Here are two 11″ x 17″ sheets of readymade art to be inserted into your newspaper ad with the name of your theater and the showtimes alongside or below, These are essentially the same as the ad negatives and pages 7 through 20 of the AFD Campaign Pressbook, except they were distributed as individual loose pages. It’s interesting how many variants of the tagline they came up with to fit into the ever-decreasing space.

It’s also interesting that except for the two largest layouts, only the top two billed cast members are listed. Robin’s picture is there but not her name.

This post was made possible through the generosity of my Ko-Fi supporters. Thank you so much! Go Team RJ!!

This is an 8 x 10 inch black and white negative transparency, containing an approximately 9 1/2 x 6 1/4 inch image of the poster side of the two-sided promotional foldout designed by Seiniger & Associates, with the addition of the words “suitable for mature audiences.” That’s a description and as much as I can swear to being actual fact. Based on that, I’ll say that since this sort of transparency was used to print ads in newspapers and magazines, this was used to print an ad promoting Times Square in a publication aimed at movie theater owners and bookers. I don’t know of any such publication, but it’s hard to believe that such a thing did not exist, and may yet exist. So there may still be out there a catalog of all the upcoming movie releases for 1980 that you may want to run at your theater, containing an extra full page ad for Times Square before the poster design was finalized. Or maybe not, since until such a thing turns up there’s no evidence this ad actually ran anywhere.

I’m starting to think that there are two separate sets of UK black-and-white publicity stills, one with borders, one without. You know, just to make things more confusing. Thankfully, so far at least there isn’t another one labeled “24” but not full-bleed.

On the Times Square commentary track recorded around 1999-2000, Robin says:

“Peter had so much trouble with this… It was hard for him to be rough and violent with me, actually. I remember him having some trouble with that… He’s such a doll… I didn’t want to do that fake, camera-angle stuff so I let him really smack me around. [laughs] It’s my S&M streak. ‘Smack me!'”

Although it’s hard to tell if he’s really hitting her in the film – for instance she’s definitely turning her head several frames before his hand starts traveling – as far as I can tell this still is unique in that it’s actually from the shot used in the film, just from a different, closer angle. I’d assume from that that there was no run-through or rehearsal, or even a second take, in order to reduce the wear and tear on both actors.

It’s impossible to tell from the film angle, but this photo definitely makes it look like a solid face-smashing slap that took something out of both performers. It seems something of a shame that it was never used for anything, as far as I know, and perhaps hasn’t been seen by anybody until now.

The black and white 8 x 10 stills released in England tend to have a lot of things in common, but the attributes are not absolute… Most of them, but not all, are full-bleed, with no borders. Many of them, but not all, have a caption pasted to their backs. Most, but not all, have a tiny number inset near the bottom. In at least one case, two nearly-identical photos with the same number are cropped slightly differently, and the number inset is visibly different and in a different spot, implying that they came from two different print runs.

For this shot of Nicky being hassled by the man, the caption pasted to the back clearly numbers it as 1.

The only problem with that is, there’s already a #1, that came in the UK press kit. There’s a number inset on this picture, but I’m damned if I can make head or tail of it. It could be a 1… it could be an upside-down 7 (but there already is a 7)… I’ve decided it’s a screwy-looking 2. (The problem with that is, there was a 2 in the press kit, just not in the copy I have, and its description is not this photo.)

On the other hand, I do have two different photos both very clearly numbered 4. I’ll leave this one as 2 for the time being, and if a different 2 turns up I’ll make it a second 1. But, as the only person I know of trying to keep track of this stuff, I reserve the right to change my mind about this at any moment on a whim.

For what it’s worth, I have 22 numbered photos from this British publicity blitz. The highest number I have is 41. So, hard as it is to believe, there are still at least nearly 20 Times Square publicity stills that apparently no one in this century has seen…
 

Would you like to know more?
15 or 16 UK Promo Photos
UK Promo Photos 4, 13, and 21, 1980-81
UK publicity still #22
UK Promo Photos 20 and 26, 1980-81
UK Promo Photo #29
More stills from the UK series
 

[Maybe I just do another roundup post of these… someday…]

Kinema Junpo (Kinejun, Motion Picture Times) devoted three pages to a promotional Times Square article in its June 15, 1981 issue, for the film’s Japanese opening on June 21. The text would appear to be the usual brief synopsis, with a list of some of the cast and crew. The small inset on page 203 is, I think, an ad with showtimes, though it might be a brief review. Please, as I’ve said before, I don’t speak or read Japanese, and dammit neither does Google Translate, so if anyone wants to contribute a translation, I’ll be here.

The photos used are all also found in the Japanese souvenir program book.

The back cover is a reproduction of the first chirashi, with the announcement of one show on 6/20. I don’t know if that’s a special premiere or if I’ve had the opening date wrong this whole time.

Would you like to know more?
Times Square promotional flyer, Japan, 1981
Times Square movie poster, Japan, June 1981
Times Square Program Book, Japan, June 1981 (post 1 of 5)
Times Square Program Book, Japan, June 1981, pages 8-11 (post 2 of 5)
Times Square Program Book, Japan, June 1981, pages 14-19 (post 3 of 5)
Times Square Program Book, Japan, June 1981, pages 20-24 (post 4 of 5)
Times Square Program Book, Japan, June 1981, pages 12-13 (post 5 of 5)

The mind boggles at the series of meetings that must have occurred to result in the decision that this was a good idea. A 12-inch single of “Damn Dog”… but not a remix or extended version… and on the other side, absolutely nothing. In order to promote the movie Times Square and Robin Johnson, a sleeve with no pictures at all. The only single release of a song written and performed just for film, released exclusively to the Belgian market. It seems like overkill while simultaneously being half-assed.

Belgium did get its own version of the European poster, and at least one promotional magazine article. I guess this is just one more inexplicable piece of evidence of the high hopes RSO had for Times Square worldwide, when the decades since have shown that they had no real clue what they were trying to sell, or to whom.

Row M was about halfway back. Seat 16 was the second-to-last, all the way on the right. There were no bad seats at the Ziegfeld, but this was far from the best. This post contains no Robin content, except for the historical fact that she was there that night.