Old Movie Posters - anyone collect, and what?

[Tibor]

I've been an old movie buff for many years, and somewhere around the 1980s I started picking up movie posters here and there from some of my favorites. In particular I started getting a lot of Ingrid Bergman's films, including some of the old Swedish posters from the 30s.

Anyway, just thought I'd check to boards to see if anyone else is a bug about it and what you collect.

 

[just_me]

I'm not a collector, but I do have a few. A couple of James Cagney posters and lobby cards (Yankee Doodle Dandy and Here Comes the Navy) and Danny Kaye, The Kid From Brooklyn.

 

[DutchIndo]

When my kid worked for DVD Planet he would score contemporary ones. He pulled a good one me once. He had a full size "Stand Up" figure of Bruce Willis
he stuck in my Bedroom. I about crapped my shorts when I walked in.

 

[Eyemo]

I don't collect film posters... But I do have the Original painting for the European Poster of Big Red 1..

 

[mike]

I've been collecting for awhile, mainly theatrical reissue posters have been in my price range. Especially alternate artwork European posters.

two French one panels (read: HUGE!) for 60's/70's reissues, Island of Lost Souls and Son of Frankenstein

an early 50's theatrical reissue three sheet for Face Behind the Mask (which has been too tall for the last 5 places I've lived to display!)

original one sheets for the Innocents and Burn! Witch! Burn!

daybills for the Innocents and Dementia 13

two french programs for Lionel Atwill films, Murders in the Zoo and the Sphinx

some sheet music for Laugh Clown Laugh and two from Just Imagine

both of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.'s first printing self help books from 1917

I am also collecting a bunch of photoplays of my favorite (or lost) films such as the Miracle Man, the Man Who Laughs, Trilby, Phantom of the Opera Mr. Wu off the top of my head.

 

[imoldfashioned]

I love old movie posters but, alas, I have good taste so most of what I like is out of my price range. Perhaps I'll post again with my wish list.

I've got a Roger Soubie poster of Myrna Loy and a jumbo lobby card of Myrna from Broadway Bill as well as a few Belgian movie posters.

 

[The Captain]

I am a big fan of film posters (one sheets) and have a few from the early '70s. It's quite nostalgic for me to see the names of actors who have gone on to bigger and better (?) roles in film and TV. Here are some.

Movie One Sheets

1. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes ~ Roddy McDowall, 1972
2. Light at the Edge of the World ~ Kirk Douglas/Yul Brenner, 1971
3. Tombstone ~ Kurt Russell,
4. A Fistful of Dollars/A Few Dollars More ~ Clint Eastwood, 1969 (R)
5. Who Slew Auntie Roo ~ Shelly Winters, 1971
6. The Adventurers ~Candace Bergen/Ernest Borgnine, 1970
7. Catlow~ Yul Brenner/Richard Crenna/Leonard Nimoy, 1971
8. Ben ~ “Ben’s Song”, sung by Michael Jackson!, 1972
9. Frenzy ~ Jon Finch, 1972
10.The Omega Man ~ Charlton Heston, 1971
11. Klute ~ Jane Fonda/Donald Sutherland, 1971
12.Corky ~ Robert Blake, 1972
13. Magnum Force ~ Clint Eastwood, 1973
14.The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing ~ Burt Reynolds, 1973
15. Red Sun ~ Charles Bronson, 1972
16.“This is a Hijack” ~ Adam Roarke/Neville Brand, 1973
17.The Legend of Hell House ~ Roddy McDowall, 1973
18. St. Valentine’s day Massacre ~ Jason Robards/George Segal, 1967
19. Cain’s Cut-throats ~ John Carradine, 1972
20. Cold Turkey ~ Dick Van Dyke, 1971
21. Judge Roy Bean ~ Paul Newman, 1972
22. Duck, You Sucker ~ Rod Steiger/James Coburn, 1972
23. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid ~ James Coburn/ K. Kristofferson, 1973
24. Silent Running ~ Bruce Dern, 1972
25. The Crater Lake Monster ~ Richard Cardella, 1977
26. Rabbit, Run ~ James Caan, 1970
27. Jeremiah Johnson ~ Robert Redford, 1972
28. Academy Awards (41st)
29. The Majestic ~ Jim Carrey, 2001
30. Wyatt Earp ~ Kevin Costner, 1994
31. City Slickers II, The Legend of Curley’s Gold ~ Billy Crystal, 1994

 

[mike]

I've been an old movie buff for many years, and somewhere around the 1980s I started picking up movie posters here and there from some of my favorites. In particular I started getting a lot of Ingrid Bergman's films, including some of the old Swedish posters from the 30s.

Anyway, just thought I'd check to boards to see if anyone else is a bug about it and what you collect.

How do you store/display your paper? Do you use archivist approved light blocking glass and acid free backing paper? I used to work at the 20th Century Fox Archives, where I learned a lot. Although I don't store any of my collection as an archive would, I definitely wish I had the time/money to do so.

