Ad/Odds: Cornered, The Paradine Case, and Chained
CORNERED (1946) --- “New” being watchword here as Dick Powell new was less accomplished fact than lately implemented one. Murder, My Sweet was first opportunity to see him hard-boiled, a screen switch that didn’t necessarily translate to stage appearances made on behalf of Murder, My Sweet. Ads in oversized magazines were close as then-enthusiasts got to owning posters for their favorite films, a lavish enough weekly good for keepsakes nearly large as a lobby card outside theatres. Very often ads were full color, depending on willingness of distributors to spend for the splash. Timing was trick for placing ads where/when they would do the most good, Cornered either at a local venue or coming soon to one. Films were sold upon pledge by companies to spend big with large circulation magazines. Print promos in newspapers, reader attention less with ads necessarily smaller, muddier than in mags, often lost amidst crowd on a daily's page. Thicket of ads taxed reader focus, being there was bally too for what competing venues offered. Cornered getting a LIFE or LOOK page all its own lent importance to that or any attraction, readers knowing space did not come cheap in zines reaching millions per week. Suffice to say films I saw new seldom got push unless it was something like Thunderball with its LIFE cover plus pages within. Color stills appeared as well in the slicks, which fans cut out and put in scrapbooks. More ads survive from weeklies than any other format, it seems. We could wonder how many of pages, film related or not, were scissored from issues and kept for someone’s posterity. I’ve seen albums dedicated just to soup ads, these at their best aesthetic worthies and who knows but what we’ve all missed a bet for not collecting them.
STARS OF THE PARADINE CASE FOR CHESTERFIELD --- Did all six stars smoke Chesterfield, or smoke at all? Was Charles Laughton approached? I wonder what pressure was applied to make them pose for ads, not just for cigarettes, but any product. Presumably they were paid beyond studio contract terms. I’m told this came often in “swag” from the advertiser, as in Gregory Peck going out to his mailbox to find three dozen cases of Chesterfield waiting. Might he take up smoking just to avoid waste of such freebies? I’m guessing a lot got re-gifted for Christmas and birthdays. Did any star refuse cigarette ads on principle they were unsafe? That undoubtedly happened by the sixties, but 1948? Ads were exposure for celebrities, whatever dubious value of products they hawked. Earliest Hollywood color images we have derive from advertising cast members posed for. Everybody won as not only faces, but films in which they appeared, got boosted. It may be assumed that The Paradine Case needed all of help it could get. I’d like to know what “Cooler Smoking” amounts to … an admission that smoking is too often hot? We coped for years with belching clouds and smells from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem. Any trip down was worse for stench from pollutants. Reynolds was obliged to spare the air eventually, but surely damage was done to generations living in/around Winston. Could even Kiddie Shows at the Carolina Theatre on Saturdays (non-stop Hammer and AIP horrors) have persuaded me to live amidst such contamination, Horror of Dracula, Pit and the Pendulum, and Tarantula on a virtual loop maybe worth trading a few years of life to see (but how many?).
CHAINED (1934) --- Ads once upon a Classic Era could proclaim a “Glorious Hit!” prior even to release, being confidence of a system which indeed had genius behind it. Chained like most out of Metro, in fact any studio during 1934, was calibrated precisely to audience tastes. This is something we might marvel at in modern circumstance of almost willful failure to meet expectation, movies often seeming out to alienate viewership. Chained is said in this ad to be fruit of 62,000 fans seeking encore for Clark Gable and Joan Crawford together again, and let the story take care of itself. Joyful thing was generally they did, even as we realize today via studio histories that star vehicles were ever bit the product of committees as anything corporately so today. Difference may be panel members in 1934 boasting talent not presently in evidence. A Hunt Stromberg producing or Clarence Brown directing was assurance that standard would be met, formula varied just enough but not so as to upset comfort level with result. Guarantee, at least hope, was that Chained would equal if not surpass Dancing Lady, a Selznick wrapped package that he called gilt-edged for crowd pleasing, this essential goal for anyone entrusted with stars and properties, or better put, stars as properties. Chained is best looked upon like a watch never a second off, featuring a cast with demonstrable appeal plus ongoing aptitude to reassert dominance of a brand proven to please, Chained being factory product yes, but seeming not so for satisfaction given, still rewarding despite ninety years passed since newness.
More of Chained here.
