Pressbook Promotion: BORN AGAIN (1978)

Book Ad of the Week: THE LOOTERS (1968)

June 6th, 1968

The Looters
by John Reese
Random House, 1968

This novel became the Don Siegel film CHARLEY VARRICK (1973), starring Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Andrew Robinson, Sheree North, and John Vernon.

Pressbook Promotion: 99 AND 44/100% DEAD (1974)

"Fanfare Talent Search" for the 49th Prophet

Hollywood – Joe Solomon’s Fanfare Film Productions is launching a nation-wide talent hunt for an unknown teenaged actor to portray the title role of a “hippie demagogue” in the forthcoming screen version of Elizabeth Willet’s novel “The 49th Prophet.”
                                  -- Motion Picture Daily, July 30, 1968, p.4

Not only was THE 49TH PROPHET never produced as a movie, we've found no evidence that it was ever published as a novel. Ms. Willett (with two t's) couldn't have been pleased to see her name mishandled so many different ways in the various press releases Solomon sent to the trades touting this aborted project.  Earlier the same year, her story/co-writer credits on PSYCH-OUT appeared as "E. Hunter Willett" in the opening credits, but "Betty Tusher" on the posters and ad mats!

Book Ad of the Week: THE DOGS (1976)

June 27, 1976

The Dogs
by Robert Calder
Delacorte Press, 1976

The film adaptation was never made.

Pressbook Promotion: THE HOWLING (1981)

Book Ad of the Week: THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1969)

August 24, 1969

The French Connection

by Robin Moore

Little, Brown & Co., 1969

Note that National General Pictures had the first option on the book; by the time they released William Friedkin's film of Matt Crowley's play THE BOYS IN THE BAND some six months after this ad appeared, 20th Century Fox had secured the rights to The French Connection. The movie would go on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Friedkin). Fifteen years later, National General founders Samuel Schulman and Irving H. Levin produced Friedkin's TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., based on the novel Money Men by Gerald Petievich.