Judith Miller on vintage film posters

Professionally framed and/or linen-backed, a collection of vintage film posters will make a striking display and possibly a good investment.

The film industry was born more than a century ago, but for the first few decades the cinema going experience wasn’t quite the same as it is now when actors are paid vast sums for being a box office attraction. While posters were produced in those early years, they rarely featured more than text stating the facts.

ABOVE (LEFT - RIGHT): Belgian linenbacked, Bogart classic, 1942, £1,700-£2,000; Mint-condition Yugoslavian version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961, £500-£600.

During the 1930s and 1940s stars were beginning to emerge, and names such as Joan Crawford and Humphrey Bogart, and directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, would create excitement as their films arrived at the theatre. Production companies used artists, who weren’t usually credited for their work at the time, to design bright and more engaging adverts featuring these famous faces and setting the scene for the latest attraction. These posters were still produced in very small numbers, printed purely to accompany a film reel as it made its way around the country, and usually being displayed for just a few days at a time in each location before being packaged up with the film and moving on. As such, examples from this time are rarely seen in circulation today, having become worn and tattered by the end of their journey; having served their purpose, they were simply thrown away.

In the mid 20th century, the industry grew further: more and more actors were becoming household names, and fans were quite happy to approach their local cinema’s manager to acquire a piece of film history as well as an evocative work of design. As such, posters were being much better taken care of – while they would often have been folded originally, they were increasingly being packaged rolled to avoid splits in the paper and damage to the design.

ABOVE (LEFT - RIGHT): US poster featuring an alluring Elizabeth Taylor, 1958, £400-£500; 1950 montage poster for Howard Keel western, £150-£200; Poster for Hitchcock thriller, 1954, £700-£900.

Tips for collectors

• The most popular sizes are US 68cm x 104cm and UK 76cm x 101cm.
• It can be hard to find a poster in perfect condition, and some damage can be restored.
• Posters are quite often reissued if the film is re-released, if it has won an award or following the release of the film on DVD or Blu-ray: the artwork may differ and these tend not to be as valuable.
• ‘Teasers’ are posters produced prior to a film’s general release; these can be rare and are often of a different design to the main poster, and frequently have minimal text.
• Posters are produced for each country a film is released in and can have different artwork.
• Reproductions are often photographic images of the original that have been printed on to shiny poster paper. The image in a forged or reproduced poster may be slightly pixelated or different tones of colour.
• You can buy genuine examples from originalposter.co.uk (01905 620370).

FEATURE JUDITH MILLER  PHOTOGRAPHS ALDERFER AUCTION COMPANY; RITCHIES; MILLERSONLINE.COM
Featured in the April 2010 issue of Period Living

Buy Judith Miller’s Antiques Handbook & Price Guide 2012-2013