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Excitement in Entertainment, Columbia's Theme Song for 1940-1941, the 1940 Columbia Pictures campaign book, sent to theater owners to encourage them to show Columbia movies. The book includes 49 pages with lots of two-page spreads on Columbia's upcoming movies. Some of the movies promoted include Royal Mail (Cary Grant), The First Woman Doctor (Loretta Young), A Story of Old New Orleans (Jean Arthur), The Doctor of Lennox, There They Go Again, Jane Addams of Hull House (Irene Dunne), This Thing Called Love (Loretta Young), Senate Page Boys, Bedtime Story (Constance Bennett), And Now Goodbye (Brian Aherne), Canal Zone, two Tillie the Toiler productions, three Blondies, The Devil Said No ("and another Karloff"), The New Frontier ("A Story of Alaska"), Women Under 21, and much more! Note that many of the pages have signed artwork, by many different (quite talented) artists. Note that, because Columbia at this time did not always have the biggest name stars, they relied on movies with very lurid and sensational material, and they created images for this campaign book that are both extremely colorful and often downright sexy! We have included images of the covers of the book and eighteen of the two-page spreads (and we did not make a big effort to find the best ones!). THIS IS REALLY ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE NICEST CAMPAIGN BOOKS I HAVE SEEN IN TERMS OF ART, AND IT ALSO HELPS THAT THIS IS AN OVERSIZED CAMPAIGN BOOK WITH LARGE 13" x 19" PAGES! (Many of the ads have really fantastic art, and many of the ones that are not pictured are just as nice as the ones that ARE pictured!). Note that even though this campaign book was sent to many theater owners, it appears that very few examples have survived. I have been a collector of campaign books and related material for many years, and I know for certain that this campaign book is extremely rare! Note that some of the movies listed in this book may never have been made at all, and some had their titles changed, and some had their cast or director changed! Note that studios almost always spent far more money preparing campaign books than they did preparing movie posters (often hiring very talented and well-known illustration artists), because campaign books directly benefited the studio in getting theaters to book the movies, whereas posters more benefited the theaters, rather than the studios (although of course, what was good for the theaters was ultimately good for the studios as well). Also note that, as was often the case with these campaign books, some of the movies advertised were either never made, had their titles changed before they were released, or were made with different casts than those announced in the campaign book (I do not have time to research the titles in this campaign book to see which had changed titles or were never made, but I can tell that a LOT of these movies did not end up with the same titles, and if anyone has more information about any of these, please e-mail us and we will post it here)! Finally, note that campaign books in general are extremely rare, and the best of them have often sold for hundreds of dollars, and in the case of the very finest, thousands of dollars!
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

Important Added Info: Note that we have previously auctioned three examples of this campaign book, but they are not exactly the same. Those three had gold foil covers, while this one has silver foil. We don't know what that means, except that they likely made them in two different versions. If anyone knows more about this, please e-mail us and we will post it here.

Note that portions of this item are printed on a foil material and is very difficult to accurately photograph, but is quite striking when viewed in person! Also note that foil material scuffs quite easily, and is difficult to find in nice condition.

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