It takes a lot to get people's attention these days when they're surrounded by billboards and commercials all day long. To make a movie stand out, filmmakers and studios have come up with some pretty outrageous gimmicks over the years to get more people into theater seats, and today in How Movies Find Audiences, we look at just a few of the wildest ones:
Smelly Movies:
If a film can engage your eyes, why not do something for your nose, too? That's the question a few brave titles have tackled over the years, and producer Michael Todd, Jr. came up with one solution in 1960 with the offbeat thriller, "Scent of Mystery." Various odors were pumped into theaters, ranging from the "happy odor of baking bread" to "the fresh moist nose tingle of orange." If you want to see what you'd be missing by watching it at home, we have a few pages from the original film program to show what audiences got to sniff for two hours:
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And before he made it big with "Hairspray," director John Waters came up with his own version of the process called Odorama. Oversized scratch and sniff cards were handed out to moviegoers, with numbers on the film flashing to indicate when they should scratch each scent to experience the same odors experienced by the film's heroine (played by cross-dressing cult star Divine, another movie gimmick unto herself). Here's a look at the original Odorama card as it appeared in 1981:
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The same idea was revived again in 2007 for "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" (which distributed scratch and sniff ads with cake and candy odors people could bring into the movie) and in 2011 by director Robert Rodriguez, who boosted "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" with both 3D and another odorous card called "Aromascope." This time audiences didn't even have to scratch; a simple swipe of a finger was enough to trigger each new scent.
Click image to enlargePersonalized Phone Calls:
In early August of 2006, people were surprised to suddenly get a phone call at work from actor Samuel L. Jackson, addressing them by name and urging them to go see "Snakes on a Plane." "You don't want to mess with me on this one because I will come after you. You hear me?!" The promotion was arranged through the film's website, which allowed people to fill out information to send the call to their friends. Over 10,000 messages were sent in the first 24 hours, even briefly bringing the service to a halt for repairs. In the summer of 2009, callers were surprised again to answer their phones and hear Optimus Prime and Starscream urging them to go see "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."
Click image to enlarge4D:
By now 3D has become so common it's rarely referred to as a gimmick anymore, but the process we now know as 4D really got its start in 1986 with the 17-minute short film "Captain EO," starring Michael Jackson. Writer/director Francis Ford Coppola and writer/executive producer George Lucas collaborated on the elaborate "musical space fantasy," which premiered at both Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California. Shot in 3D with two 70mm cameras, the film enhanced the audience experience with live elements like smoke and laser beams. Though impossible to pull off in your average movie theater, the gimmick has since been integrated into several theme park attractions like Star Tours and MuppetVision 3D.
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Sensurround:
Most home theater owners love having a good subwoofer to enhance their viewing experience, but Sensurround still takes the cake for shaking and rumbling movie audiences. The first film to use this low-frequency audio enhancement was "Earthquake" (1974), for which theaters installed special speakers to accommodate one of three possible audio options (mono, 4-track stereo, or 70mm 6-track stereo) and, by all reports, seriously disrupt any movies playing next door. When Los Angeles fell apart in the film, audiences also felt tremors throughout the theater thanks to heavy waves of low bass. The process even won a Scientific or Technical Award (Class II) from the Academy and was also used in "Midway" (1976), "Rollercoaster" (1977), and the theatrical version of the pilot for "Battlestar Galactica" (1978). Click on these images from the original press materials below to see how "Earthquake" and Sensurround were pitched to movie audiences:
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Duo-Vision:
"No glasses – all you need are your eyes. See the hunter, see the hunted both at the same time! Twice the tension! Twice the terror!" That's how MGM promoted its 1973 thriller "Wicked, Wicked," the only film presented entirely in split-screen. This process required the film to be shot in the square silent film aspect ratio, with the two different sets of footage joined by being optically printed onto a "synchronized parallel image print" for a final widescreen image. The filmmakers even announced a sequel called "Evil, Evil," which never made it before the cameras. In this original letter to theater exhibitors, MGM Vice-President Bill Madden explains the Duo-Vision process:
Click image to enlargeMultiple Endings:
"Whodunit depends on where you see it!" That's the pitch Paramount used for "Clue," the 1985 comedy based on the popular Parker Brothers (now Hasbro) board game originally known as "Cluedo" in England. Three different endings were shot, and moviegoers had no idea which ending their theater would have that Christmas. The film was also the very first to be screened for Academy Awards consideration with multiple endings, and subsequent home video versions have included all of them as well. Ending C is definitely a keeper.
Click image to enlargeHypnosis:
The 1960 horror film "The Hypnotic Eye" enhanced its story about a magician hypnotically driving patrons to their deaths with a device called "HypnoVision" and "HypnoMagic," which used a prologue claiming to lure its audience into a trance-like mood based on what the filmmakers called "applied psychology supplemented by music written under the direction of a psychiatrist." In an unusual twist on the idea, director Werner Herzog hypnotized most of the cast members for his 1976 film "Heart of Glass" to create strange, dreamlike performances.
Click image to enlargeNo Sleeping:
No one can resist a good dare, and that's what Warner Bros. was counting on with one creative campaign for the 1946 film noir classic "The Big Sleep." One publicity gag dared audiences to sleep through "The Big Sleep," implying that nodding off would be impossible given the relentless excitement of the film:
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The Coward's Corner:
Director William Castle came up with a different way to test his audience for the 1960 thriller "Homicidal," which featured a "Fright Break" just before the climax during which frightened audience members could leave the theater for a refund. However, they would have to first walk down a yellow line to a "Coward's Corner," much to the ridicule of their friends.
Click image to enlargePercepto:
Speaking of William Castle, the undisputed king of movie gimmicks (who also produced "Rosemary's Baby") outdid himself in 1959 with "The Tingler," which still gets shown in some theaters every Halloween. Its original release featured a special red color-tinted murder sequence and fake nurses on hand to help screaming patrons, but the most brilliant touch was Percepto, for which electrical buzzers were installed under random theater seats to startle moviegoers during the big finale -- in which the title monster also gets loose in a crowded movie theater. Here's how Columbia introduced this beloved all-time movie gimmick to original audiences:
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Images from the collection of the Margaret Herrick Library.
What's your all-time favorite movie gimmick?
