Do you hear the celebrities saying, "I'm not dead yet"? I sure do. (And no I don't see dead people.) And the ad agencies are happy to keep them from getting on the put on the cart.

The latest advertisement in this growing trend is chock-a-block full of famous dead folk. Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R have created a new commercial for Virgin Trains which brings characters (and dead actors) from old movies and places them among modern folk riding Virgin's new speedy trains.

The brief was to "make people forget how grim train travel has often been in recent years. Instead, inspire them with a bit of good old-fashioned romance."

To achieve that, the creatives took clips from classic films to edit in, including:
Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon - "Some Like it Hot"
May Witty and Margaret Lockwood - "The Lady Vanishes"
Albert Finney Martin Balsam - "Murder on the Orient Express"
Sir John Mills - "In Which We Serve"
Jenny Agutter, Sally Thomsett and Gary Warren - "The Railway Children"
Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint - "North by North West"

Post-production was done by Ludo Fealey at Glassworks and took took three months. Music is composed by James Brett and recorded with the London Metropolitan Orchestra.

View the Virgin Train advert here.

Although it's definitely not the first to use dead celebrities to shill, but it might be the first ad to use so many all at the same time.

At the beginning of the year we saw DMP DDB London bring Gene Kelly back to life for VW Golf GTI's "Singin' in the Rain."

Beginning of this year we had Gene Kelly brought back from the dead for Volkswagen Golf GTI spot.

VW Golf GTI

And last October,

Steve McQueen rode again - for Mustang.

John Wayne found his way back from the dead for Coors Light in 2001.

In 1998, Pizza Hut brought out Pelvis, uh, Elvis for an ad for the Super Bowl. He's the leading dead celebrity earner according to a study done by Forbes.

Pizza Hut Elvis

In 1997, Fred Astaire had a

couple

of

spots

for Dirt Devil.

Dirt Devil & Dancing with Fred Astaire

Marilyn Monroe popped out of her casket for

McDonalds in Australia in 1996.

The BBC article also points out old Holsten Pils ads from 1983-88 which featured in black and white remakes of famous movie stars like Griff Rhys-Jones.

That's just the tip of the iceberg concerning famous dead people and the products they sell because we're also not even getting into the whole bit about the images of celebrities being used in ads - which is a whole other, yet related, can of worms.