I’ve blogged before about the amazing yearbooks that Columbia published in the 1930s to promote its slates of films. They go for big bucks at auction, but last year I was able to acquire the 1935 edition for a semi-reasonable price. I did so, of course, because it included a promo for His Scrappiness. But the whole darn thing is kind of amazing.
I don’t know most of the films promoted in its pages, and can’t say whether they were any good. I have no idea who painted these spreads, or whether they were used only in the presumably small-circulation yearbook. But I do know that this is some of the most spectacular promotional art I’ve ever seen.
Whatever happened to the art of movie ads, anyhow?
