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Universal 1931-32, the 1931 campaign book featuring upcoming Universal movies and stars from movies that were planned for production or release by Universal in the coming year. The highlight of the book is, of course, the incredible full-page full-color ad for Frankenstein, with Bela Lugosi as the monster, and he is depicted as a green giant with rays coming out of his eyes! Obviously, soon after this book was created, Boris Karloff was hired, and the concept of the monster was significantly changed. There is also a wonderful full-page full-color ad for The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and full-page full-color ads for the 26 movies (including the above two) that Universal planned for the coming year, plus three pages about other things Universal was doing. We have included images of the front cover of the book and six of the two-page spreads (but we wish we could have photographed the entire book, because there are so many incredible images!). THIS IS REALLY ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE NICEST CAMPAIGN BOOKS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN TERMS OF ART, PLUS IT OF COURSE HAS THE FRANKENSTEIN AD! Many of the pages 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 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 if anyone knows more about these movies, 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, and almost every collector of campaign books agrees that THIS campaign book is the absolute best one there is!
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