Forecasting the Future Feature: How Film Industry Hierarchies Shaped Trailer Discourse, 1919–1959

Abstract

The coming attraction film trailer has successfully maintained its prominent role within film promotion for over a hundred years. This article explores the shifting historical status of the trailer within the film industry and how industry trade press reported on its development and widespread adoption. Across this period these publications worked to delineate the discursive borders within which trailer debate occurred: from attacks on the trailer’s usefulness to related claims of accuracy and fidelity. Exploring the creation of this discourse challenges the idea that the increasingly negative tone around the film trailer in the twenty first century is a uniquely modern phenomenon. The article argues that these initial industry strategies need to be understood in relation to key cultural and industrial concerns around commerce and artistry, critical cultural gatekeeping, and broader interests in forecasting. By focusing on a largely overlooked element of the classical Hollywood system, we demonstrate how trailers existed in a disputed space within that system: a crucial promotional tool but also a creatively potent film text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Martin Quigley, Jr., ‘The “Prize Baby” Remembers’, Motion Picture Herald, November 7, 1959, 16–17.

2 Lisa Kernan, Coming Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004); Carmen Daniela Maier, ‘The Promotional Genre of Film Trailers: Persuasive Structures in Multimodal Form’ (PhD diss., Aarhus University, 2006); Keith M. Johnston, Coming Soon: Film Trailers and the Selling of Hollywood Technology (Jefferson: McFarland, 2009); Jonathan Gray, Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers and Other Media Paratexts (New York: New York University Press, 2010).

3 Ernest Mathijs, ‘Bad reputations: the reception of “trash” cinema’, Screen 46, no. 4 (2005): 451–72.

4 See, for example: Charles R. Acland and Haidee Wasson, eds. Useful Cinema (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011); Cassie Blake, ‘Ahead of Its Showtime: The Packard Humanities Institute Collection at the Academy Film Archive,’ in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (London: BFI Palgrave, 2016), 251–6; Dylan Cave, ‘The Hidden Film-Maker…’ in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, 232–8.

5 Kernan, Coming Attractions; Maier, ‘The Promotional Genre of Film Trailers’; Gray, Show Sold Separately; Kathleen A. Williams, ‘Fake and fan film trailers as incarnations of audience anticipation and desire’, Transformative Works and Cultures 9 (2010): 1–21; Paul Salmon, ‘“The People Will Think… What I Tell Them to Think”: Orson Welles and the Trailer for Citizen Kane’, Canadian Journal of Film Studies/Revue Canadienne D’Études Cinématographiques 15, no. 2 (2006): 96–113; Daniel Hesford, ‘The Art of Anticipation: The Artistic Status of the Film Trailer and its Place in a Wider Cinematic Culture’ (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2013).

6 Janet Staiger, ‘Announcing Wares: Winning Patrons, Voicing Ideals: Thinking about the History and Theory of Film Advertising’, Cinema Journal 29 no. 3 (1990): 3–31; Keith J. Hamel, ‘From Advertisement to Entertainment: Early Hollywood Film Trailers’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video 29, no. 3 (2012): 268–78; Frederick Greene, ‘Working in the World of Propaganda: Early Trailers & Modern Discourses of Social Control’, Frames Cinema Journal 3 (2013): https://framescinemajournal.com/article/working-in-the-world-of-propaganda-early-trailers-modern-discourses-of-social-control/; Keith M. Johnston, “‘A friend to every exhibitor’: National Screen Service and the British trailer industry,” in The Routledge Companion to British Cinema History, eds. I. Q. Hunter, Laraine Porter, and Justin Smith (New York: Routledge, 2017), 181–90.

7 Staiger, ‘Announcing Wares’, 3–4; Hamel, ‘From Advertisement to Entertainment’, 269–72.

8 National Screen Service President Paul Lazarus, quoted in Johnston, Coming Soon, 171.

9 ‘Famous Players Issue Advance Film’, Moving Picture World, September 30, 1916, 2094; ‘The Quest of Life’, Bioscope, December 7, 1916, 965.

10 ‘Selznick Has Clever Trailer’, Moving Picture World, July 28, 1917, 663.

11 Hamel, ‘From Advertisement to Entertainment’, 275.

12 Tino T. Balio, ed. The American Film Industry Revised edition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); John Izod, ‘Depression and the Mature Oligopoly, the 1930s’, Hollywood and the Box Office, 1895-1986 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988), 95–110.

