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Pimpernel Smith (released in the U.S. in 1942 as "Mister V"), the 1941 Leslie Howard English World War II (WWII) propaganda adventure melodrama ("You'll love the man the Gestapo hates!"; "An outstanding event - the year's greatest thrill entertainment!"; "A whole nation is looking for the elusive, mysterious Mister V! Even the woman who loves him can't keep track of him. Quick! Don't miss him in this dynamite-packed picture!"; "From the eyes of a tattered scarecrow... Mister V sees the astounding secrets he tells you in this dynamite-packed picture. A hundred Gestapo have tried to silence him but his wit has made them nit-wits. Even the girl who loves him can't keep track of him. Leslie Howard is romantic... exciting in his greatest role!"; an updating of the classic story 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, about an elusive hero who does good deeds without credit, who masquerades as such a mild mannered individual, that nobody suspects he could be the hero; in this movie, Howard is "Pimpernel Smith", and he helps people escape Nazi Germany, so of course, this was meant to be encouraging propaganda for everyone living in Allied countries; "The elusive 'Mister V' He's everywhere!") starring Leslie Howard (in the title role as Pimpernel Smith), Mary Morris, Francis Sullivan, Hugh McDermott, and Raymond Huntley
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

Important Added Info: Note that we were recently consigned a truly remarkable collection of pressbooks (the first 37 were auctioned in our December Major Auction, and the most expensive one sold for $17,500!). Now we continue to auction pressbooks from this collection, which is absolutely the finest collection of pressbooks we have ever been consigned. In this set of auctions, we are solely auctioning larger pressbooks, mostly 14" x 17" or larger. Some of them were folded at one time, but they were stored unfolded for many years, so we left them unfolded, and unless the new owner requests otherwise, we will send them unfolded, because re-folding them would likely lessen the condition. Many of these are ones we have either never auctioned before or only once auctioned before, sometimes many years ago. These were collected decades ago, which was the only time that many of these could be found, and after these auctions are over it may be years (or decades!) before some of these are offered again. They ARE that rare! Note that pressbooks from the 1930s can't be found in great condition, and some of them are printed on newsprint, and are hard to find in even lesser condition. We have many images from each pressbook. We have given each an overall grade, and ask that you look at our images to get a good sense of the condition of that pressbook, because, since they have many pages, it would take forever to describe their condition in detail. However, EVERY one of these pressbooks is complete and uncut!

Note that we have only previously auctioned one example of this pressbook, and that was 18 years ago, and that example was missing some pages! Also note that pressbooks were prepared prior to a movie being released. Often, changes would be made in a movie advertising campaign (billing of actors, different images, etc.), and the theaters would print up special supplements that they would send out with the pressbooks that had already been printed. These supplements are very rare, far more rare than the pressbooks themselves! Some pressbooks would have no supplements, some would have one, and some would have several. Also note that we have provided an image of the front and back covers of this pressbook, and of course, the winner of this auction will receive the entire single pressbook we are auctioning (plus any supplements or heralds described above)! Also note that this pressbook is complete and uncut! Given that theater owners received pressbooks partly in order to create their newspaper advertising, and quite frequently cut them up for that purpose, it is rare to find a pressbook that IS complete and uncut!

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