Fellwanderer

Indeed. The only modern ones I can recall are those for Guinness, Renault and Virgin trains - the last one won't surprise anyone.

FELL

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

Johnjackgilbert

The flicks in Kidderminster closed down in 1982 - the last visit, (to watch the awful "Popeye" I think but mother dragged us off to watch all the Star Trek movies up to that point too.) Anyway, it included usherettes and the obligatory ice-cream and obscenely cold, flavourless orange drink and a B movie. I next went to the multi-screen place in Merry Hill in 1988 - to watch "A Fish Called Wanda" - no usherettes, no halfway ice-cream or drink just obscenely expensive hot dogs and popcorn and stuff (ugh!) and no B movie (yes I sat waiting, wondering why everyone was leaving before the credits had rolled past.) Also, no audience response to anything happening on screen - I was laughing my head off, the audience was stoney faced. Generally the same thing has happened to every visit to the flicks since - maybe I am easily amused? Or laughing in wrong places (heh heh heh!)

"Peanuts!!!!!!!!!!! They're jungle fresh!"

Steve Crook

Squinty eyed in a darkened cinema, thinking of Jenny?
What sort of films are they showing there?

Steve

DAVID RAYNER

As a cinema projectionist between 1962 and 1982, I also collected sales trailers. In fact, I once had two one thousand feet reels of them, running twenty minutes or so. Alas, though, only one Eldorado filmlet...for Lunar Lolly in 1962, as the cinemas I worked at sold mainly Kia-Ora and Lyons Maid stuff. The second reel was sold to a film collector in Nottingham nearly twenty years ago, but the first reel is still with me and about ten years ago, I was lucky enough to meet up with a film historian who was able to have it transferred to video for me. The average length of one of these filmlets was 15 seconds, so you could fit a lot onto a ten minute reel. Below, I'm pasting in off my hard drive the list I composed for the cover I made specially for the video. This reel really is a peice of cinema history.

DAVID ADVERTS SOUND is a reel of 35mm cinema sales trailers covering the period 1957 to 1969, comprised of 26 filmlets together running 10 minutes and 30 seconds and all now transferred to VHS video. Originally, this private collection consisted of two reels with a combined running time of of over 20 minutes. Reel two, which mainly covered the period 1964 to 1967 and 1970 to 1980, was sold to a private collector in Nottingham in 1987, along with a few earlier filmlets from the late fifties such as an Essoldo sales trailer and one featuring the Aurora, it’s time for Kia-Ora, cartoon character, which I now regret selling. The above demonstrates why there is a gap on the reel between 1964 and 1967.

The average life of any sales trailer was around six months. During this period, the filmlet could be run around 500 times. Sometimes, it could be run for twelve months or even longer...making a total of over a thousand runs through the projectors. From its first run as an immaculate, spotless print, the condition of the film would slowly deteriorate and the speed of this deterioration depended very much on how it was handled in the projection and rewind rooms. As I could only have the filmlet for my collection at the end of its run, it was therefore in my interest to see that it was treated with as much care as possible. This is the main reason why practically all the filmlets on the reel are complete, with no splices, strained perforations, rewind or rope scratches. Just the usual scuff marks evident on any film copy run so many times.

It was common practice in those days, when the life of a sales trailer had come to an end, for it to be incinerated on the boiler or cut up in the rewind room for use as leaders. This is why all the adverts on the reel are now so scarce. I saved as many as I could from destruction while I was a projectionist, but there were a few that were lost before I could get my hands on them. These included two Kia-Ora adverts from 1962...a night-club setting version and one advertising the then new see-through plastic carton. I am deeply indebted to Ray Johnson for arranging, at his own expense, the transfer to VHS video of this historic reel of film. It could not have been done without him. In an ideal world, I would like to have had a mint copy of each of these adverts, but it was not possible. Even so, with some of the filmlets slightly more scuff-marked than others, I am sure you will find this short look at past cinema advertising very interesting.

The filmlets on the reel.

1957: LYONS MAID ICE POLE.

1959: LYONS MAID KALEIDOSCOPE MULTI-PURPOSE.

1960: LYONS MAID MULTI-PURPOSE.

1961: LYONS MAID PEACH SUNDAE. This filmlet was run at the Plaza, Fenton, from April, 1961, until June, 1962. When the price went up in June, 1962, from one shilling to one shilling and tuppence, Chief Projectionist Arthur Shea was given the unenviable task by manager Benny Norcott of scratching in the new price on each of the 75 frames over the one shilling mark.

1961: LYONS MAID BANANA CHOC SUNDAE. This filmlet from the Plaza, Fenton, was run from October, 1961, until June, 1962.

1962: LYONS MAID NOW’S THE TIME FOR ICE CREAM MULTI-PURPOSE; LYONS MAID TOFF N CHOC SUNDAE; LYONS MAID NEAPOLITAN DAIRY ICE CREAM.
These three adverts were run in the above order at all cinemas that sold Lyons Maid Ice Cream from early June, 1962, until January, 1963. They were originally preceded by a Kia-Ora Cup Squash advert set in a night club with a jazz quartet playing mood music. This has been lost. I shall never forget seeing the above Neapolitan advert at the Essoldo, Stoke, in the summer of 1962. The water in the Venice canal (although a studio mock-up) looked so real on the big cinema screen, that I felt I could have dived into it. The effect is completely lost on a video, but the memory remains.

1962: ELDORADO LUNAR LOLLY. This filmlet was run at the Plaza, Fenton, from September, 1962, until March, 1963.

1962: SEASONS GREETINGS.
Shown at the Plaza, Fenton, over Christmas, 1962.

1963: KIA-ORA SUNCRUSH and SIX NEW STARS BY LYONS MAID MULTI-PURPOSE. These filmlets were shown at the Plaza, Fenton, from January to September of that year.

1963: KIA-ORA SUNCRUSH (version two) and LYONS MAID NEW ZOOM (with Fireball XL5 characters). These filmlets were run at the Plaza, Fenton, from October, 1963, until April, 1964. They were also being run at the Essoldo Rex and Rio, Newcastle-under-Lyme, when I got a job as Second Operator there in December, 1963.

1963: LYONS MAID GET WITH IT MULTI-PURPOSE. This filmlet was run at the Plaza, Fenton, from December, 1963, until June, 1964.

1963: PEARL AND DEAN PRESENT.
The most famous of opening and closing titles for local and national advert reels are these, used from 1953 until 1968 with this particular music, which was part of a suite composed by Trevor Duncan, entitled Grand Vista and often heard as background music on Pathe News items in the 1950s. Pearl and Dean presented me with these titles for my collection in October, 1970 and I have placed them in December, 1963, in memory of my time at the Rex and Rio.

1963: SEASONS GREETINGS.
Shown at the Plaza, Fenton, over Christmas, 1963.

1968: COOL IT TASTE IT NOW MULTI-PURPOSE.
First run April, 1968.

1968: LYONS MAID CORNISH DAIRY ICE CREAM LIKE A DREAM. First run April that year, at the Plaza, Fenton. I was unable to obtain a complete copy of this, my favourite advert (filmed in Cornwall with voice-over by Patrick Wymark) as someone had cut it up for leaders while I was away for a week. I managed to piece together what was left, only about twelve or thirteen seconds and this is preserved on the reel. It still looks and sounds wonderful, with that haunting music, even though half of it is missing. And what about that girl? (see photo top left on back cover of this video) She is absolutely beautiful ! This advert was run well into 1969.

1968: LYONS MAID THUNDERBIRDS MULTI-PURPOSE; LYONS MAID CORNISH STRAWBERRY SUNDAE; BUTTERKIST MASTER MAIZE MEETS BLONDIE BUTTER; KIA-ORA LEMON N LIME CASCADE AND ORANGE FLAMENCO. These four filmlets, placed after the one mentioned above, were run at the Plaza, Fenton, from April, 1968, until well into 1969. The historic one here is the Cornish Strawberry Sundae advert, featuring young model Jenny Hanley, who was discovered due to this particular filmlet and was later chosen as a Bond girl on the strength of it, appearing in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” which starred another former model who had also appeared in a Lyons Maid advert, George Lazenby. The appealing sight of Miss Hanley, then aged 21 (see photo top right on back cover of this video), walking towards them in a 1968 mini-skirt on the big cinema screen raised the temperatures of many a male in cinemas throughout the country during 1968-1969.

1969: LYONS MAID ICE CREAM OF THE GODS. (45 seconds version…a 30 seconds version with slight scene variations was issued in 1970 and was once a part of the collection but was on the reel that was sold);

KIA-ORA LEMON N LIME CASCADE AND ORANGE
FLAMENCO. (version two); LYONS MAID ORBIT (with Captain Scarlet character). These three adverts were run in the above order at the Plaza, Fenton, from October, 1969, until May, 1970. The Ice Cream Of The Gods advert was replaced by a new 30 seconds version on Thursday, May 7th, 1970 and was once a part of the collection but was on the second reel that was eventually sold.

Below is a frame capture from the video. My video frame capture device, called ComproPVR2, is nowhere near as good as my DVD frame capture device, PowerDVD, but nevertheless, the frame capture below gives some idea of a picture that is much clearer than that shown.

exciterlamp

mysteriesofedgarwallace

the sort of films that new avatar comes from!!!

naffineck, Matron!

PennaBlade

Eldorado ice cream was not exclusive to cinemas. My father had a general store in the East Riding, in the late 1950s. He sold Eldorado, and the sweet shop next door sold Walls. A few years later he bought a second shop, a village grocers and again contracted to sell Eldorado. Shortly afterwards they were taken over by Lyons Maid. I seem to remember that they used a dancing polar bear as their logo.

Steve Crook

How many used the ice cream and other confectionery as a way of advertising the film? The Thief of Bagdad (1940) was one of the first to do a lot of "tie-in products" with things like colouring books, costume jewelry, matchbooks

and even ice-cream tubs

I'm fairly sure that they were both American. Was anything similar ever done here?

Steve

Windthrop

Have seen an identical design one on ebay with Richard Greene in Stanley and Livingstone which I think predates TTOB