MOVIE POSTERS

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Movie Poster Collecting From the first slap of paste and paper on the brick front of a nickelodeon, every movie theater owner has known that movie posters were not to be sold. Movie posters were the property of the Studios and to be returned or destroyed. They were solely printed for advertising. The distribution of the studio's posters were controlled by a few Movie Poster Exchanges. And, giant among these exchanges was the National Screen Service, through whom almost all movie posters were distributed for more than half a century. If you happen to have a poster from the period that the National Screen Service dominated, you may find printed at the bottom: "Theater Owner agrees not to trade, sell or give away this movie poster and this movie poster must be either returned or destroyed immediately after use." Fortunately for us today, and for the future, not all theater owners, managers and employees followed the National Screen Service's "Imprimatur" to the Posters. They did not destroy all unreturned posters. From the beginning, many of the theater owners and employees were fans and collectors; and it is because of their appreciation and love of movies that the older "rare" and "vintage" Movie Posters have survived, and are now fetching fine art prices at Sotheby's and Christie's. But it is also because of this past strict industry policy of returning the posters, and/or destroying them, that has placed them in a special group of collectibles; "rare and scare". In addition to not only having to be returned to the Studios, original Movie Posters have never been produced in enormous quantities for a mass-market like sports, celebrity, and product-tie-in posters. In comparison to mass-market posters, there are very few original Movie Posters printed per film release. The print-runs on Movie Posters are only of sufficient number to supply those movie theaters that will be showing the film. And if the film is an independent, "art house release", or foreign movie, showing only in the major cities, then the print-runs are only a few hundred Movie Posters. The countries outside the US---England, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, Australia, and others---each printed movie posters of their own film releases and also printed original movie posters for the films imported into their country. Each country also developed their own unique movie poster sizes. One of the more difficult challenges of movie poster collecting is developing a working knowledge of foreign movie posters. Today, more and more collectors are discovering that some of the most exciting and rewarding Movie Poster collecting that is taking place is Foreign Movie Poster collecting. Most often the 'art design' of the foreign movie poster is much more lush, expressionistic or stunning than the US version. And, also, frequently the foreign movie posters are paintings, or 'art' done by a major European artist or illustrator, usually with their signature appearing in the corner of the movie poster---a European poster tradition long recognized since the era of Cheret and Toulouse Lautrec of France. MOVIE POSTER COLLECTION OF AUTHENTIC POSTERS OF MAJOR MOTION PICTURES AND CULT FILMS FROM THE 1960s THROUGH THE 1990s, WITH PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE POSTERS DISPLAYED. THE COLLECTION IS OF DRAMA, FANTASY, HORROR, AND SCI FI MOVIE POSTERS GATHERED FROM AROUND THE WORLD; US, FRENCH, ITALIAN, BELGIAN, SPANISH, JAPANESE, BRITISH, AND MORE.

©1997-2004 dR. z movie posters -o-