ENJOY HUNDREDS OF GORGEOUS DIGITALLY-ENHANCED VINTAGE MOVIE POSTERS!
These days most movie posters use photographs of scenes or characters from the movie but before the 1990s most movie posters employed hand-painted art to depict the scenes or characters. Viewing these stunning posters, it becomes evident that they didn't skimp on the budget for the art department, hiring well-known artists to create their posters, which had become an integral part of movie studio advertising. Unfortunately for the artists, they were rarely given credit for their work, with their signatures almost never appearing on the poster.
Posters have been used almost from the very beginning of film exhibitions, with the first poster being made for L'Arroseur Arrose, an 1895 movie by the Lumiere brothers in France. Today, movie posters are traditionally displayed inside or outside of the theater where the movie is playing, as well as in various media for advertising purposes, although these days many theaters use video displays instead of paper posters.
Historically, many movie posters ended up being thrown out after they were no longer needed, but some ended up in the hands of collectors and today there is a thriving market for collectible movie posters. On December 11, 1990, Christie's presented the first ever auction by a major auction house consisting exclusively of vintage movie posters, raking in a total of $935,000 for 271 posters. The most money ever paid for a single movie poster is $690,000, for Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis from the Reel Poster Gallery in London. Early American horror films have been especially in demand by collectors, with a poster for The Mummy being sold for $452,000 in 1997. In 2011, 33 movie posters from 1930-1931 were found in an attic in Berwick, Pennsylvania, where they had been used for insulation, and auctioned for $502,000 in March 2012. So the moral of the story is - check your attic!
The focus of this book is on the remarkable art that was used to create these truly beautiful posters, but you may find yourself intrigued by some of these movies, many of which you were perhaps unaware. So if you're a lover of vintage movies, the good news is that many of these movies are available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube.