1958 THE BIG COUNTRY Uncut Pressbook Very Rare Oversized 13 x 18 GREGORY PECK

Description

BIG COUNTRY Pressbook 1958 Chuck Connors, Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Jean Simmons, William Wyler classic.  This is the only BIG COUNTRY Pressbook listed on EBAY.
An Original Vintage
Theatrical
Movie Pressbook (pb; measures 13" x 18" [33 x 46 cm]; 20 pages). Also included is an ad supplement that has 4 pages.
William Wyler's The Big Country, the classic 1958
William Wyler
epic romantic cowboy western ("The Big Cast!... The Big Story!... The Big Picture!"; "They won't come any bigger!!!"; "Standing tall enough to rope the sun... Stretching a million excitements wide... A motion picture so big - it sweeps all before it!"; "Based on the Novel by Donald Hamilton"; "Big they fought! Big they loved! Big their story!"; "Produced by
William Wyler
and
Gregory Peck
") starring
Gregory Peck
,
Jean Simmons
,
Carroll Baker
,
Charlton Heston
,
Burl Ives
(winner of the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this film),
Charles Bickford
,
Chuck Connors
, and
Alfonso Bedoya
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.
Important Added Info:
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. 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!
Condition:
very good, NO CUTS.
The pressbook is complete and uncut.
Learn More
about condition grades
Buyer adds shipping.
Pressbooks
were special advertising booklets sent directly to theater owners that were playing the specific movie advertised in a particular pressbook (almost all pressbooks were for one movie only, although there were some double-bill pressbooks). A pressbook was made for every movie, starting in the mid 1910s through the 1970s (somewhere in the late 1960s, studios introduced "presskits", which included brochures and stills from the movie, but
NO
images of the posters, and for a few years, they made both, but then they stopped making pressbooks and only made presskits). There is no "standard" measurement for them, though each studio
usually
issued them at the same measurement during different periods of time.
Each pressbook (especially the early ones) is filled with lots of information about the movie that is contained no where else, including pictures of many of the posters and articles and ads as well, and the cover of the pressbook is often a color poster that could be framed, and on older pressbooks there is often a "sample" f
ull-color herald attached to the pressbook, and yet, because many collectors don't know about pressbooks, the entire pressbook often sells for less than the price of a single lobby card from the same movie!
Pressbooks were sent to movie theater owners to help them promote the film. They have lots of "newspaper" black and white ads in various sizes for theaters to use in their local newspaper (theater owners would literally cut out the ad they wanted to use and give it to their local paper, which is precisely why so many pressbooks have ads cut out of them). For collectors, the most important thing about pressbooks is that they show many of the posters that were created for the film (one-sheet, three-sheet, etc.).
Sometimes not a single copy of a poster is known to exist and the only way you can tell what the poster looked like is by looking at a picture of it in the pressbook. In addition to poster images and newspaper ads, most pressbooks also have a synopsis of the film and other information like stories about several of the stars and sometimes a story about the making of the film, profiles of the lead actors, etc. Many pressbooks include unusual ways to promote the film such as having a nurse at the theater in case anyone fainted, vomit bags for queasy patrons, etc. They often contain info on other promotional items like photos, radio spots and standees that were available to the theater owner, most of which are not currently known.
In format, pressbooks are very similar to comic books. They often have two-color or full-color covers, but almost always have black & white interiors. Generally, the most important the film, and the older the film, the more elaborate the pressbook (larger size and greater number of pages).