It's an absolute joy to see newspaper ads for film going back to the beginning of the medium. It's like sifting through archaeological strata of the country's culture. The birth of film, all the pre–Hayes–Code ads (!), the tremendous hype and fulsome praise for films I've never heard of, then into the 30's and 40's and all the beloved Golden Age stars looking fabulous. And onward.

And the lies! My goodness, the lies told in some of the ads in order to get butts in seats. The most shocking was a pair of advertisements for <I>All Quiet on the Western Front</i>, which I've never seen (or read) but was pretty sure was a pretty grim and serious film about WWI … yet was being sold with pictures of scantily–clad girls. Jaw–dropping.

It's fascinating to see the parallels between the state of health of the movie industry – nearly killed by Depression and then again by television – and the methodologies (and level of hysteria) in the ads. I might have wished for a somewhat more clearly linear layout for the book, but it was thorough and well-researched. A fun ride.

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

Movie lovers, rejoice! Hollywood history buffs, rejoice! This is, perhaps, the ultimate coffee table book for you. In this generously illustrated volume, film firms John McElwee not only takes readers on an historical trek through the movies and their cultural significance in America from their origin through the 1950s, but he also provides a lesson on the various ways poster art was used to commercial advantage. In the book's gorgeous illustratioms, we see the evolution of movie advertising--as McElwee guides is through the historical and cultural climate of the times. A lovely book. Thanks very much for the digital and hard copy!

THE ART OF SELLING MOVIES Written by John McElwee

2017; 308 Pages (Goodknight Books)

Genre: film, history, nonfiction

(I received an ARC from NETGALLEY)

Rating: ★★★★

I am a big fan of classic movies and radio programs. One of my favourite things about listening to old time radio is hearing the advertisements of the 30s, 40s and 50s. It gives those that love history a chance to hear what was being sold and how. I also love movie posters and ads from the Golden Age of films. It was more than just the fancy graphics used today. There was the creativity and also the marketing behind the poster. In McElwee's book he describes the marketing behind the ads as well as why this type of ads was successful. It takes in account the historical background of the early to mid 20th Century in America. I love the images in this book as many are new to me. The amateur historian in me loved pouring over this book as I loved the mix of film, ads, art and history. This is one I would like to eventually buy in hardcover for reference. While I read through the book, I now need to go back and absorb what interests me.

In the early years of cinema, movie theater owners in cities and towns across the USA found that drawing crowds was just as much an art as the film itself. Before radio ads and TV commercials, pen and ink advertisements in print media were the primary tool for attracting an audience to the latest release. In The Art of Selling Movies, Greenbriar Picture show blogger, author, and film historian John McElwee shares sixty years of ads and the history behind them.

Many of the ads are from McElwee's own collection, the result of an obsession that started in childhood. The images are beautifully restored, reportedly due to new technology which enabled the full restoration of details. This is important, because seeing all the elements, from the fine points of faces, to the tiny print of sensational ad copy, to the delicate background patterns and dramatic fonts, is key to appreciating this form that McElwee calls a "folk art".

The preface and introduction to the book are kind of rough going, both could have used a good edit, which is a shame, because they offer fascinating information about the history and evolution of newspaper movie ads. The rest of the book is all advertisements and other promotional images, with shorter, and more comprehensible blurbs that share a remarkable amount of information given their brevity.

The ads presented cover the heyday of newspaper film advertising, from the silents to the early sixties, when television took over shilling for cinemas. Seen all together, this is a fascinating document of changing times, covering jaunty silents, racy pre-codes, and the dark film noir of post-World War II, all the way to the swinging sixties. You see how much has changed in those years, but also how similarly the methods of sex and sensation are used across decades.

McElwee shares interesting tidbits about the way ads were used in various decades and even how they were made. He describes circuit artists creating remarkably detailed work for small town theater owners, who would use their own creativity to make ads memorable and impossible to resist. There were tricks of the trade, like arranging the most important image in the top right or center of the ad and always making sure actors were portrayed looking into the ad, as a gaze towards the edges could take a reader's attention along with it.

