Publicity stunts have been used to market movies since Florence Lawrence was falsely reported dead in 1910, becoming the first “named” movie star. So, I'm not that impressed by Sacha Baron Cohen as Bruno flying on wires over the MTV Movie Awards and landing with Eminem's head in his butt cheeks.

I'm certain that Mr. Em can manage that all by himself.

But it gets me thinking about other publicity stunts selling movies. Some work, some don't and most are just plain stupid... but they work.

Here are five that come to mind, for a Weekend piece to mark the arrival of Bruno in theaters. I'm sure I'm leaving out something swell, so feel free to post some suggestions.

Schlock moviemaker William Castle was the ballyhoo king, rigging theater seats to deliver electric jolts during The Tingler, and creating “Illusion-O” glasses to better see 13 Ghosts. Castle also took an insurance policy with Lloyds of London, promising $1000.00 to anyone who died of fright during his 1958 thriller, Macabre. Crowds came, nobody collected.

Jerry Seinfeld appeared as embarrassed as fans felt in 2007 when he donned a bumble bee costume, got hitched to a zip line and “flew” from the roof of a hotel at the Cannes Film Festival. To be fair, the animated Bee Movie was Seinfeld’s first starring role in a feature film, so he probably thought every movie star performs such silly stunts.

In 1998, a year before The Blair Witch Project was released, its creators built a bogus Web site based on the film’s plot about three missing documentary filmmakers and their found footage. Visitors fell for it hook, line and sinker, creating an urban legend and, unintentionally, the first viral marketing campaign. Since then, one of the first steps in producing movies is securing an appropriate Web address.

When the Marx Brothers prepared to film A Night in Casablanca, Warner Bros. threatened legal action over the title that was considered too close to the studio’s Oscar winner, Casablanca. Groucho Marx leaked a lengthy, sarcastic response to the press (“I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.”) Warners backed off but the ruckus made the movie an event.

Million Dollar Mystery was a 1987 rip-off of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with four hidden bags containing $1 million each and only three discovered in the movie. Viewers could gather clues from the movie to locate the fourth and keep the million bucks. A woman from California identified the hiding place — inside the Statue of Liberty’s nose — winning $10, 967 more than the flop grossed at the box office.

Got anything better than that? Chime in.