Currrently waiting for master bootmaker Korbinian Ludwig Hess to get the work done on another pair of cowboy boots.
And with spring vastly approaching, it might also be time for some spring cleaning. Of course I haven’t started (and I don’t think I’m anywhere close yet), but the thought alone makes me feel like my old cowboy hero Gene Autry:
Today I want to tell you about a rather elusive and almost forgotten sub-genre of the classic Hollywood western: Films about movie poster dealers.
Perhaps the earliest appearance of a movie poster dealer on the big screen was William S. Hart in THE POSTER MAN from 1917. The poster depicts a key scene in the movie, where the hero has just learned that he has (once again) lost out on aquiring a major collection. And don‘t we all know how that feels.
Buck Jones brought several lighter episodes from the everyday life of a movie poster dealer to the silver screen in the pre-code western RIDIN‘ FOR POSTERS (1932):
In the following year, Tim McCoy taught this fellow posters dealers the meaning of the word ‚respect‘ in POSTER MEN (1933):
And one final example, Gary Cooper won both the big collection and the girl in THE POSTERMAN (1937). Here’s the rare Style B Onesheet:
Over the last 50 years or so, the movie poster hobby has developed from a tiny collector’s niche almost exclusively populated by nerds and geeks to a playground for corporations and million dollar sellers, with regular auctions that gross $2 million and more.
Despite my 30 years as movie poster dealer and ten more years as a collector, I’m still a fairly ‘small fish’ in this big business pont. With that in mind, I’m actually surprised that it is still possible for someone like me to ‘break new ground’ so to speak. Which brings to the point of today’s post: The collection of more than 80 cinema related exhibition posters I recently added to the website.
For all I know, this is the first time a large selection cinema exhibition posters like this has been offered for sale. Below are three of my personal favorites from this lot. The rest can be seen in my CATALOG.
#1 BERT STERN MARILYN MONROE
From what I heard, Marilyn Monroe looked through all the photos Bert Stern shot of her and used a marker pen to cross out those she did not want published. The Stern originals sell for big money at auctions and art gallery these days, but the 1993 Hamburg exhibition poster is a rather affordable alternative:
#2 AUDREY HEPBURN BY BOB WILLOUGHBY
Audrey Hepburn wearing a Stetson Open Road cowboy hat. What more can I say?
#3 JOE DALLESANDRO SUPERSTAR
When I started out as an international movie poster dealer, among my bestsellers were the German posters for Andy Warhol films, first of all TRASH and FLESH. I think the German distributor had high expectations for these films, so large quantities of posters were printed. Needless to say, large quantities of posters survived and I would easily find them at film fairs for very little money. Sometime, I even picked them from the dollar bins. That was years before the internet, of course.
Looking back, it seems the Warhol posters alone paid for more than extended vacation in the US…
Another photo from this session was used for the German Style B poster that you can see HERE.
Hard to say why, but I personally like the exhibition poster a lot better:
Here’s another perfectly ‘classic’ approach to framing a vintage movie poster, an original release German 23×33 in A1 poster for ROCKY from 1978:
What we see here: A simple yet elegant wood frame with a white spacer and a white backing board. The poster has been fixed to the backing in the corners only, making it ‘float’ in the frame.
What I like about this frame: Movie posters were originally displayed in show cases outside the cinema. This type of frame mimics a cinema display, and in my book it does not get more classic than this.
Also, back in the days, movie posters were sent out folded, and this type of frame also emphasizes on the simply fact that the folds are a characteristic, not a defect. I love it.
For the Postercowboy (or any other vintage movie poster dealer), this is a rhetorical question, of course. By design, movie posters are meant to be displayed, and, quite obviously, the best way is to have it properly framed.
Every now and then, clients send me photos of posters they have bought from me in their custom made frames. I absolutely LOVE to see my posters in their new home, so please keep these photos coming!
A few weeks ago, I received two messages, both frames were ‚state of the art‘ in my book, so I asked the senders for their permission to publish them in this blog.
Here‘s the first one: SUNSET BOULEVARD original release German double-panel (1950), app. 33×46 in, folded:
What we see here: An elegant black wood frame, double-matted, with a thin red line in the outer matting and museum style glass.
What I like about this frame: The black border perfectly mirrors the dark mood of this Film Noir masterpiece, while the thin red border line picks up the red color from the film strip. This is clearly a ‚cost no object‘ frame, it perfectly matches the poster and appears to be extremely well made. The final result is absolutely stunning. I love it.
Another recent discovery in the Rockin’ H Archives is a vintage store display. This was a cardboard display, it was originally printed in 1981 and intended as in-store advertising in cowboy boot and western stores that carried the Rockin’ H brand:
