Monday, December 6, 2010

SHOCK! Ballyhoo (#3): Good Night, Nurse!

OK, technically, this is not SHOCK! ballyhoo--- it is from the "Showmanship" section of a theatrical pressbook for THE WOLF MAN and is intended for patrons in movie theater lobbies rather than TV viewers in 1957: a "first-aid booth" with cigarettes and chewing gum to soothe the nerves, candles for those afraid of the dark, spirits of ammonia (smelling salts) to bring consciousness back to those who have fainted out of fear, dye for those whose hair turned white from fear, and so on.

Though it was intended for movie-theater publicity well before the movie's stint on TV, I just can't resist including this here as part of my look at THE WOLF MAN on SHOCK!. For one thing, I like the explicit mention here of treating "those who suffer from 'thrill-shock'"--- I've been gathering stuff like this for a future web log entry on how the word "shock" was used (by Universal , Film Classics, and Realart) for horror films of the '30s and '40s and how this usage may have informed Screen Gems decision to title the syndication package SHOCK! in 1957. (Another example of "shock talk" from THE WOLF MAN's pressbook appears below.)



1 comment:

Mirek said...

Nice little pre-Ackerman play on words at the end... SHOX-PLOITATION.