The Exhibitor Herald Book was produced Morgan Lithograph Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio, USA in 1943. They were commissioned as a promotional item, containing information on current release and upcoming serial movies featured in theaters at the time, plus the various actors found in these serials, all produced by film company Columbia Pictures.
The WJ Morgan Lithographers was established by brothers William Morgan and George Morgan in Cleveland, Ohio, USA in 1864. The printing company originally produced advertising collateral for local businesses, including broadsheets, trade cards, pamphlets, blotters, postcards and posters. Due to the quality of their work, the company quickly grew, with orders flowing in from interstate organizations.
The Company adopted the stone lithographic process to create its advertising materials. They produced art in-house by employing a team of artists to illustrate and design high quality advertisements printed across a variety of products. These artists commonly travelled to their clients’ locations who were able to illustrate buildings, factories, shop facades or merchandise which often appeared on their advertising materials.
In 1887, WJ Morgan Lithographers was renamed to Morgan Lithographic Company and focused on the entertainment industry, designing posters, broadsheets, lobby cards and other collateral for production companies, theaters and traveling companies.
One of their clients was the Ringling Brothers Circus. From its work with this Circus, the Morgan Lithographic Company lays claim to being the first Company to create billboard-size posters or ‘twenty-four sheet billboards’. These were approximately 269cm x 594cm in size in landscape format, printed in approximately 12 overlapping sections, issued folded. They were produced to advertise on a roadside billboard.
The quality of the Morgan Lithographic Company’s work continued to grow, gaining more and more attention and even winning awards at the Paris World Fair and Chicago Exposition in the 1890s. They were the printing Company of choice by film production companies, becoming a leader in film advertisement.
As the company grew both in volume of work and financial success, it stared to increase its market share by purchasing smaller printing houses, resulting in an expansion of production facilities.
In 1913, the Morgan Lithographic Company produced oversized three-sheet and six-sheet posters as well as standard one-sheet posters measuring 27” wide by 41” high, setting the industry standards at the time.
The Morgan Lithograph Company is still in operation, a printing house to this day trading under the name of Morgan Litho.
Exhibitor Herald Books have been around as long as there have been movies and serials and feature an eclectic mix of elements helping to promote a film or serial. They also contain production information regarding the feature in question, including actor information, locations used and credits to producers.
The Exhibitor Herald Book contains 14 full color pages and measures 10.25 inches x 15 inches when folded, 20.50 inches x 15 inches when opened. The book features a variety of serials, including the Phantom. The front and back covers can be seen below, produced in heavy stock paper.
Page three showcases 16 prominent stars in color photographs, including Rita Hayworth, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Claire Trevor, Paul Muni, Irene Dunne, among others. Additionally, there is a side page dedicated to color images of a subsequent tier of stars, featuring Ann Savage, Adele Mara, Judy Canova, Joan Davis, Jess Barker, Bruce Bennett, Penny Singleton, and others.
Inside the Exhibitor Herald Book are also 7″ X 15″ knockout photos in poster form for ‘My Friend Curley’ with Cary Grant, Rita Hayworth in ‘Cover Girl’, Cary Grant and Rita Hayworth in ‘Gone are the Days’, ‘Vampires of London’, and ‘Beyond the Grave’.
Included also is a page on Charles Starrett and Russell Hayden westerns, and the inside back cover has a full color art rendering of ‘The Three Stooges’ announcing them in 8 upcoming films for the 1943-1944 season. The top part of the front cover when unfolded contains a mix of serials including Batman, The Fighting General and the Phantom, as can be seen below.
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