 

[Lady Day]

An original theatrical issue 1959 Anatomy of a Murder poster. Its got an edition mark (56/200) but I dont put too much stock in that. The San Francisco MOMA has one in their permanent collection. Its in WAY better condition, though, but still

I have a lot of modern film posters, as I collect what I find is just amazingly artistic. SOme include:

Magnolia (the one with the frogs, which has gone up in value quite a bit)
Disney's Tarzan (the portrait Jane 'drew')
Happiness
Twelve Monkeys
Twin Falls Idaho
Nightmare Before Christmas (German Version)

and some others that I cant remember.

LD

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm up to my neck in current posters -- it's a funny thing, the film exchanges send us tons of posters for stuff that there is *no* chance we will *ever ever ever* show -- "House Bunny?" "Transformers II?" -- but I have to make all kinds of phone calls to get posters for things we need.

Last summer they sent us a gigantic subway-platform poster for Iron Man. We don't show superhero movies, and we don't have subway platforms, so I'm not sure what intern in the marketing department was responsible. It sat in my cubbyhole of an office for a month before I finally found a kid willing to take it away.

When my uncle ran a drive-in back in the seventies, he accumulated a lot of posters -- in those days, you were required to ship them back to the distributor after the film was shown, so they could be re-used at another theatre, but my uncle always seemed to have report titles he liked "lost or damaged in shipment," and they never questioned it. His taste mostly ran to cheesy exploitation stuff, but he did have a full set of posters from the first run of "Star Wars" which I suspect is still packed away somewhere in his widow's cellar.

 

[mike]

We don't show superhero movies,

what do you run? an indie/art house theatre?

 

[LizzieMaine]

what do you run? an indie/art house theatre?

Precisely. http://www.rocklandstrand.com

A lot of posters end up in our dumpster, and it isn't locked, if anyone happens to get up this way...

 

[mike]

Precisely. http://www.rocklandstrand.com

A lot of posters end up in our dumpster, and it isn't locked, if anyone happens to get up this way...

Nice! It looks like a great place! I go back and forth collecting/hording and then trying to go cold turkey. It doesn't work so well [huh]

 

[Tibor]

Well, I've linen-backed a good portion of things, but that does get expensive for the larger format stuff. I've got a few US three sheets (41"x81") that are linen-backed (Gaslight, An American in Paris), but several more that could use it. A couple of the six sheets I have (81"x81") would look great that way, but alas, I haven't the wall-space.

I'd like to get the rest of my Swedish stuff on linen as they're pretty rare. I have five or six of the large horizontal format posters that were only used in the big houses in larger cities in Sweden, but again, cost plays into it a bit. They're a bit larger than a US three-sheet laid on it's side, so the restoration folks need a big surface to work with. They typically come in three panels that need to be aligned, then backed on rice paper, and then on linen. The US three-sheets are typically two panels, one that makes up two thirds of the poster and one that makes the remaining third and these need to be joined as well.

I do like to put up one-sheets (the typical 27"x41" poster size), inserts (14"x36") vertical formal and lobby cards (11"x14") since they can all go almost anywhere. Sometimes I get professional framing done, but other times, I prefer the temporary slotted frames that you can switch out things when you tire of them.

Generally I have the card stock formats (inserts, half-sheets and window cards) conservation paper backed. That tends to retain the character of those items better.

Some things are just too vulnerable to leave out long. Original lobby cards from Casablanca had a red background framing the scene depicted and that red frequently fades in sunlight. Even with a good UV glass, I don't like to expose things like that to direct sunlight on a regular basis.

 

[Tibor]

Hi ImOldFashioned,

Definitely post what you're looking for. Myrna Loy is terrific. I've been meaning to settle in and watch the Thin Man series for some time now. The last thing I saw her in was Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. She just has a wonderful cool about her.

 

[imoldfashioned]

Isn't Myrna Loy great? She could go from the Mask of Fu Manchu to The Best Years of Our Lives.

I've always wanted this lobby card from Love Crazy.

Hi ImOldFashioned,

Definitely post what you're looking for. Myrna Loy is terrific. I've been meaning to settle in and watch the Thin Man series for some time now. The last thing I saw her in was Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. She just has a wonderful cool about her.

 

[Tibor]

I love the text on MGM cards from that vintage. A couple that seem awfully blush inducing:

From "Rage in Heaven", 1941:
"I gave you a job. I picked her out of the gutter. You show your gratitude by making love to her!"

From "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", also 1941:
"I like men who can look at a girl... and make up their mind if they want her or not!"

Pretty racy stuff.

 

[Tibor]

One more MGM card text I had to share...

From "Paradise for Three" with Robert Taylor:
"I'd love to yodel through life with you!"

Hard to beat those sentiments. Makes you all weak in the knees, huh?

 

[Macheath]

Hitchcock films always had groovy-looking promo posters.

My bedroom in my last apartment had giant posters of North By Northwest and Strangers on a Train. Both were very Art Deco which worked well with the overall feel of my quarters.

 

[Widebrim]

I've got a few posters and lobby cards (which I cannot at the moment post), but my favorites are: Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (LC), Chandu the Magician (LC), Flight to Nowhere (w/Alan Curtis, 1946, LC), and my pride and joy, which I bought as a teen at a Star Trek convention years ago, a Lady in the Death House poster (Lionel Atwill, PRC, 1944).