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Exhibitors Herald World, one of the main trade magazines sent to movie theater owners starting in 1928 through the 1930s (it was a combination of the two leading magazines of the 1920s, Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World, which merged in 1928 into a single magazine, which was at first called "Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World", but they quickly dropped that long clunky title in favor of "Exhibitors Herald World", and the magazine continued into the 1940s). Each magazine measured approximately 9" x 12", and each contained around 70 to 100 pages, but there were sometimes special issues that were far larger. Each weekly issue would be filled with profusely illustrated articles about upcoming movies, statistics about box office grosses of current releases, and sometimes articles about coming developments in motion picture technology, and sometimes sections illustrating how theaters advertised current movies. Of greatest interest to collectors are the dozens of advertisements (most full-page) from all of the major studios! Many of these ads were full-color, and the studios spent a great deal of time and money creating them, for it was through these exhibitor magazines that the studios gained bookings for their upcoming releases, which was the direct income they received from those movies (by contrast, the posters they created helped theaters take in more money, but that did not directly benefit the studios, except when they owned the theaters, or if higher grosses resulted in more bookings). Note that these exhibitor magazines were ONLY sent to theater owners, and the general public never had a chance to buy them. But most theater owners treated them like old newspapers, throwing them away after the movies had played. Consequently, they are extremely rare, especially those from the 1920s and 1930s! Note that we do not have the time to list the contents of each magazine we are selling (this magazine does not have a "table of contents", and of course, the most interesting part of the magazine is the great illustrated ads), but we have pictured the cover, and several interior 2-page spreads. We tried to pick out some of the more interesting interior pages, but we did not spend much time doing so! Each of these magazines, which were NOT printed on newsprint, were printed on quality paper, and have a square binding, and each is packed with very interesting visual and written material, almost all of which has not been seen since the date the magazine was published. We doubt anyone who buys these magazines will be disappointed by the content!

Artist: Lionel Reiss

Important Added Info: IMPORTANT! The studios would send copies of campaign books to many theater owners, and it appears that very few examples have survived. IN ADDITION TO SENDING THEM TO THEATER OWNERS, THEY WOULD SOMETIMES HAVE AN EXTRA PRINT RUN OF THE INTERIOR PAGES RUN OFF, WHICH WOULD BE THEN SENT TO AN EXHIBITOR MAGAZINE AND INCLUDED AS AN ADDITION TO A REGULAR ISSUE OF THAT MAGAZINE! I have seen many examples where people carefully removed ALL of the portions of the magazine (the front and back cover plus the non-campaign book interior pages), and they have then sold the remaining material as a "campaign book", which it basically is (and HAS been done with this magazine!). In the case of this magazine, it contains the Greater New Show World 1930-1931, the 1930 Paramount studio yearbook ("Announcing Paramount pictures for the season of 1930-31") sent to theater owners to encourage them to show Paramount movies. The book includes 66 pages with one and two-page spreads on Paramount's upcoming movies and stars. Some of the movies and stars advertised include Harold Lloyd in Feet First, Gary Cooper in The Spoilers, The Marx Bros. in The Cocoanuts (and what is really wonderful is that one of the last pages has images of posters, and one of them is the 24-sheet for "The Cocoanuts"), Gary Cooper & Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, William Powell in Ladies' Man, Clara Bow "in four flashing hits", plus much more! Note that, because Paramount at this time was one of the very leading studios, and had many of the biggest name stars and directors, and also had lots of money to spend, they made lots of great movies this year, and they also were proposing many unbelievable movies that never got made. In later years (perhaps because of cost restraints), Paramount did not use as much full-color artwork as the lesser studios, but THIS year, the entire book is filled with wonderful full-color artwork. We have included images of the cover of the book and many of the interior two-page spreads (and we did not make a big effort to find the best ones, and we really wish we could have pictured them all!).

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