In his dreams, the Postercowboy is roaming the wild prairie, killing buffalo with his bare hands and eating their hearts raw.

In real life, his most important kitchen gadgets are an electric rice cooker and a sandwich maker.

If you’re in need of a quick lunch, nothing beats a sandwich maker. A personal favorite is a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich with tomato.

What you need is:

• two large slices of bread
• butter
• two slices of bacon
• Cheddar cheese
• tomato
• salt and pepper

I also had some Old Gouda in the fridge, so I used that together with the Cheddar.

The preparation is extremely easy: Heat up your sandwich maker and fry the bacon. Spread the bread with butter, add a layer of cheese, bacon, tomato, salt and pepper. Add more cheese, finish with the second slice of bread.

Bake until nicely browned.

This sandwich is also the perfect companion for any kind of light soup. This time, I had some leftover potato soup from last night’s dinner.

Bon appétit!

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This post is a follow-up on yesterday’s report about Brevo, a supposed Generation Z startup, and my soon-to-be-history newsletter service.

Generally speaking, cowboys tend to be somewhat simple-minded, and the Postercowboy is no exception.

Generally speaking, cowboys have a dualistic worldview: Black or White, Up or Down, In or Out, Heaven or Hell. All good enough for us.

Democrat or Republican, Hold Fast or Let Loose. Well, maybe we‘re not that dualistic… The first point is perhaps debatable, and the last one is, of course, a blatant lie. If it were true, we would all be listening to German Schlager instead of Country Music. But you get my point.

Today, I received a message from my Internet Service Provider, all-inkl.com. In both plain German and English, they explained how they had handled this week’s worldwide PHP security disaster. They stated that they had reacted even before the issue hit the news, shut down several internal services for security reasons, and already installed all the necessary patches.
In other words: “We’ve got your ass covered here.”

Many of you will have received similar corporate messages these days, but this is exactly what one should expect in a situation like this.

Which, of course, reminded me of the disaster I encountered with Brevo this week.

While working with all-inkl.com has been pretty much smooth sailing, there has been the occasional small disruption every now and then. Like me not being able to send emails, that kind of thing. Every time that happened, I either sent them a message through the webmailer or called their service hotline.

Now hold fast: EVERY SINGLE TIME I called their hotline, a REAL PERSON would answer.
And it gets even better: The person on the other end either SOLVED my problem while we were speaking or would give me DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS on how to solve it myself. AND they would do it in a way even a red-blooded internet moron like me could comprehend. Take that, Gen Z!

As stated initially, cowboys have a dualistic worldview. There is no purgatory in the cowboy world. For us, it’s either heaven or hell.

With this in mind, I will say it again, and I will say it loud: Bravo to all-inkl.com. Keep up the good work and you may well see the Pearly Gates at the end of your road.

To Brevo, I will say even louder: GO TO HELL. And as far as I’m concerned, go there as fast as you can.

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Those of you who are on my mailing list will have noticed that this week’s mailing was completely screwed up.

Both the English and the German links did not lead to my New Additions; instead, you ended up on a 404 error page that looked like this:

I am using Brevo, a Berlin-based start-up, to send out my newsletter. What happened was a classic server mistake: When they attempted to place THEIR tracking link over my information, they REPLACED it instead and routed everybody to a broken error page on their own website.

Brevo is a perfect example of what is wrong with the world in general, and so-called startups in particular. Once I noticed the mistake, I tried to limit the damage. Their website actually features a ‘repair link’ function, so I tried that first. Unfortunately, this is a Premium function, which means for me, it was hidden behind a paywall. No chance.

Next, I turned to their support: Max the Chatbot replied and explained to me what I had done wrong.

On the next day, I sent an email to the actual Brevo support: Minah, the human chatbot, replied and explained to me what I had done wrong. I will spare you the details, but she kept sending me stupid text blocks, asking things like “is it just you or everybody?”, “have you tried a different computer?”, and “what operating system do you use?”.

She was also unable or unwilling to open the links to the Brevo error page I had sent her and demanded to see screenshots. To add insult to injury, I had to copy the campaign name for her.

I REPEATEDLY explained to her that the cause was 100% on Brevo’s side, but she couldn’t care less and refused to even forward the problem unless I jumped through her hoops and answered her ridiculous questions.

To cut a long story short: At the end of the day, they refunded the cost of the mailing. They gave NO explanation as to what had actually happened (and it is fairly obvious they couldn’t care less). They also refused to take any responsibility or offer ANY kind of indemnification.

When I finally informed them that I would cancel my account, Minha thanked me for my cooperation.

