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Universal 1935 - 1936 studio yearbook, the 1935 Universal Studios campaign book, featuring upcoming Universal movies and stars from movies that were planned for production by Universal in the coming year. The campaign book includes many single-sided pages, each with an ad for an individual movie, and the book is spiral-bound. We think that the intention was for theater owners to remove the pages of movies they wanted to book, which is why they are all single-sided. They measure 10" x 19" and any of them could be framed and displayed! They are ads for the major upcoming Universal films including The Invisible Ray, Flash Gordon, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Phantom of the Opera, Bluebeard, and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and much more! Note that The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera were versions Universal hoped to make in 1936, but neither was made at that time (perhaps because of the Great Depression). The Hunchback of Notre Dame was made three years later in 1939 and Phantom of the Opera was made seven years later in 1943, but one wonders what those 1936 versions might have looked like, and who they would have starred. The same is true for the version of Bluebeard that was advertised with Boris Karloff as the star. That was not made until 1944 with John Carradine in the lead. We have included images of the covers of the book and some of the interior pages (and we did not make a big effort to find the best ones!). 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 we have only previously auctioned two examples of this campaign book, and the last one sold for $730!

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