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RKO Pathe Personality Group, the 1931 RKO/Pathe Studios campaign book, sent to theater owners to encourage them to show RKO/Pathe movies. The book includes many pages with mostly two-page spreads (including four that fold out and open up into four cool posters), on each of RKO/Pathe's upcoming movies or biggest stars. Some of the movies or stars listed include Constance Bennett (including The Common Law), Ann Harding (including Devotion), Helen Twelvetrees (including A Woman of Experience), Ina Claire (including Rebound), Bill Boyd (Suicide Fleet), Eddie Quillan (Whoop-te-do Kid), Aesop's Fables (Van Beuren cartoons), and more! We have included images of the front cover of the book, and many of the two-page spreads (plus images of all four of the fold-out posters). Note that many of the pages have signed artwork, but unlike most campaign books, it seems likely that a single artist, Walter Seaton, did either all or almost all of the artwork for this extraordinary book! 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! 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 if anyone has more information about any of these, please e-mail us and we will post it here)! 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). 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 this book appears to be incomplete. We have previous sold a version that contained 46 pages, including four elaborate large fold-out posters that are bound into the book along with regular pages! However, the book we are offering here ONLY has those four elaborate fold-outs and the pages that went with each. We have seen loose examples of the four fold-out posters (which are printed on both sides), and it is possible that RKO/Pathe separately distributed just those four fold-outs and it is possible they also distributed a version of this hardcover book with just those four fold-outs, but we are going on the assumption that the book is incomplete. Finally, note that the studios would often prepare the most elaborate of these campaign books in both hardcover and softcover versions. In addition to this, they would sometimes have just a few examples of each bound in a deluxe hardcover binding, and sometimes the names of top theater owners or top executives would be professionally imprinted in the bottom right of the cover, and then those special deluxe hardcover books would be presented to those happy recipients! In the case of this particular book, it was presented to "E.P. VOLLENDORF" (he was likely a studio executive or a major theater owner).

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