13 Hamel, ‘From Advertisement to Entertainment’, 275.

14 Johnston, ‘A friend to every exhibitor’, 181–90.

15 Johnston, ‘A friend to every exhibitor’, 181–90.

16 Kernan, Coming Attractions, 3.

17 Kernan, Coming Attractions, 3.

18 Staiger, Announcing Wares’, 3–4.

19 Mathijs, ‘Bad reputations’, 451.

20 Daniel Biltereyst and Lies Van de Vijver, ‘Introduction: Movie Magazines, Digitization and New Cinema History’, in Mapping Movie Magazines: Digitization, Periodicals and Cinema History, eds. Daniel Biltereyst and Lies Van de Vijver (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33277-8_1

21 Hamel, ‘From Advertisement to Entertainment’; Greene, ‘Working in the World of Propaganda’.

22 George D. Proctor, ‘Oh. It’s An Interesting Life’, Motion Picture News, November 15, 1913, 19; ‘The Home of the Vitagraph’, Moving Picture World, January 24, 1914, 403; ‘Trailers in Fuel Campaign’, Wid’s Daily, October 15, 1918, 1; ‘The Red Cross Asks the Exhibitor’s Aid’, Moving Picture World, December 20, 1917, 1862.

23 Staiger, ‘Announcing Wares’, 3–31.

24 See, for example: ‘Jack G. Leo’, Showmen’s Trade Review, November 13, 1943: ‘National Screen Service Convention opens in Chi.’, The Film Daily, April 17, 1946, 8; ‘Para-National Screen Deal Reported in Closing Stage’, The Film Daily, October 25, 1939, 1; ‘National Screen Makes Silent and Sound-on-Film Trailers for Armistice Day’, Exhibitors Herald World, October 23, 1930, 57; ‘Extra Trailer Readied for Third War Loan’, The Exhibitor, September 8, 1943, 23.

25 Mark Glancy, ‘Picturegoer: the Fan Magazine and Popular Film Culture in Britain During the Second World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 31, no. 4 (2011): 453–78; Marsha Orgeron, ‘“You are Invited to Participate”: Interactive Fandom in the Age of the Movie Magazine’, Journal of Film and Video 61, no. 3 (2009): 3–23.

26 U. A. Stone, ‘Picture Spoilers’, Modern Screen, July 1936, 19.

27 ‘Inside Stuff on Pictures’, Variety, April 21, 1926, 30.

28 ‘Inside Stuff on Pictures’, Variety, December 28, 1927, 13; ‘Too Much in Trailers?’, Variety, April 9, 1930, 11; ‘Trailer Burnup’, Variety, November 13, 1935, 4.

29 Exhibitor Screen Service ad, The Hollywood Reporter, February 20, 1933, 5.

30 Thomas M. Pryor, ‘Blow, Ye Trade Winds’, The New York Times, March 27, 1938), 138.

31 Clark Therese, ‘Trailers Kill Suspense’, Photoplay, January 1934, 10.

32 D. Hamlin, ‘Should ‘Trailers’ Be Abolished? Spoiling Our Zest for the Film’, Picturegoer, March 5, 1938, 26.

33 R. Brown, ‘Trailers Keep Them Away’, Picturegoer, February 17, 1934, 31; Lilian Philips, ‘They Show Too Much’, Picturegoer, November 20, 1948, 18; James Kelly, ‘They Tell Too Much’, Picturegoer, September 10, 1949, 3; H. W. Holtom, ‘… But Cut Trailers’, Picturegoer, January 26, 1952, 3; D. E. Newton, ‘Tell-tale Trailers’, Picturegoer, February 23, 1952, 3.

34 Tom Matthews, ‘Trailers They’re Not Just for Advertising Anymore’, Boxoffice, March 1986, 22, quoted in Hamel, ‘From Advertisement to Entertainment’, 273.

35 Edward Mills, ‘War on Trailers’, Motion Picture Classic, July 1930, 6.

36 ‘Talking Trailer is Ably Analysed’, Fox West Coast Theatres Now, April 16, 1930.

37 ‘Talking Trailer is Ably Analysed’.

38 ‘Inside Stuff on Trailers’, Variety, April 21, 1926, 30.