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Today I want to discuss a true staple food in cowboy cuisine, and the basis of every healthy nutrition: belly pork.

Should I ever publish a cookbook, it will most likely be something like ‘100 Variations of Belly Pork’.

Here’s a preview and a personal favorite: Chinese Style Belly Pork. The preparation is extremely simple, and the result is nothing short of amazing.

Here’s what you need for two people:

• 1 1/3 pounds pork belly with skin attached
• Dark soy sauce (I prefer the Pearl River Bridge brand)
• Five-spice powder
• Salt

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the pork, and simmer for approx. 10 minutes. When cool enough to handle, rub the sides and the bottom with dark soy sauce. DO NOT cover the skin, as the soy sauce will burn in the oven. Rub the sides and bottom with a generous amount of five-spice and a good amount of salt. Rub the skin with salt only. After the initial cooking, the skin is very soft and can be scored into a grid pattern, if you so desire. Make sure to cut the skin only, not into the meat.

Place your pork in the fridge for several hours or overnight, uncovered, to let the skin dry out. Make sure there are no soy sauce drippings on your plate.

When you’re ready to go, preheat your oven to 125° to 160° C (260° to 320° F). Don’t go any higher, or your roast will burn. Put the pork on an oven rack in the center of your oven and be sure to place a baking pan underneath to catch the drippings.

Depending on the thickness, at 125° C this will take three to three and a half hours; at 160° C it should be well done in about two hours. In true cowboy style, I prefer the slower way.

When your roast is done, turn the heat up to 220° C (430° F) and use the grill/broil option, if your oven has it. Lightly brush the skin with some of the drippings from the pan beneath. This will help the skin to pop.

At this point, keep a close eye on your roast through the oven window. The time span between ‘perfectly popped and crispy’ and ‘totally burned’ is very, very narrow.

Remove it from the oven, wrap it in aluminum foil, and let it rest for about ten minutes.

In the meantime, cut up some bok choy and stir-fry it with a few spoonfuls of the bacon drippings. When you’re almost done, add salt to taste. Serve with steamed white rice.

Bon Appetit!

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As stated before, the main purpose of a movie poster always was to lure the viewer into the cinema. In the last few weeks, I have shown you a few perfectly ‘successful’ examples.

Today, I want to discuss the German poster for VILLAGE OF DAMNED. The movie opened in Germany on February 3, 1961:

Based on John Wyndham’s novel ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’, the film is a low-budget British supernatural horror movie and tells the story of a band of blond children with glowing eyes that take over an English village. The film is a personal favorite and rightfully considered a classic today.

Released in the UK in 1960, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED arrived at a time when science fiction was increasingly moving away from simple alien invasions and towards stories about social fears, conformity, and the unknown. The film’s children became one of the most memorable images of British science fiction cinema.

The best movie posters reflect the atmosphere of a film in a single image. As a work of graphic art and as a collectible piece of cinema memorabilia, Klaus Dill’s design is a glowing success.

Unfortunately, the original purpose of a movie poster is to sell tickets. Under this aspect, the design must be considered a failure.

Klaus Dill was an outstanding and highly talented graphic designer, with a strong feeling for creating atmosphere. Unfortunately, sometimes atmosphere is not enough. The title is a literal translation, but the image gives us almost no clue what kind of ‘village’ we are taken to. Is this a war drama? A sinister Heimatfilm? A tale of nature taking revenge? Only The Shadow knows…

Everybody loves a mystery, but when looking at this poster the mystery is not ‘What will happen in this village?’ The mystery is ‘Why should I buy a ticket?’

I once spoke to an elderly projectionist who was around when the movie first opened in 1961. He told me that it was only shown in a single cinema in Berlin and vanished again after only one week. So apparently not too many people found an answer to the question above…

Let’s take a look at the British Quad for comparison:

This one has it all: A simple, yet striking design. Concerned parents eyeing the weird kids. And a tagline that reads ‘HORROR IS BORN when their children become things of unspeakable evil!’

This poster makes a clear promise and leaves absolutely no doubt about what we’re going to expect.

The German poster makes us wonder what happened in the village. The British Quad makes us afraid enough to find out.

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As you all know by now, the Postercowboy is looking back at more than 40 years as a collector and 30+ years as a movie poster dealer.

I have said this before, and I will say it again: for me, one of the most wonderful things about this hobby is that I still find absolutely outstanding posters I have never seen before.

Here’s another recent addition to the filmposter.net collection:

This poster is for the 1914 Polish movie Niewolnica zmysłów, which literally translates as ‘Slave of the Senses’.

The movie was released in Germany as DER TANZ DES TODES (The Dance of Death). The poster was printed for the original release in German in 1921.

