I must confess to something – I once had a hard-on for Cathy Moriarty… no, that’s not it (though…), I once collected film press sheets. Yes, back before I collected VB cans (kid you not, the collection near took up my bedroom) I was a sucker for cinematic memorabilia.
For those not in the know press sheets were the black-and-white sheets of different size ads that exhibitors were sent from the film distributors.
Working at Drive-In’s and Cinemas growing up I was able to get my hands on a lot of press sheets – though, obviously, some came without a 120×90 ad or a half-pager – but I couldn’t tell you where even one of them is now. All I know is, at one stage, I had thousands. I had press sheets for everything from ‘’Back to the Future’’ to ‘’Cocoon’’, ‘’The Fly’’ and ‘’Die Hard’’.
For a while there – god I was a film nerd – I’d also collect newspaper ads (which are essentially the same thing as press kits – after all, that’s where the newspaper would get the ad from) and remember having a bit of a scrapbook full of ‘em. Again, I’ve no idea what happened to that collection of odd assortments (Actually, I think there’s a pile of newspapers from like 1982 or 1983 that I’ve got back at my father’s house – must look sometime).
Crushin’ on nostalgia like I do, I went looking through my filing cabinets, as well as online, to dig up a bunch of classic movie ads – thought you’d be as interested to see them again as I was :