Fantastic poster for a 1931 film that hints at menace in the form of a mysterious yellow ticket. What the poster doesn't tell you is the ticket was a pass issued to Jewish women allowing them to travel out of the Pale of Settlement where the Jews were confined by order of the Jew-hating Tzar. But only prostitutes were eligible. An obscure film starring Laurence Olivier, Lionel Barrymore and Elissa Landry.
Have you looked at a movie poster recently and said to yourself: I really have to see that film.
Doubtful.
In the digital era movie posters are barely there, a minor and frequently mediocre—tedious star shots dominate—element in the white-noise media that is dominated by an ever-shifting social media.
There was a time, however, when movie posters were the dominant element by which audiences were lured to the movies.
Here are just a few samples of ordinary posters cranked out by the Hollywood studios; all are characterized by bold graphics and unusual fonts. These are posters that artfully promise action, mystery and romance.
“Lorna Doone,” 1922, starring Madge Bellamy. Action and romance in the Scottish Highlands. One of the most beautiful films of the silent era.
“The White Sister,” 1923, starring Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman. What's more romantic than forbidden love. Gish is a nun and Colman a dashing soldier. The poster accurately reflects the tone of this lovely film.
“He Who Gets Slapped,” 1924, starring Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer and John Gilbert. One of the strangest but touching stories of unrequited love ever filmed.
“Stingaree” 1934, starring Irene Dunne and Ricard Dix. Story of a highwayman who helps an impoverished servant girl who yearns to be an opera star in 1870's Australia. Dunne was an aspiring opera singer before she turned to acting. She does her own singing in this little known but wonderfully romantic tale.
“Stagecoach” 1939. John Ford's masterpiece. Notice that the poster doesn't feature John Wayne, who, at that point in his career was just another pretty face.
“Mildred Pierce,” 1945, starring Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott and Ann Blyth. No spoilers in this brilliant poster.
“Gun Crazy” 1949, starring Peggy Cummins and John Dall. One of my favorite movies was graced with a mouth watering poster I would kill to hang in my office. Seeing posters like this when I was a child was one of the reasons I fell in love with the movies.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
13 Comments
Dear Robert: A “yellow ticket”, in Tsarist Russia, was not confined to Jewish women. References in Dostoyevski and Tolstoy make it clear that it meant any license for prostitutes.
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Thanks for the clarification.
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i remember being told that the posters and the lobby cards (small photos that were still shots of scenes from the movies) were property of the studios and had to be returned or possibly documented as destroyed. fortunately many of these luscious artistic posters were ‘liberated’ and are avaible for us to enjoy.
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I was told the same thing.
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Not to be too delicate, Robert, but you seem to really want that Gun Crazy poster… as a kid, were you mesmerized by the .38′s in her hands, or perhaps it was the 44′s in her sweater.
I was surprised to see that she’s alive and well and living in London.
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* indelicate
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Yeah, I should buy one already. The drawing of Peggy’s anatomy reminds me of Lois Lane. Peggy attended the latest TCM movie festival here in LA. She’s still beautiful.
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Thanks for another great side trip, Robert! (And here I thought Lorna Doone was a cookie or something.) What always impresses me about these old posters is the amount of handcrafting most of them involved – paintings and hand lettering, with no option to hit command-z if the artist made a mistake.
Your blog is always my first stop at lunch break (really!), but the third blog on my list – flyergoodness.blogspot.com – is all about posters and other “disposable” artwork. The aesthetic changes from entry to entry, but there are some days that I get to the bottom of the page and just wish I could give up my desk job and get back to the drafting table.
BTW, even though John Wayne’s face isn’t on that poster and he gets second (fourth?) billing, his name is set in bold type.
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I think this was the movie that put him on the map – but I always bow to the resident expert in these matters for final arbitration
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Alter:
Glad we can be of service. I checked out flyergoodness and really like it. John Wayne gets second billing, below Claire Trevor, who was a much bigger star in 1939. But after this film Wayne was huge.
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My favorite poster, from my limited exposure, is Gone With The Wind.
Were posters distributed widely or just at the theaters as “coming attractions”?
I remember something William Goldman said in his book about Hollywood – that a typical movie spends as much in advertising as the actual production – is this still true Robert?
If so, what happened to the posters?
A lot of those qualify as artwork and if I am not mistaken there is a huge collector’s market – like baseball cards. Even a big industry in reproductions I think…
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I don’t know if it’ still the case, Bill, but when I was a kid, my sister worked for a movie theater and the posters were coveted prizes even in the 70′s. She said the manager would literally get a dozen offers to buy a routine movie poster and hundreds of people wanting blockbusters like Star Wars, or Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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Bill:
The GWTW poster is a classic.
Posters were noit widely available. They were distributed to theaters and that’s it.
The typical Hollywood movie will typically spend a third of its original budget on advertising, which for the typical Hollywood film, runs miliions and millions of dollars. Of course, if the studio senses they have a stinker on their hands, see “John Carter”, they’ll just dump it and not spend good money after bad.
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