The film was directed by Ryszard Ordynski and Jan Pawlowski. More importantly, it was Pola Negri’s movie debut.

Pola Negri was an early Superstar of Silent Cinema. When she came to Berlin in 1917, German film companies announced her as a ‘New Discovery’, willfully ignoring that she had already been a fully established star in Poland at that point.

The vast majority of Polish silent movies are lost, from Pola Negri only Bestia from 1917 has survived.

Combined with the initial Saturn Film (and later, the UFA) marketing campaign, this had led to the wide belief that she only played minor roles in Poland. Which is simply not true, she was fully established before she came to Germany.

German critics were not impressed by her early movies, and critized both the ‘bumpy’ technical execution and the poor scripts. That said, they were immediately impressed by Pola Negri’s performance.

Until then, German audiences had been accustomed to the rather understated, theatrical style of Danish stars (such as Asta Nielsen) or the sweet demeanor of German ingenues.

Pola Negri broke away from this completely: reviewers raved about her ‘elementary passion,’ her almost animalistic, feline grace, and her ability to switch from fragile innocence to murderous seduction within a matter of seconds.

For a couple of years after the end of World War I in 1918, the German movie industry could operate without censorship. Apparently, things got out of hand (or at least the powers-that-be thought they did) and the Reichslichtspielgesetz re-introduced movie censorship in 1920. (Not to be confused with the Reichsfilmgesetz the Nazis implemented in 1934.)

To celebrate the film’s official release in May 1921, Lloyd commissioned artist and graphic designer Kurt Opitz. His design relates to Pola Negri’s ‘Apache Dance’, a key scene in the film.

The poster is also an expressionistic masterpiece.

Beyond its extreme rarity, it captivates through the masterly graphic sophistication of its design: very much in the spirit of early Weimar cinema, Opitz employs a subtle visual ambiguity.

A dramatic key element of the composition reveals itself only upon intense, educated inspection, disclosing the psychological depth of this magnificent work.

Most importantly, it looks absolutely amazing.

The poster is extremely rare, with less than a handful of copies known to exist.

It survived in wonderful condition, with only minimal paper loss in the bottom left border and a few unobtrusive tears. There is no restoration that I can see.

Due to the printing process, the white outer margins on both the right side and the bottom are narrower than on one other surviving copy I have seen; this is a result of the manual workshop trimming at the printing house back in the day. It is not a post-sale trim, but an original production variant that visually gives the bold motif even more space and dynamism.

This beauty will go up on my website with one of my future updates, but is already available for direct sale. Price on request.

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ES LIEGT WAS IN DER LUFT (There’s Something in the Air) is a Swiss German language production from 1950s, it opened in both Germany and Austria early in 1951. Here’s the original release German movie poster:

The writing above the open doors says EXIT, and we are supposed to see people leaving a cinema, still laughing.

This poster was created by Friedrich Kollatz. Not a household name in movie posters, Kollatz was not a traditional poster artist who created realistic portraits of celebrities, but rather an accomplished press illustrator, caricaturist, and illustrator.

His trademark was an extremely simplified, garish comic-book style (often reminiscent of American newspaper strips or humor magazines from the prewar and postwar periods). His typical characters show circular, wide-open mouths while laughing or screaming, chubby, bulbous noses, tiny eye lines, and highly exaggerated proportions. Perfect for conveying the slapstick nature of a ‘Filmschwank’ or ‘comedy film’.

What truly irritates me about this poster is that it transports something SO stereotypical of postwar West Germany: less than six years after the end of the war, Germans are FAT and HAPPY again. And, if we can believe the message this poster is sending, they don’t seem particularly troubled by the fact that they’re showing it.

For all I know, the movie itself is perfectly harmless. But the poster is another matter. There is something almost aggressively carefree about it: the doors of the cinema are opening, and out comes a bunch of prosperous-looking, well-fed Germans laughing their heads off. No guilt, no reflection, no hint that the country had recently emerged from one of the greatest catastrophes in modern history. Just: Mensch, haben wir gelacht! (Man, did we laugh!)

Needless to say, I don’t think there was any bad intention behind the poster. This was not a statement about Germany’s recent past. This was a comedy, and the poster was simply meant to say: look how much fun people are having!

And perhaps that’s exactly what makes it so fascinating in retrospect. This type of comic book style was perfectly typical for the time and in 1951, this image of prosperous, well-fed Germans laughing their heads off most likely seemed completely unremarkable. Today, it looks almost absurdly stereotypical of the early postwar years.

A movie poster is not a historical document, of course. But sometimes, without intending to, it tells us quite a lot about the time in which it was made.

