In another sign of the times, 1949 seems pretty early to me for a "seven-segment" clock display (on the Bond store). This would have worked better for standard-ish typefaces, like on the "Home of the Brave" sign, and not as well on custom ones, like the curved letters for "Barkleys of Broadway". Then, when they got an order, they could paint a backing board, hang the letters on it, and wire them together relatively quickly. Spending money on fancy signs in New York might have helped the studios to convince independent theater operators in smaller cities to book the film - "it sold 5,000 tickets a day in New York!"įinally, for electric signs like this, it wouldn't have been difficult for the sign company to stock a few copies of the alphabet, with bulbs installed and ready to go. They'd get an initial release in, say, New York and LA, and then expand to smaller cities over time. I also understand that until maybe the 1970s, it wasn't common for movies to be released all across the US at the same time. Once they figured out who their top few leading men and ladies would be, they could re-use the letters for those names for several movies if they wanted to.
Something that probably helped was that under the studio system, studios would sign contracts with actors for several movies. The studio probably had more money than an individual theater, so they could more easily produce fancy signs.
1949 was the tail end of it, but Hollywood used to operate under the "studio system", where movie studios would also own a relatively large chain of theaters. To Greg B's point about the elaborate signs - it may have been the studios that were paying for those.
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