Before the eighties, movie studios would send out press books to the theater owners to help them promote the showings of their film. These manuals contained pictures, articles, and newspaper/magazine ads about the subject film and exhibitors would cut out what they liked and take it to local publishers to use in advertisements. Those of you old enough to remember will recall seeing these grainy 'bubbles' used on the movie page of their morning newspapers accompanied by theater show times. The books also contained ordering information for promotional related items like posters and those 8x10 publicity stills theaters would mount under the poster boards.
Press books have gone the way of the covered wagon and digital pagers now, but back in 1973 they were still an important part of the studio's promotion machine. Universal Studios certainly used them to great affect for their little movie, American Graffiti. We've got a few of them and we'll post parts of them from time to time. They are an interesting look at a time gone by not unlike our favorite movie itself.
