Stand Them On Their Ears

The title rockets across the page on speed lines: They liked it so much, they made 2 wonderful Trailers for Frankenstein! This is another trade ad aimed at exhibitors, from the December 2, 1931 issue of the industry newspaper Film Daily.

Back in ’31, movie trailers were made available to exhibitors through a single company, National Screen Service. It was a much more practical arrangement than having individual theater owners deal with any number of sources in an era when countless Hollywood studios vied for screen space. Within the decade, NSS would begin producing and distributing posters and other print materials, eventually becoming the exclusive purveyor for all movie advertising in North America. Studios turned their advertising campaign over to NSS, and exhibitors could order from, or walk into a local NSS “exchange” office to buy or rent whatever posters, stand-ups or lobby card sets they needed for their front of house displays.

NSS went out of business in the 80s with the rise of the multiplex, after on-the-spot theater ballyhoo had gone out of fashion and films were now promoted with a single, standard-size poster.

Coming Up: Carl Laemmle has a talk with exhibitors.

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Everybody Shivered and All Had a Good Time