair Lewis’ Bold Novel Of Passion And Damnation Bursts Full-Life Across The Screen! If there was a dollar to be made – Gantry would make it…If there was a soul to save -Gantry would save it…”

“Sinner! Elmer Gantry Wants You!” ran another ad backed up by “Are you ready, sinner? He wants you to know all about heaven…but not about his whiskey and his women!” Other adverts were fashioned from taglines like: “You’re all sinners…you’ll all burn in Hell! Tell ‘em Gantry…save ‘em from sin…lead ‘em to salvation…tell ‘em about everything…but not about your whiskey and your women!” Or included: “From the book that shook a nation with its sledgehammer theme…from a Nobel Prize-winning author…comes the raging story of a man who used the Holy Bible and broke every rule in it!”

Rarely have so many exclamation marks been employed in so short a space, but equally, rarely has a marketing team encapsulated so vividly a movie with a difficult subject matter, all tease and no substance.

Out-with the usual marketing routes, the marketing team were able to take advantage of various ancillary promotional opportunities. Dell organized a massive paperback book tie-in in thousands of bookstores and newsstands, Burt Lancaster dominating the front cover with Simmons and Jones pictured on the back. Music retailers also played their part, United Artists Records launching the Andre Previn soundtrack album while Mercury released an album of revival tuness sung by Patti Paige, who made her movie debut in the film. With record sales exceeding 35 million, Paige’s host of fan clubs were a natural target for contact and if there was none in the local vicinity cinema managers were encouraged to start one by the simple device of setting up “a giant postcard in the lobby” and inviting fans to attach their signatures.

Department stores were called upon to run 1920s Fashion Shows.

Anniversaries, so important today, helped out. It was 30 years since Sinclair Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize, the first American author so recognized, and 1960 was the 75^th anniversary of his birth. But the promoters also played upon the book’s initial controversy, hoping to re-ignite the debate as a promotional tool.

With the bulk of the Pressbook given over to advertising and promotional ideas, barely little more than a single page was devoted to the stars, but even then there was little of the usual soft-focus puff pieces. The kind of journalistic nuggets that might help an editor fill a vacant space were limited. All we learned of Burt Lancaster, who had worked with Richard Brooks before on Brute Force (1947), was that – as if this was a mark of respect – he agreed to read the screenplay twice. Of Jean Simmons it was pointed out she had played an evangelist in Guys and Dolls (1955) but the Pressbook erroneously states that she played a nun in Black Narcissus (1947); in fact, she was a beggar girl. Arthur Kennedy is mentioned in relation to his Oscar nominations.

Shirley Jones was the most likely to attract column inches as a result of explaining how she made the transition from more demure roles in Oklahoma (1955) and April Love (1957). “It feels just fine – now,” she told the Pressbook interviewer. “At first, well, I really don’t wear much except what you see. A slip, these shoes with the green frills, and slinky black silk wrap-around that’s transparent.

“Usually, I walk into a movie set wearing my bustle and petticoats and some of the boys turn round as I go by and say, ‘Hiya, Shirl.’ But when I walked in dressed like this the fellows all just turned round and didn’t say anything. They never turned round like that before. Well, not really. It did take some getting used to after provoking the big brother reactions for so long.

“But I guess every girl dreams of being a conversation stopper some day. This is my chance. Of course, I am embarrassed sometimes…or maybe it’s inhibited.”

Brooks rewrote the script eight times before “he felt he had captured the essence” of Gantry. Most of the scenes were filmed on sound stages or adapted from an assortment of 1920s vintage streets from the backlots of other studios. The tabernacle was constructed out of an ice skating rink on a beach pier in Santa Monica.

Art director Edward Carerre spent $6,500 erecting and furnishing a genuine evangelist tent rented from Canvas Specialty. It was slightly trimmed to fit onto two combined sound stages on the Columbia lot. A total of 400 benches each measuring eight- or ten-feet were constructed by studio carpenters to provide seating for 1,000 – the tent accommodated another 2,000 standing. The stage required 500lb of imported sawdust and banners 30ft long were specially made to incorporate Biblical quotations. Where most movies required a maximum of 15-20 sets, Elmer Gantry boasted 62.

