Reel Ephemera

I have to confess, I am not fond of ephemera. This is not a a sentiment that the majority of my colleagues share. My feelings are not popular. However, every now and again, I come across an item which makes me pivot on my axis.

According to Wikipedia, ephemera is defined as
"....transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera include advertising trade cards, airsickness bags [yes, airsickness bags this was news to me to, hopefully these are unused items, bearly touched by human hands and throats. Not even Marilyn Monroes' throat would make me feel less queasy about this issue], bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters, pamphlets, postcards, posters, prospectuses, newspapers, stock certificates, tickets and zines. Decks of personality identification playing cards from the war in Iraq are a recent example of ephemera items which are gaining in popularity with people who are interested in collecting such items.

In library and information science, the term ephemera also describes the class of published single-sheet or single page documents which are meant to be thrown away after one use. This classification excludes simple letters and photographs with no printing on them, which are considered manuscripts or typescripts. Large academic and national libraries and museums may collect, organize, and preserve ephemera as history. A particularly large and important example of such an archive is the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera at the Bodleian Library, Oxford."

We have just been offered an unusual item and I have to say, that I am fascinated by it. I have been absorbed for the entire day, pouring over it and researching it.

Above is said item.
Said item relates to the career of one Harry Curry. Mr. Curry appears to have had a rather enviable life. He was also a hoarder of note. The album contains a panorama of Harry's career, roughly between 1925 and 1939, from letters of acceptance into various positions for different film companies around the world including Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures, signed menu cards from events held by these companies, letters received aboard the White Star Line, a radiogram received aboard the "Samaria", Cunard White Star Line, telegrams received aboard the SS Queen Mary, telegrams received from the Union Steamship Company, airline tickets, telegrams received from the Western Union, newspaper clippings about his promotions and all sorts of other titbits. There is even a fold-out map pasted into the album, where he has outlined his journey aboard the T.S.S. “Themistocles”, from Melbourne to South Hampton, where he has had some of the crew members sign the map at the bottom.

The collection is not limited to letters, there are a couple of promotional, publicity cards from stars of the day (one of those being William Powell)

.

It also includes promotional matter related to publicity for movies that he launched in New Zealand such as “The Vagabond King”, "The Canary Murder Case", and "Maid to Order" (starring Julian Etlinge).

My ghast was flabbered to learn (from the letterheads) that a publicity manager was once known as an "Exploitation Manager". It appears that Harry took his job as an "exploitation manager” quite seriously. There is a newspaper article, “Stunting The Vagabond King”, which details Harry Curry staging

“a unique exploitation stunt.....that not only sent the picture merrily on its way to box-office records, but nearly sent Harry on his way to the place where exploitation men go when they die. It appears that Harry took to the air, heavily laden with handbills announcing the opening of the production......which he intended to drop on the seething masses below. All went well for some time, and the Paramounteer flung out hand-bills with great gusto. Then tragedy! A batch of 'bills caught in the aeroplanes rudder, making control of the machine impossible. As a fitting climax, Harry and the plane made a forced landing in the mud at St. Helier's Bay, none the worse for having introduced the first aerial exploitation stunt in that neck of the woods”.
I did mention that I have been enjoying reading the material, did I not ?

Not only did I learn of "exploitation managers", from these letters and letterheads, but I also learned a wee bit about film industry history. Some of the letterheads are from the "Famous Lasky Film Service" which was an earlier incarnation of "Paramount Pictures".

All these little details of which I had been oblivious. The album also contains bits of British film history in the form of photographs of the UK. Warner Bros. annual conventions and signed invitation forms as well as signed menus from these events. There a few amusing photographs and published caricatures of one Max Milder, who was the head of the London subsidary of Warner Bros., cigar always in hand and in the case of the caricatures of him – nearly eclipsing his head in size.

Mr. Curry clearly had a sense of humour. Whilst aboard the "Orca", he founded this club :

“Ye Jolly Olde Kocktail Klubbe – ye J. O.K.K. Loveth a good Drinker”, the membership card being “not returnable” and admittance being “one bottle as required” and their funds being 'We áint got much money but we sure see life". Under the the rules and regulations we see that the number of drinks per meeeting is described as "as many as you can freeze on to” and “Hoboes not on time to be ostracised. Charming ladies allowed sixty minutes latitude only – this on account of their well known proclivity”

The album also contains a humourous caricature of Mr. Curry captioned "The Social Lion" which appeared in the Paramount Punch, which appears to have been a journal for the trade.

For someone who is an "anti-clutter bug", this was quite an extraordinary object. I am amazed that someone can retain all these pieces, when I find myself in a world where architects appear to be competing to build places of captivity rather than homes, so small are they in size. Letters of appointment and congratulations I can understand as with the movie paraphernia, but the airline tickets, radiograms and telegrams, leave me bewildered, and yet this album captivated me from the start. I read it from cover to cover. It documents an interesting career of an interesting man in an interesting industry, but it doesn't stop there. Although we don't get the personal bumph of christmas letters and birhtday cards, we do get just enough of a view into the mans' life to make the collection interesting and we must remember that this also served as a family document, this was someones father, grandfather, uncle etc. I found the album to be more interesting in many ways than the average collection of ephemera as it is not sterile, but rather somehow alive with someones personality of past.

For those of you whose interest has been piqued with regards to the world of ephemera, go and have a look at The Ephemera Network.
And as they say in the classics "That's All Folks!".