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Consuming Images 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd i 18/12/19 3:04 PM Robert Abel’s Bubbles (1974) 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd ii 18/12/19 3:04 PM Consuming Images Film Art and the American Television Commercial Gary D. Rhodes and Robert Singer 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd iii 18/12/19 3:04 PM Dedicated to Barry Salt and Gerald “Jerry” Schnitzer Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Gary D. Rhodes and Robert Singer, 2020 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun—Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Monotype Ehrhardt by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 6068 2 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 6070 5 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 6071 2 (epub) The right of Gary D. Rhodes and Robert Singer to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd iv 18/12/19 3:04 PM Contents List of Figures vi Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. Origins 16 2. Narrative 36 3. Mise-en-scène 62 4. Cinematography 92 5. Editing 129 6. Sound 154 Conclusion 178 Index 183 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd v 18/12/19 3:04 PM Figures I.1 William Heis e’s Admiral Cigarette (1897) 2 I.2, I.3 Errol Morris’s Photobooth (2001) 4 I.4 Michel Gondry’s Smarienberg (1996) 12 1.1 Krinkles the Clown: “shock, entertain and sell”: Post Cereal commercial (1953) 18 1.2–1.6 Gerald Schnitzer’s Going to the Dance (1958) 19–21 1.7 Gerald “Jerry” Schnitzer 24 1.8, 1.9 Schnitzer’s Sunrise, Sunset (1966) 30 2.1, 2.2 David Lynch’s Obsession for Men (1990), featuring prose by Flaubert 38 2.3, 2.4 Michel Gondry’s Drugstore (1994) 42 2.5, 2.6 Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2014 commercial for Lincoln MKC 46 2.7 Lance Acord’s The Force (2011) 49 2.8–2.10 Aldo Ray, Broderick Crawford, and Jack Palance in a 1977 commercial for Canada Dry Ginger Ale 56–7 2.11 The G.I. Bill (1987) 58 3.1 Dennis Quaid promotes Esurance in 2018 63 3.2 Ridley Scott’s 1984 (1984) 64 3.3 Ozon Fluid Net Hairspray (1964) 66 3.4 Prestone commercial from 1974 67 3.5 I’m You (2010), featuring Christine O’Donnell 70 3.6 Scottie Tissues commercial from the 1960s 77 3.7 Micrin Oral Antiseptic from the early 1960s 77 3.8 Animation promotes Muriel cigars in 1951 79 3.9 Robert Abel’s Brand Name (1977) 83 3.10 Robert Abel’s Brilliance (1985) 84 3.11 Mike Dahlquist’s 2017 commercial for Halo Top 87 4.1 Remco’s Hi, Heidi commercial of 1964 93 4.2 Viz Eye Drops (1965) 97 4.3 When There’s No Man Around (circa 1966) 99 4.4, 4.5 Isn’t It Cool in Pink (1988), featuring Matt LeBlanc 103 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd vi 18/12/19 3:04 PM FIGURES vii 4.6 Kodak’s Turn Around (1963) 107 4.7, 4.8 Daisy Girl (1964) 111 4.9 Published in Advertising Age in March of 1977 117 4.10 Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Steadicam in 1979 118 4.11 Matthew Rolston’s Khakis Swing (1998) 122 5.1 Steve Horn’s 1985 commercial for Honda Scooters 130 5.2 Chemstrand Corporation’s A Lady Isn’t Dressed Unless Her Legs Are Too (1958) 134 5.3 Tarsem Singh’s Washroom (1996) 137 5.4 Joe Pytka’s Two Kids (1991) 141 5.5 Paxton cigarette commercial from 1963 143 5.6 Chills & Thrills commercial from 1970 145 5.7 Olan Soule promotes prune juice in the late 1960s/ early 1970s 148 5.8 Maybelline’s Shine Free Mascara (1986) 150 6.1 Roberto Malenotti’s Hilltop (1971) 155 6.2 Hans Knaapen’s Thief (2012) 160 6.3 Noxzema shaving cream commercial (1967) 163 6.4 Stan Freberg’s 1968 commercial for Jeno’s Pizza Rolls 166 6.5 Humira’s Not Always Where I Needed to Be (2018) 169 6.6 By the Pool (2015) 173 C.1, C.2 The culmination of Ridley Scott’s 1984 (1984) 180 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd vii 18/12/19 3:04 PM Surreal sardines from 1987 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd viii 18/12/19 3:04 PM Acknowledgments It takes a great deal of time and devotion to write a book. There are many people who actively contributed to the presentation and publication of our work, and we wish to acknowledge their generosity, and their reading and rereading of the material, and also to note the critical thinkers and lost narratives we discovered along the way. You are all no longer the secret heroes of our work. We would like to offer sincere thanks to