Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2010 December 15 • Wednesday

Once upon a time the heads of movie studios really wanted you to go to the movies. They didn't sell the movies in formats for you to watch at home, they didn't show them on airplanes or on television and merchandising was mostly for radio, pulps and comics.

They were going to make most of their money from the box office, so they really wanted you to go. And they worked hard to make you want to go, to make going to the movies an event.

This brings us to the latest thing I dug out of my closet, an impressive press kit for the Barbara Stanwyck movie Thelma Jordon, a.k.a. The File on Thelma Jordon.

This time Stanwyck is a femme fatale who seduces an unhappily married district attorney and gets him to cover up a murder she committed. The press kit has some great ideas for ballyhoo. This one is my favorite.

Also impressive is this idea for a lobby display.

They thought locally and globally.

The only angle they still use today is sharing advertising with a big company that saturates the national market.

I don't know what Ry-Krisp is but Barbara Stanwyck could persuade me to buy it!