ATTENTION DEALERS, COLLECTORS and ARCHIVISTS!!

AND

Anyone that handles vintage movie accessories between 1930-1962

After sound was introduced, the 1930s-1950s brought a deluge of small distributors trying to break into the industry by re-distributing all types of films. With this chaotic time of unknown distributors came a deluge of unmarked reissues and small production companies trying to find a market. This is one of the most undocumented and frustrating periods in film history. Unmarked reissues and small films are abundant, giving even veteran researchers nightmares.....

But there is one common place that studios both large and small ran to for help; National Screen Service. National Screen Service started in 1920 and between 1922-1926 took control of the trailer industry. But at that time, trailers were little more than just clips from the film pasted together. Sound changed EVERYTHING... Suddenly voice overs and trailer productions became the main way of marketing films, and NSS was the only company set up to handle it and they  DOMINATED the market. Distributors large and small clammered to get this new marketing tool to help market their films. Because of the overwhelming demand, NSS perfected a numbering system to maintain control. This system was used on trailers .. and then in 1940 when they moved into dominating the accessories, the same numbering system was modified to control the posters as well.

FINALLY a solution

We have been gathering information from the posters for many (many) years trying to document the releases, but remained frustrated with all of the unmarked reissues. We acquired a 1999 National Screen Service book (the year before they closed). This helped tremendously but still left a LOT of holes and blanks. Then we learned that in 1962, National Screen Service introduced a Master Log for trailers that also had codes to show reissues, 3D, Cinemascope, color, aka's and distributor transfers. We acquired this book and it filled in a tremendous amount of information but there were still areas that it neglected. So we took and combined ALL 3 sources and THEN filled in some additional information to create a MAJOR research tool for this time period.

Our new logs cover 32 years with a little over 15,000 NSS numbers (an average of about 500 titles per year). As we compiled this massive amount of information, we saw a large amount of distributors that we had never heard of. But if you wanted to see what that distributor released or what was released in a particular year, it was still difficult to search through so many numbers.

We realized that anyone doing detective work in this chaotic time needed more than just the 'WHEN'. Like any detective, you also needed the 'WHO' and the 'WHAT'. (We know this from our massive amount of experience as a detective in 'CLUE' - you know... *Colonel Mustard in the *kitchen with the *KNIFE!)

So we created the NSS Trailer Log by NSS number to show you WHEN numbers were used giving the information by YEAR. We then completely resorted all the information by distributor. This lets you see WHO distributed the titles each year. We THEN completely resorted all the information AGAIN by TITLE so you could see WHAT titles were released alphabetically.

As an example, in 1948 a small distributor opened called Dezel Production. In 1948 ONLY, they re-released about 40 films from the 1930s and then they were gone. Put their name in most film databases such as imdb and they don't even come up. BUT - NSS made their trailers and accessories!!! So you can look under the Distributor Logs and see EXACTLY what they released!

LAMP

Proudly Presents

Our Newest Research Tool

NATIONAL SCREEN SERVICE

TRAILER LOGS

Enhanced Editon covering 1930-1962


3 Books In One

* One Section by NSS Numbers

* One Section by Title

* One Section By Distributor

 

Order YOUR copy NOW

So YOU will have the research tool to be the detective during this time period

 

Regular Price: ONLY $75 plus shipping

US orders are $5 media mail and outside US orders are $20 shipping Airmail first class

LAMP Members - please order from the Member bookstore in the Member Section

HOW TO ORDER:

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By Check or Money Order - INSIDE U.S. ONLY:

Make check or money order in the amount of $80.00 payable to Ed Poole and send to:
Ed Poole
PO Box 3181
Harvey, LA 70059-3181.