The climactic scene, conflagration in a tent, took five days to film. Soaking the set in kerosene would not supply the instant flash of flame the director demanded. So, instead, he turned to old film footage, including some frames from It Happened One Night (1934). “We’re burning film to make film,” quipped Brooks.

Selling James Bond: Part Two – Pressbook for “Thunderball” (1965)

Wooing the audience was no longer required after Goldfinger (1964) had broken the box office bank. Thunderball, claimed producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, was “the hottest merchandise campaign you have ever handled” as the first four pages of the Pressbook went to show. No longer was there a retailer free-for-all with companies which had nothing to do with endorsements jumping on the Bondwagon.

The potential for promotional tie-in was so high that retailers and manufacturers were willing to spend a fortune to become involved and, in so doing, provide a massive spread of free advertising. Colgate had an entire line of toiletries for men including after shave, shaving lotion, deodorant, and talcum powder, each item branded with the 007 logo with Colgate investing in a massive advertising campaign aimed not just as men but the women who buy for men.

Shoe-wear manufacturer Endicott Johnson set up a nationwide contest through the Montgomery Ward chain of stores. Customers were invited to participate in a free sweepstake and store managers were encouraged to become active in promoting Thunderball at sales points throughout their shops.

Toy manufactuer A.C. Gilbert had devised a James Bond 007 Road Race which would be promoted in the biggest marketing campaign in Sears Roebuck history to 60 million homes. The catalog would feature a five-page spread. “Beatles fans will be reached through a TV buy that Sears has made advertising the Road Race on ABC-TV’s Beatles Cartoon Show.” Adlers Slacks was the exclusive licensee for James Bond 007 Boys Slacks – with two hidden pockets. Revere Knitting Mills was promoting four sweaters “as worn by James Bond.”

Other licensed products included The Official James Bond Secret Agent 007 Shooting Attache Case, Harry Diamond sports shorts with the Bond logo, Allison tee-shirts and sweat shorts, bubble gum and trading cards from the Philadelphia Chewing Gum Corp, and a walkie-talkie set from Gabriel. In addition, Weldon was selling “007 Pyjamas – Go to Bed Dressed to Kill,” Voit manufactured underwater equipment, Spatz advertised its trenchcoats in Playboy, Trimount clothing range included items for men and boys, and Milton Bradley had four board games and six jigsaw puzzles.

So for the first time in history, exhibitors had to do nothing to attract customers, no zany attention-grabbing gimmicks required, because the massive cross-promotional campaign devised by the producers ensured that potential moviegoers could hardly go anywhere without coming across something alerting customers to the movie.

All this was in addition to the normal standard promotional tools such as original soundtrack album and paperback movie tie-in. Tom Jones had released a single and six other artists had brought out instrumental singles and albums. Trade magazine Cash Box noted that the Bond name signified “something big in the worlds of film and music…many labels have themed LPs after the valuable James Bond Agent 007 image.” Signet had brought out the movie tie-in paperback with artwork on front and back covers.

The bulk of the Pressbook was taken up with advertising and information about the licensed products leaving just three pages for the editorial section. By now of course Sean Connery was a big box office star so he received considerable coverage, explaining that he had been chosen for Dr No as a result of a London newspaper poll. There was space too for the movie’s playgirls – former Miss France Claudine Auger, villainess Luciana Paluzzi best known to American audiences through the Five Fingers television series, Molly Peters and a return for Martine Beswick who had appeared in From Russia with Love.

Not surprisingly, the Aston Martin DB5, which had caused a sensation in Goldfinger, also returned. The customised version cost $45,000 (worth $400,000 today), compared to the usual price of $13,000, and came complete with twin Browning machine guns, tire slashers, revolving number plates, radar screen, ejector seat, and retractable bullet proof shields.

