Collecting Commercials
By Howard Beckerman
A great deal of effort goes into copyrighting and protecting the ownership of movies these days. This was not always the case and in the old days once a movie had made the rounds it was often forgotten, and as a result many fine films have been lost forever. Others were saved by the intervention of collectors who were able to salvage whatever remained of the Hollywood productions made on the inflammable nitrate stock.
The same fate may have befallen the ubiquitous television commercials of past years. These short films made under extremely close supervision and often at great cost, considering their brief length, are usually discarded once a campaign has run its course. Often the collected people that have been involved with the spots, whether from the sponsoring client, advertising agency or production house, move on to other positions with other organizations and the once important commercial having lost its parentage is soon thrust into the incinerator to make way for newer works.
If there are any remaining examples of the television spots of yore they are probably on sample reels gathering dust just behind the tennis shoes and gold clubs of agency creative directors and assorted filmmakers. Aside from a reel that I know exists at The Museum of Modern Art, and perhaps CBS' Museum of Broadcasting, there does not seem to be anyway to gain access to television commercials of the past 30 years.
Another problem that faces those spots that do exist, and which has affected dramatic films as well, is the perishability of the color stock that has been used since the early 50's. Films printed on Eastman Color, no matter how subtly beautiful they may be in hue and tone at the time of their initial release are doomed to lose their lushness and turn towards the red scale. While producers of important feature productions may resort to various methods to preserve their priceless originals, there is no reason to expect that any precautions would have been taken with the average television blurb that is not meant to be seen for more than a few weeks or months.
At this point many of you may wonder why all the fuss over the loss of films that were made for a specialized purpose, delivered their messages (many of which may have been irksome and annoying in delivery and shallow in con tent) and sold the clients goods.
The reasons become plain after a showing of 15 to 20 year old television spots. Not too long ago I attended a screening of commercials that are in the possession of producer Bert Hecht who managed to salvage examples of spots animated and live and dating back to the 1950's.
The first thing that became apparent was that the films, though obviously dated, revealed styles and attitudes that no longer consider important, but in retrospect reflect on what we once thought to be permanent and indestructible. For instance, women are shown only in relation to household chores, and usually attired in their best finery, sporting ballerina skirts, high heels and small flouncy aprons to drive home the fact of domesticity. Jeans were hardly shown, except on cowboys or small children. Beer commercials were often animated, cars had fins, there were cigarette commercials, graphics meant clever layouts not streaks, strobes and sparkles, and almost all of the spots were filmed in sparkling black and white and ran for a full minute.
Animated commercials of the 50's and early 60's had simple uncomplicated backgrounds but their plots were much more involved to fill, what appears to day to be excruciatingly lengthy. 60 seconds of screen time. There was an advantage though, characters such as Harry and Bert Piel had time to develop a theme and exploit their personalities while they presented the pertinent facts about the product. These two characters were so effective that the Piels breweries sold more beer in the cold months of January and February than they had the previous summer.
Harry and Bert Piel may have been only the most popular of a group of characters that included, the little boy puppet, Speedy-Alka-Seltzer; the Mae West character, Muriel Cigar (“pick me up and smoke me sometime"), the Sunshine Bakers, the Babbo Cleanser men, the Campbell's Soup kids and any number of animated characters that represented scores of products, but there were also live personalities that present surprises upon viewing the old commercials today.
We forget that television advertising not only uses existing stars to speal for products but it is also a good starting ground for newer actors. Looking through Bert Hechts' vast collection one is suddenly rewarded at the sight of Dick Van Dyke delivering a message for Bosco Chocolate Drink, or Mike Wallace touting the wonders of Fluffo Whipped Cream. Digging through the reels we came up with commercials featuring Sandra Dee making an early appearance before the public in a Coca Cola spot.
Another fascinating aspect of the early use of commercials is the special effects that were employed to catch the viewers eye. The ones that stand out in memory are the Hertz rent-A-Car spots that flew a man and dropped him into the seat of a moving convertible, or the spot from the late 50's for Maxwell House that actually showed us a cup and a half of coffee being poured. Viewers were stumped as to how the extra coffee was able to keep on filling above the cup.
Saving and showing the commercials of yesteryear offers us a chance to view ourselves the way we were and allows us to see our mistakes as well as our successes. One practitioner of the art, Bob Franz, who's stop motion wizardry added to the popularity of the above mentioned Maxwell House coffee cup feels that it might be best to not relate back to the old films, "If someone wants to reinvent the wheel everyday let them," he says happily. "It would mean work and pay for everyone.
Still it is always a good idea to cast an eye on what has come before or as the philosopher said, we might find ourselves from bumping our shins on the same old corners.
No comments:
Post a Comment