Like the film it advertises, the poster itself is perfectly harmless. It is the historical context, and the almost breathtaking ‘Who, me?‘ attitude that surrounds it, that makes it so fascinating today.

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The Codona family originated in Mexico and became an internationally renowned circus act in the 1920s and 30s. Among numerous other places, they also performed at Berlin’s legendary Wintergarten Varieté.

DIE 3 CODONAS is a 1940 German drama loosely based on actual events. With production costs of RM 1.206 million and a total gross of RM 2.556 million by January 1942, the film was a major commercial success.

The film was re-released by independent distributor Schorchtfilm in 1951. While the movie has survived, it is basically forgotten today. I had never heard of it either, until a recent purchase brought the poster into my collection:

The extraordinary quality of the poster is not entirely surprising once you look at who printed it. Kunst im Druck Obpacher was not a small post-war printer, but an established Munich printing company with a long tradition in high-quality lithography and poster production that went back to the early 1920s. Choosing a printer like this for a film‘s re-release strongly suggests that quality still mattered, even at a time when paper and other resources were scarce. It also shows a remarkable level of both care and craftsmanship. 75 years later, the film is long forgotten, but the poster has lost none of its impact.

This poster is SOLD. It now belongs to a member of the Codona family. I can’t think of a better place for this piece of cinema history to land.

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Like thousands of other small businesses, Galerie filmposter.net has recently stopped accepting online orders with a shipping address in other EU countries. This change follows EU Packing Regulations.

At this point, you can still open an account in my online shop. However, you can’t add a shipping address in another EU country.

There are ways to work around this, like having your order shipped to a private address in Germany or a mail forwarding service. If you are in another EU country, please send me an email. Where there’s a will, there usually is way and I promise you, we will find a solution.

There is new hope, though: The German Federal Government apparently woke up and now advocates relief measures:

https://www.bundesumweltministerium.de/meldung/kritik-an-der-eu-verpackungsverordnung-ppwr-bundesregierung-setzt-sich-fuer-entlastungen-ein

To read the entire text in English (or any other language) you can simply run the URL above through the Google translater (translate.google.com) or any of the other online services.

The basic idea is that small businesses using less than 10 tons of packing materials annually are exempt.

Thus, they would be entirely excluded from the new regulations.

However, this still has to pass the EU commission, and there is no guarantee that it does.

Additionally, the changed regulations will not be effective before the end of the year, at best.

If nothing else, this wake-up call definitely presents A NEW HOPE.

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Every small business owner knows just how important Five Star Google reviews are. Just like everybody else, the Postercowboy loves to receive excellent reviews, but he‘s usually not too fond of writing them. More often than not, those constant (and often repeated) email demands have an air of ‚We already got your money, now we want some of your time as well. For free.‘ Sorry to say, social media marketing experts: No can do.

With old-school marketing expert Tom Sawyer in mind, I figured I had to do better than that. Instead of sending annoying emails I decided to print a flyer instead.

5 CARD STUD is a 1968 western mystery, starring Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum. The movie poster shows both stars in somewhat awkward poses, pointing a gun at each other.

I used that image as a starting point and came up with this:

For those of you who are not into gambling, 5 CARD STUD is a poker variant. My version feels more like the title for a 1970s adult movie.

Of course, 5 STAR STUD is also a not-so-subtle hint that is further explained on the backside:

So far, so good. We uploaded this on the print shop‘s website, double checked about 5 times that we got it all right, and sent it off.

A few days later (online printers can be really, really fast these days) the final product arrived. I unpacked the cards and the front looked great, exactly as planned. Then I turned the card over, and the text was upside down. F**k.

I complained to the printer, and it turned out that for some technical reason they had messed with the backside and turned it around. They also said there would be no point to try again, as the outcome would be exactly the same and canceled my bill.

Needless to say, I was seriously annoyed. But not annoyed enough to discard the misprinted cards immediately. Instead, I started toying with them for a few days and also handed them out to a few visitors at the shop.

This revealed a rather interesting effect: When handling a horizontal postcard, we always flip it over the long side. Same as reading a book. I do it, and apparently everybody else does as well.
In this case, since the cards were misprinted, the text is upside down. Not what you would expect.

The only way to read the text on the back is to turn the card over the short side. Going back and forth this way creates a flipbook effect. And actually is a lot more fun than looking at an ‘ordinary’ postcard.

By creating a technical error, the print shop actually improved my design. Considerably.

Now if you want to toy around with one of these yourself, there is an easy way: Simply place an order on www.filmposter.net and I will make sure to include one in your package!

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