Showmen, Sell It Hot!

Movies as Merchandise in Golden Era Hollywood

A noted Hollywood historian takes a first-ever marketing look at the selling of classic motion pictures generated by Hollywood's fabled movie factories in this lush coffee-table retrospective. Movie buffs will enjoy seeing the effects of the Depression, censorship, world war, the Cold War, television, and the counter-culture movement on the changing tastes of moviegoers, and the way showmen responded with creative and sometimes zany ad campaigns. Chapters include the sexy and salacious pre-Code pictures; the launch of the new dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Flying Down to Rio; MGM’s gamble on the Marx Brothers with A Night at the Opera; lavish campaigns for The Wizard of Oz in original release and reissue; creation of a new star, John Wayne, in John Ford’s Stagecoach; Orson Welles’ failed Citizen Kane campaign; Billy Wilder’s unusual and dark Hollywood statement picture, Sunset Boulevard; the selling of Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, and East of Eden following the death of James Dean; Alfred Hitchcock’s personal gamble with Psycho; and much more!