Selling the Obvious: Pressbook for “Kisses for My President” (1964)

Fred MacMurray doesn’t actually wear a woman’s hat in this picture, he just imagines himself wearing one. But that image was all it took for the marketeers to do it to death. Warner Brothers clearly believed the picture was going to be a winner and produced a whopping 32-page A3 Pressbook (double the normal size) in a bid to persuade exhibitors of its potential. That included a blockbusting two dozen adverts. Although in the 1960s as this series on Pressbooks has shown, movies were not sold just on the basis of one core image, but even so a limit was generally called when the number of options reached eight or nine.

On top of that, the Pressbook writers provided interesting copy for editors who might file a snipper or two around the movie’s launch. Arlene Dahl, for instance, contended that a large proportion of the most prominent women in history – Salome, Cleopatra, Elizabeth I – had, like her, red hair. Writing a syndicated beauty column, Dahl also offered advice on wearing perfume.

Eli Wallach put forward a convincing argument for remaining a supporting actor. “Get your name above the title,” he opined, “and if you make a hit you have to play the same thing over and over – the actor gets sick of the monotony and sooner or later so does the public.” Polly Bergen, who based her screen wardrobe on Jackie Kennedy, argued that ordinary women were well turned out in America whereas abroad that was the preserve of the wealthy. Starting out in Wisconsin Fred MacMurray scraped paint off cars for $20 a week.

To get exhibitors in the mood to sell a political comedy, the Pressbook offered eight “punchy and funny” spoof campaign posters, suggesting they be positioned in door panels or along one wall in a straight line and on a voting booth in the lobby. Expanding on the concept in their local area, exhibitors were encourage to recruit an important woman “holding some office” who could be corralled into acting as a “president” embarking on an imitation tour backed up by supporters carrying placards.

Silent screen star Carmel Myers, who manufactured a fragrance line for men, was enrolled by Warner Brothers for a nationwide tour in part talking about the subject that is key to the movie’s subplot – “can a beautiful and glamorous woman be a successful business executive?” A high-flying vamp of the silent era, Myers starred in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and later had her own short-lived television series before entering the beauty business.

Except twice, each of the other myriad adverts stuck with a photo of MacMurray wearing a hat. The taglines, running on the theme of what happened to the female President’s male consort, varied only slightly. “When a woman becomes President, what happens when her poor husband becomes First Lady?” / “President arrives in New York today, leaves First Lady home with knitting”/ “Women rise, men revolt, everybody cheer”

Inevitably, advertising focused on politics. “Republicans and Democrats agree this is the funniest picture you’ll ever see” / “First male First Lady takes Washington by storm” / “Is America prepared for the first woman president and her First Lady?

Some taglines took a different approach. “This year a woman will be elected President of U.S….and a man will be elected to the Comedy Hall of Fame” /”Vote the sdtraight ticket (the movie ticket, we mean” / “When you cast your next vote for President, be sure to do it at (this) theatre” / My father is the hostess with the moistest.”

Selling James Bond – Pressbook for “From Russia with Love” (1963)

United Artists had two concepts in mind when it came to marketing the second in the James Bond series From Russia with Love (1963). The first, and quite audacious notion, was to tell anyone who hadn’t seen Dr No (1962) much they had missed. Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman reckoned 69 million moviegoers across the world had seen Dr No, but America only accounted for a small fraction of that total. So their mission was to ensure that American audiences did not miss out again on the “throbbing world of hot-blooded excitement.”

To target that marketplace, the adverts were more like a relaunch, not a sequel, and the taglines began with “Meet James Bond, Secret Agent 007.” And then, “For those unlucky few who missed Dr No…You are unprepared for the sophisticated mayhem and polished lovemaking. The James Bond bug has not bitten you. But take heart! There is still time to jump on the Bond bandwagon with the second James Bond adventure From Russia with Love. See it and we guarantee – you will be hooked for good.” The final exhortation: “Don’t you think it’s time you met secret agent 007?”

