This is the history of advertising in motion pictures from the slide ads of the 1890s to the common practice of product placement in the present. Initially, product placement was seen as a somewhat sleazy practice and also faced opposition from the film industry itself; it has grown dramatically in the past 25 years. From Maillard's Chocolates advertising with a shot of Cardinal Richelieu enjoying a hot cup of cocoa in 1895, to product placements in 2002's Minority Report, for which advertisers were rumored to have paid $25 million, this book explores the developing union of corporate America and Hollywood.

This work addresses such topics as television's conditioning of filmgoers to accept commercials, companies' donation of props, the debate about advertising such activities as smoking and drinking in films, and "product displacement," or demands by companies to keep their products absent from unpopular or controversial films. Film stills and a bibliography complete the book.