erik lundegaard

 RSS
ARCHIVES
LINKS

Saturday July 03, 2021

Bialystock + Bloom = Blumenstock?

Came across this in the Motion Picture Herald, the one-time movie exhibitors trade pub, which often included helpful promo hints for enterprising theater managers. This is from the spring/summer of 1942:

I like the WANTED poster of Hitler to promote the rerelease of the 1939 film “Hitler, Beast of Berlin,” which played with both the Three Stooges' “You Nazty Spy,” and the Marx Bros. in “Horse Feathers” (not “Duck Soup”?). Not a bad triple feature. MPH calls Hitler “Herr Schickelgruber” as an allusion to his suspect ancestry.

The “Yankee Doodle” one is more hifalutin, delving into theatrical history and using the public libary to bring in customers. I'm struck by the genius behind it: Mort Blumenstock. He became head of Warner Bros.' publicity dept. in 1945 and died of a heart attack in 1956, age 55. I guess I'm just curious if Mel Brooks ever met him. Blumenstock? Bialystock and Bloom? Just tossing out.

Posted at 10:17 AM on Saturday July 03, 2021 in category Movies - Theaters