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The Donovan Affair, the 1929 Frank Capra murder mystery crime thriller melodrama ("Most sensational talking drama ever screened!"; "Who killed Jack Donovan?"; "The mystery drama with a thousand thrills!"; "A 100% talking picture"; "From the famous stage play by Owen Davis"; this was likely "new" in 1929, but it is certainly wacky!; at a fancy dinner party, one of the guests is murdered, seemingly in front of the others, and an inspector is called, and he asks the guests to reenact the events of the murder, with his assistant as a stand-in for the murdered man, but the reenactment ends in another murder, and the inspector then demands a second reenactment!) starring Jack Holt, William Collier Jr., Dorothy Revier, John Roche, Agnes Ayres, Fred Kelsey, and Virginia Brown Faire. Note that this is one of the early movies directed by Frank Capra, after he graduated from writing for Harry Langdon comedy shorts, and of course, he went on to enormous success with movies such as "Lost Horizon" and "It's a Wonderful Life"! Also note that this was Columbia Pictures' first talking movie! Sadly, only a silent version survives, so it is somewhat of a "lost" film.
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 ANY movie paper from this movie is incredibly rare. We have only previously auctioned a window card, a half-sheet, and a single still from this movie (and NO other movie paper of any kind) until we received this pressbook! Also note that when studios would prepare pressbooks they would often include a sample of the herald. Most often, the herald is no longer still with the pressbook. Sometimes, the herald by itself will sell for almost as much as the rest of the entire pressbook! This pressbook contains the original herald which is pictured next to the pressbook below. 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. Almost every Academy Award winning movie would have a special "Academy Award winner" supplement. 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!

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775