For the most part the book is easy on the eyes, with varied layouts and clean lines. Some pages can get a little crowded, with too many ads competing for attention, but for the most part this is a pleasing visual presentation.

I thought this was a great education in early print film advertising. It was mesmerizing to examine all the details in these ads which were created with care, only to be discarded a week later. Thank heaven there are historians like McElwee who cared enough to preserve this interesting bit of film history.

This review is based on an Advance Reader's Copy I was provided through Netgalley.
 
There was a time when there weren't 500 channels of TV, no Netflix, no seeing first run movies in your home shortly after they were released. A time before cell phones, before the internet, before cable television, before television itself, before even radio became widely available. There was a time when people had to go out for entertainment. They went to the movies.
 
The places people went to ranged from small theaters with hard wooden seats, the movies sometimes sharing a stage with live vaudeville acts, to palacial buildings with giant screens: Movie Palaces, with plush seats, velvet curtains, balcony seats, tiny stars twinkling in a false sky overhead. To go to one was special, an event.
 
This book, The Art of Selling Movies, covers what the author calls the classic era of movies, from their first showings in the late 1800s (!) as a novelty addition to the live stage shows of vaudeville, into the early years of the 1900s silent movies (Charlie Chaplin, Theda Bara, John Barrymore, Rudolph Valentino), the advent of sound, the 1930s, 40s, 50s, into the mid 1960s (Elizabeth Taylor, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, the Beatles). Its focus is the print advertising for those films.
 
Movie theaters had to get the word out to people, draw them in, get them to buy a ticket, come take a seat. They did this in several ways: first through the architecture of the movie houses (which could be grand and exotic), then with marquees and posters, but most importantly, with newspaper ads.

Today if you pick up a newspaper, you might only see the name of a multiplex, a list of movies and showtimes. But the ads of theaters from the past, those ads tried to capture you. They were the enticements, the promises, the art, the stars, that tempted and attempted to draw an audience, paying customers. They might be well done, polished, perhaps by the movie studios. Or they might be a local job by a small cinema, trying to get by. They might be a few inches on the page or they could take up a quarter, a half, sometimes a whole page of the newspaper for a single movie theater's shows.

 This is one of the best types of books of its sort, a little information and lots of very good photographs and reproductions of the ads. After the introduction, words become sparing, the movies take over. You lose yourself in page after large page of movie ads, broken into chapters arranged somewhat by years, somewhat by topic.
 
The Art of Selling Movies is full of expansive pages of pictures of the ads, and some of the theaters, with captions giving just enough info that you know what's going on. The movie art is front and center, the star. The reproduction of the ads is clear, done well, and you can lose yourself in reading the movie advertising, the stars, the art, the double features with newsreels and cartoons, maybe even live entertainment. The variety of a single screen theater might offer hours of varied shows, and they wanted you to know it.
 
If the first half century plus of movies interests you, if you enjoy the nostalgia of earlier times, if you remember some of those ads from when you were a kid, this is likely a book for you. It is well done and with genuine love of the subject.

Back before television and internet dominated popular entertainment, Americans could escape the stress of everyday life by going to the nearest theater to see a film or two. But how would these potential moviegoers know what films were showing, what those films were even about, and at what times? Why, in the Amusement section of their local newspaper, of course! In The Art of Selling Movies, John McElwee presents an amazing collection of movie ads gathered from the silent films of the late teens all the way to B-movie drive-in flicks of the 60s, a few even from his own personal collection. Mr. McElwee is clearly passionate about the subject of his book, for, along with every ad, he provides a caption with details about what is being advertised, and a lot of the time provides fun facts about the movie, venue, actors, supporting stage acts, etc. He also does a great job of grouping the ads, not just by decade, but into subcategories such as kids, drive-ins, star power, sex, and even misleading advertising. It took me a little longer to get through this book, actually, because I was having so much fun trying to read every word on each of the ads!

I would recommend this book to classic movie fans or anyone with an interest in cinema history, and I also think it's a solid enough collection to be studied by film majors.