the various archives, libraries, museums, and universities that kindly offered assistance during the research phase of this project: the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, the Ardmore Public Library of Oklahoma, the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, the Billy Rose Theatre Divi- sion of the New York Public Library, the British Film Institute in London, the Charles E. Young Research Library at the University of California/Los Angeles, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Louis B. Mayer Film and Television Study Center in the Doheny Library at the University of Southern California, the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division/Moving Image Section at the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C., the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, and the National Archives of the United States. The staff at the Kingsborough/CUNY library in particular were amazing in their resources and in their kindness. In addition, we want to express gratitude to the following individuals whose encouragement has helped make this book possible: Kevin Brown- low, Wendy Chu, William Collins, Kristin Dewey, Steve Haberman, Michael Lee, Joseph H. Lewis, Bob Murawski, Charles Musser, Victor Pierce, Stephen Rivkin, Ellen Schnitzer, Haskell Wexler, Tony Williams, and Robert Wise. Our deepest appreciation also goes to Gillian Leslie, our guiding spirit at Edinburgh University Press; Barry Salt, whose work acted as a model for our own and whose suggested revisions were crucial; and the late Gerald “Jerry” Schnitzer, who shared his personal archive and memories. 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd ix 18/12/19 3:04 PM 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd x 18/12/19 3:04 PM Introduction “The best TV commercials create a tremendously vivid sense of mood, of a complex presentation of something.”1 —Stanley Kubrick in 1987 In 1897, while employed at the Edison Studios, William Heise created one of the earliest filmed commercials, Admiral Cigarette (Fig. I.1). Heise, a director and (mostly) cinematographer of such Edison moving pictures as The Kiss (1896), Serpentine Dance, Annabelle (1897), and McKinley Taking the Oath (1897), shot the thirty-second moving picture, Admiral Cigarette, in one static, wide shot characteristic of the early cinema, but for the contemporary audience, this advertisement proved to be of historical significance: Admiral Cigarette helped inaugurate the ongoing and dynamic relationship between film culture and the advertisement–commercial, to be further exploited by the television medium. Four men, dressed in costumes humorously suggesting various social and ethnic strata, posed in front of a billboard prominently featuring the name of the tobacco company; they sit and converse. Then, a large box to the left of the frame opens and exposes a woman, who promptly distrib- utes cigarettes and casually tosses them all over the set. Near the end of this commercial, the men unfurl a large banner stating the inclusive ad copy “we all smoke,” even Native Americans and women. All can watch, and all can purchase. The relationship between film and advertising, from an aesthetic and technical perspective, with consumerism and commerce as practiced in commercial advertisements, remains an intact industrial standard. Appearing at an event held at Queen’s University of Belfast in 2007, David Lynch fielded numerous questions from attendees. One of them asked why he had decided to direct television commercials, which he has occasion- ally done since first making a series of four commercials for Calvin Klein’s Obsession in 1988. Smiling, Lynch quickly responded that he accepted the job offer for the large salary it provided, an answer that pleased the audience due to his honesty and good-natured demeanor. 6182_Rhodes & Singer.indd 1 18/12/19 3:04 PM 2 CONSUMING IMAGES Figure I.1 William Heise’s Admiral Cigarette (1897) Implicit in the question was a disdain for the TV commercial, not sur- prising given the fact that many critics view certain kinds of filmmaking as inferior to others, particularly those that are—in the larger sense of the word—“commercial.” Likewise, Lynch’s light-hearted answer operated on the level of money over issues of film style or art. The exchange was not surprising, as other discussions of the same topic emphasize the financial above all else.