Tom Waller was publicity manager of United Artists from June 1945 through July 1947. His position involved the supervision and direction of advertising and publicity for the films distributed through United Artists. Waller's duties included arranging press interviews and personal appearances of stars and directors, scheduling special screenings for the media, releasing publicity material to the press and overseeing the activities of more than a dozen field agents; in addition, he was involved with the creation of advertising materials and with the allocation of advertising budget between United Artists and individual exhibitors.
The file consists of documents accumulated by Waller while at United Artists as well as a scattering of materials inherited from his predecessor, Jimmie Dunn. Included are copies of numerous press releases issued both by United Artists and by individual production companies, synopses of films, biographies of stars and reviews of films. There is extensive correspondence with agents, advertising firms, United Artists and production company personnel, including reports on the success and failure of publicity campaigns.
Among the subjects treated are: newsworthy activities of stars, the status of films currently in production, human interest stories, photographic and poster material, publicity breaks and special screenings. Special attention is given to The Story of G.I. Joe and its protagonist, Ernie Pyle, and to George Bernard Shaw and his participation in Caesar and Cleopatra.
A list of citations to newspaper clippings has been made (see Box 1) and the deteriorating originals destroyed; in some cases, photocopies were retained in the file. A number of graphic and photographic materials have been separated to the stills collection at the Film Archives: see the Film Archivist for further information.
