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RKO Radio Pictures 1939-40, the 1939 spiral-bound campaign book, sent to theater owners to encourage them to show RKO movies. The book includes 56 pages with one and two-page spreads on RKO's upcoming movies. Some of the movies listed include "Vigil in the Night" (Carole Lombard), "The Flying Deuces" (Laurel and Hardy), "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (Raymond Massey), "The Man Who Lost Himself" (Leslie Howard), "Father Damien", "The Kind Men Marry" (this was the working title for "In Name Only", but the ad promotes it under the working title, which was changed at the last minute!), "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (Charles Laughton), "Little Orvie", "Passport to Life" (Cary Grant), "Pinocchio" (a great four-page spread!), "Allegheny Frontier" (John Wayne), a special page promoting the "18 Walt Disney Productions... In Technicolor", with a great image of Donald Duck reading the RKO campaign book, and noting "More Donald Ducks than ever before!" and many more! We have included images of the front cover of the book and many of the two-page spreads (but we wish we could have photographed the entire book, because there are so many great images!). 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 that RKO did something unusual in the printing of this specific campaign book! They apparently realized that many theater owners liked to look at the ads, and lay the book flat, and in previous years, they must have gotten complaints that the books cracked at the spine, because for this year, they printed the book with a spiral binding included, which means that the book could be completely opened flat without the slightest damage to the book! Apparently, this was too expensive to do all the time, because most campaign books do not have it, but it really does let you much better look at and appreciate this book without fear of damaging it!
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Important Added Info: Note that RKO did something unusual in the printing of this specific campaign book! They apparently realized that many theater owners liked to look at the ads, and lay the book flat, and in previous years, they must have gotten complaints that the books cracked at the spine, because for this year, they printed the book with a spiral binding included, which means that the book could be completely opened flat without the slightest damage to the book! Apparently, this was too expensive to do, because I have only ever seen it on a couple of other campaign books, but it really does let you much better look at and appreciate this book without fear of damaging it!

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