But of course James Bond already had some kind of fan club in the States. “James Bond Is Back!” screamed the alternative advertisements. For both, however, the emphasis was on the new. “His incredible new women! His new incredible enemies! His new incredible adventures!”

“Target: the unkillable James Bond 007. Blast him! Seduce him! Bomb him! Strangle him!” The tone of the adverts suggested something entirely new. While heroes in thrillers could expect to face danger at every turn, and while a romance might sweeten the pot, there would not be a selection of alluring scantily-attired women. “For those who saw Dr No, consider yourself fortunate. Now you are prepared for the further fantastic adventures of that master of intrigue and women, secret agent 007 James Bond, join him in his new thriller From Russia with Love.”

To whet the appetite of local newspapermen there was a host of snippets. Oxford University had organized an 007 Society whose members included three lords and the heir to one of the the country’s largest department stores. While James Bond never uses a Windsor knot in his ties, Sean Connery does. Ian Fleming’s Bond novels had sold 30 million copies including six million of From Russia with Love. Four Istanbul mosques featured in the new film as well as an underground cistern a millennium old.

Beauty queens were always a good bet for coverage – Miss Universe runner-up Daniela Bianchi won the role of James Bond’s girlfriend after a screen test and former Miss Israel Aliza Gur and former Miss Jamaica Martine Beswick played the fighting gypsy girls. Lotte Lenya was married to Kurt Weill who, with Berthold Brecht, wrote The Threepenny Opera. Sean Connery was fitted out by his own Savile Row tailor Anthony Sinclair and during filming got through ten customized shirts, eight suits, two top coats and a dress suit.

Highly sought-after these days in the memorabilia market are the door panels – measuring 20 inches x 60 inches – which exhibitors would stick to lobby doors but which could also be utilized as displays in stores. Signet brought out a movie tie-in paperback which came with its own promotional material. As there were already other books in the series, booksellers would be inclined to set up a Bond display. As well as the John Barry original soundtrack album, other artists recording material from the film included Matt Monro, Jackie Gleason, Kenny Ball, Al Caiola and Si Zetner, all creating promotional tools.

“Bondmanship” was the overall name given to lifestyle items worn by Bond or which he might wear so tie-ups with fashion stores and retailers were encouraged “no direct endorsement is necessary.” So, for example, restaurants were encouraged to offer “ a menu good enough for James Bond.” It didn’t matter that Bond did not wear a manufacturer’s shoes, ties or suits in the film, just that he might wear them if they were of sufficient quality.

The marketeers came up with a simple stunt: send a set of keys to a newspaper, turn up the next day with a dispatch box handcuffed to your wrist, open it and find inside various promotional items. Or the keys don’t open the case and you need to send for a locksmith. Either way it was important to have a photographer to hand.

Selling The Rat Pack: Pressbook for “Robin and the 7 Hoods” (1964)

Warner Brothers pushed the boat out for Robin and the 7 Hoods with this lavish Pressbook. Apart from roadshows, most pressbooks of the era were around 16-pages A3. But this stretched to 28 pages with a tremendous range of advertisements, taglines and tie-ups plus, easier to accommodate from the exhibitor’s perspective, a healthy number of relatively straightforward marketing suggestions. On top of that, always a great incentive for cinema managers to rack their brains for good promotional ideas, the studio was offering seven cash prizes worth a total of $1,500 – about $14,000 today – for the best individual campaigns as well as a “special bonus prize” of the golf clubs used by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Bing Crosby for the most original stunt.

With Pressbooks popping through a cinema manager’s door at the rate of one or two or three a week – dependent on how often a picture house changed its program – this one would certainly have made an impact, not so much from its size, but its commitment to the exhibitor. Most Pressbooks began either with information on the stars and the filming or with the advertisements and there was a sense of exhibitors being called upon to fit in with a pre-conceived campaign. Warner Brothers was not the first studio to go down the prize-giving route as a means of attracting attention, but in making the competition the first item on the promotional agenda – two of the first four pages were devoted to it – it certainly ensured it was high priority.