39 Brown, ‘Trailers Keep Them Away’, 31.

40 Margaret Hinxman, ‘Trailers Are So DULL’, Picturegoer, July 28, 1951, 21.

41 Joel Timmer, ‘NOT Playing at a Theater Near You: Deceptive Movie Trailers and the First Amendment’, Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law, 14 (2023): 297–37.

42 ‘Importance of Trailers’, Exhibitors Trade Review, November 5, 1921, 1597.

43 Shirley R. Simpson, ‘Trailers or Slides?’, Kinematograph Weekly, June 3, 1926, 70.

44 Mordaunt Hall, ‘Those Exuberant Screen Barkers’, The New York Times, July 28, 1929, 5.

45 ‘What Do You Think?’ Picturegoer Weekly, May 21, 1932, 29.

46 ‘Critics Forum’, The Film Daily, August 5, 1932, 1–2.

47 ‘Critics Forum’, 2.

48 Howard T. Lewis, The Motion Picture Industry (D. Van Nostrand Company, 1933).

49 Gray, Show Sold Separately; Martin Oja, ‘On the concept of the deceptive trailer: Trailer as paratext and multimodal model of film’, Sign Systems Studies 47 no. 1/2 (2019): 177–204.

50 Kernan, Coming Attractions, 1.

51 Walter A. Friedman, Fortune Tellers: The Story of America’s First Economic Forecasters (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014): ix.

52 Friedman, Fortune Tellers, xi.

53 ‘Famous Players Issue Advance Film’, 2094.

54 Friedman, Fortune Tellers, x.

55 Leo A. Handel, ‘Hollywood Market Research’, The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television 7, no. 3 (1953): 304–10.

56 Handel, ‘Hollywood Market Research’, 304.

57 George Replies’, Picturegoer, May 21, 1949, 18.

58 ‘Focus on Films’, Picturegoer, February 3, 1951, 3.

59 ‘Stars Obey Their Fans’, Picturegoer, September 28, 1935, 34.

60 ‘Focus on Films’, Picturegoer, April 4, 1953, 3.

61 ‘The Value of Trailers’, Film Bulletin, July 9, 1956, 5–8.

62 Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Boston: Harvard Princeton University Press, 2004): 12.

63 Friedman, Birth of a Salesman, 89–90.

64 ‘Trailer Improvement Urged in Survey’, Film Daily, March 3, 1948, 6.

65 ‘Trailer Improvement Urged’, 6.

66 W. A. Bach, ‘Chicago Exhibitors Overwork “Trailers”; Mental Indigestion Result of Their Zeal’, Motion Picture News, October 6, 1917, 2343.

67 ‘Overloaded Bills’, The Film Daily, May 7, 1935, 8; ‘Too Many Trailers’, The Film Daily, May 10, 1935, 4; ‘This Is Our Prosperity Season!’, Motion Picture Herald, August 29, 1931, 43; ‘From Our Readers’, The Film Weekly, August 9, 1930, 20.

68 ‘Trailer Improvement Urged’, 6.

69 Anon, ‘A New Trailer Idea’, Kinematograph Weekly, June 10, 1926, 54.

70 Jesse Balzer, ‘Winning Over La La Land: Prestige and Promotional Media Labor’, Flow (January 29, 2018).

71 Ed Vollans, ‘So just what is a trailer, anyway?’, Arts and the Market, 5, no. 2, 113.

72 ‘Look, A New Type Trailer’, Picturegoer, December 18, 1954, 8; ‘Trailer Stupidity’, Film Weekly, June 19, 1937, 7.

73 Elan Gamaker, “Opening the Paratext: The Hitchcock Trailer as Assertion of Authorship,” Open Screens 1, no. 1 (2018): 1–26.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keith M. Johnston

Keith M. Johnston is Professor of Film & Television Studies at the University of East Anglia. His research on trailers and promotional materials includes Coming Soon: Film Trailers and the Selling of Hollywood Technology (McFarland 2009); articles in international journals including Arts & the Market, Convergence, International Journal of Media, Culture & Politics, Media History, and Participations; and an appearance in the documentary feature Movie Trailers: A Love Story (Campea, 2020).

Jesse Balzer

Jesse Balzar is an independent researcher studying promotional culture and media industry award shows. He currently works for Indiana University Press.