Following the competition came four pages of suggestions for gimmicks, stunts and tie-ins. WB had already tied-up with the The Antique Automobile Club of America and its members were being encouraged to lend out their vehicles to any movie theater planning a stunt. Exhibitors were told that car owners were “pleased to show them off.” There were over 100 chapters/branches of the Club so no shortage of eager participants. A parade of old-time cars in the town or a rally outside the cinema or even a race was guaranteed to attract publicity.

The Roaring 20s was another concept easily adopted – flapper fashions, the Charleston being performed outside the theatre or a dance competition, or girls dressed up in the outfits of the day strolling around town “carrying phonographs and camp stools; at busy intersections they can sit down and play one of the Robin tunes.” Reward posters could be put up for famous gangsters of the speakeasy period, with photographs of the film’s characters included. A jazz parade was another possibility complete with straw hats and blazers. Setting up a gambling den was another suggestion using “actual gambling equipment captured by the police.”

And all this was before exhibitors could let fly with ideas based on the archery motif since “the words Robin Hood and archery and practically interchangeable.” Archery contests could be staged in a sports store, park, shopping mall or in front of the cinema. Robin Hood hats made of simulated felt with a feather sticking out – or bullet-riddled – were available at a low cost and ideal for giving away to children and to be worn by ushers and other staff as well as employees in other organisations participating in any promotion. Or just handed out to a local restaurant.

On top of that, since this Rat Pack picture was actually a denoted musical in which all the principals sang, there was the best tie-in of all – an original soundtrack album, an easy marketing tool for record shops. WB had also arranged for a book tie-in with Pocket Books, novelization written by Jack Pearl and stocked in 120,000 outlets. The record, promised WB, would be “on every radio station night and day.” Even though Sinatra was no longer a top recording artist – “My Kind of Town” did not break the Cashbox Top 100 singles chart – his voice and that of his co-stars were exactly the kind of easy listening that appeared to radio addicts fed up with the British Beatle invasion.

The advertising campaign was fairly straightforward consisting of as many of the stars as could be crammed onto a poster – usually the main four plus either Barbara Rush or Peter Falk, occasionally all six. The tagline went hip: “Like we’ve taken the Robin Hood legend and changed the bows and arrows to machine guns…! Like with songs yet!…Like Wild.” The last word might be changed to “Wow.” An alternate tagline along similar lines went: “In Merrie Olde Chicago, in the days when King Al ruled the land…” And “Gather round all ye swingers and hear this…we’re doing the Robin Hood legend in Chicago’s wildest era…with songs yet!” A final version ran: “Warner Bros right merrily presents the wild idea of doing the Robin Hood legend in Chicago’s wildest era.”

With the box office and recording firepower of Sinatra, Martin, Davis and Crosby and the range of promotional ideas, there was little need to jazz up the Pressbook with journalistic nuggets, but WB did not stint on this count. The appearance of Edward G. Robinson in the genre and studio where he made his name three decades before in the like of Little Caesar was too good an opportunity to miss – more so when the wardrobe department discovered his suit size had not changed. Other cinematic stalwarts from the early gangster picture days included Allen Jenkins and Jack La Rue, now a restaurant owner and making his first WB movie in 23 years.

Elegance was a keynote for Barbara rush’s femme fatale. Designer Don Feld created a range of dinner gowns, coats and negligees which served almost as a disguise for the hard-as-nails operator. Commented Rush, “I am as tough as daddy and just as blood-thirsty. But I play it sweet throughout and never become hard or evil. The role has more substance when you realize this sweet girl has the ruthlessness of a cobra.” Pool hustler Harold ‘Red’ Baker was hired to teach Dean Martin how to perform like a champion player and also set up the shots for the game between Sinatra and Martin. Baker. But the editorial section ran for only two pages, which was a mighty small proportion of the overall Pressbook.