Never seen the quad for Third Man, but that image of the 1 sht may
well be the copy I used to have.
Around the time I got it, there were also a couple of UK 3-shts
around, (same art).
Brief Encounter, I'm sure someone who has the half sheet posted the
image on NSFGE along with other mouth watering material.
Rich
On 23 Apr 2009, at 00:29, David Kusumoto wrote:
** I love all the discussions from Bruce, Patrick, Paul, Ed Poole,
Rich, et. al. -- about the anomalies of British paper. But I'd also
love to hear from people like Tony Nourmand and Adrian Cowdry. (My
reasons below.)
** For 20 years I searched in vain for the first-issue, "country of
origin" half-sheet to David Lean's "Brief Encounter." (No more.)
During that time, I had more luck locating U.K. paper from "The
Third Man" -- but zero luck with "Brief Encounter." I acquired a
U.K. re-issue one-sheet from "The Third Man" -- even though first
issue quads and one-sheets are available which are, in my view, more
spectacularly spooky than the U.S. one-sheets which advertise the
inferior, hacked-up-by-Selznick film version that was renamed, "The
3rd Man." See images of the U.K. quad and the U.K. one-sheet below:
** But about 8 years ago, and more recently after our California
wildfires in 2005 and 2007, I stopped my buying sprees -- and began
selling off large portions of my poster collection (including my re-
issue UK one-sheet to "The Third Man"). I never found the elusive
first issue U.K. half-sheet to "Brief Encounter" -- and I sour-
graped it by telling myself, "maybe it no longer exists -- or if it
does, no one will sell it."
** Initially I thought my failure to find "Brief Encounter" was
because the film is so beloved and collectors were keeping them in
their private collections. (The title remains obscure among most US
collectors.) But then, like a dummy struck by lightning, I finally
remembered stories about paper shortages and recycling continuing in
post-war Britain. "Encounter" was released in 1945, still a brutal
year. My feeling today is NOT based in facts -- but after decades
of collecting, my impression is that British movie posters from the
1940s-to the early 1950s remain very rare -- with rarer titles
sometimes turning up in countries outside the U.K.
** The only "country of origin" anything from "Brief Encounter" that
I own -- is a fine condition 1945 pressbook I got from a dealer in
Paris. (How it got there, I have no idea.) It offers me the only
proof that first issue posters were made for "Encounter." For your
viewing pleasure or education -- the images below show that the
spectacular cover of the pressbook -- and a page which shows that a
30x40 quad, a 20x60 door panel and two 22x28 half-sheets were
available. I've seen sets of 8-front-of-house stills from 1945
offered for sale several times -- but I've always passed on them --
on a hunch that my pressbook is rarer than any still. Meanwhile,
the only U.S. material from "Brief Encounter" that I own -- is a
good to very good condition "best scene" NSS 46/489 press still from
1946 (image also below).
** I'd welcome the thoughts/insights of other dealers like Tony
Nourmand and Adrian Cowdry -- because I they have likely held or
seen first issue paper from "Encounter" -- and/or can chime in with
their own ideas about the elusiveness of pre-1960 U.K. posters in
general -- and why some titles rightly command lots of £££ or $$$.
(In my copy of Nourmand's book, "Film Posters of the 1940s," there's
a magnificent, two-page color spread of the British quad to "Brief
Encounter.") After scouring the British markets for years, I
concluded that because the likes of Nourmand, Cowdry, Cutts, G.
Edwards, Dacre, Sims, Colman, S. Moore, et. al., do not offer
"Encounter" with regularity -- then they are not only rare -- they
might no longer exist (or few copies are known to exist). We're not
talking rarity on the level of "The Mummy" -- but maybe we are!
(Despite "Brief Encounter" not being very popular among U.S.
collectors.)
** The irony is I am no longer in the market for a first-issue U.K.
half-sheet for "Encounter." But before I go to my grave, I'd love
to know whether someone has ever seen it in person -- or has a color
image of either version. Anyone who has viewed this early David
Lean movie -- with its stark black and white photography, its train
station, city and park exteriors, Noel Coward's flash-back narrative
structure and its glorious Rachmaninoff score -- already know why
it's beloved. In the BFI's list of the 100 greatest British films
ever made -- "Brief Encounter" ranked #2 -- behind what else? Of
course, Carol Reed's "The Third Man." -d.
-----Original Message-----
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:05:07 -0400
From: [email protected] Paul Gerrard
Subject: Re: Britsh Quad rarity!
To: [email protected]
Likewise, look forward to seeing the titles. Some very interesting
points from Patrick and Rich too.
Wouldn't say there are "virtually no quads from before 1960 in
collectors' hands", but they are rare compared to US numbers. As
Rich said, 1940s posters from the UK, particularly wartime, are very
scarce because of paper shortages and rationing which continued
beyond the end of the war. Not to mention heavy bombing/destruction
during the war. Wartime posters were often printed on the back of
other old posters. The austerity that this engendered may well have
persisted into the 1950s, as rationing (food) only completely
disappeared in 1954. Paper drives were encouraged by the government,
where people and businesses were encouraged to have paper collected
for pulping and recycling (nothing is new!). It also strikes me that
photos I've seen of smaller regional cinemas in the UK up to the 60s
show very little in the way of studio-issued posters - more commonly
Front Of House stills and hand-written posters. Perhaps someone can
confirm that impression I have. Certainly even when I started going
to the cinema in the late 60s, I seem to remember FOH stills more
than posters - or perhaps the area I grew up in was too provincial!
I worked in a film archive for a few years and know from some of the
archived material that cinema owners were quite fond of cutting up
trade ads to use for display from the 30s onwards - cheaper than
real posters.
Pre-war the standard UK sizes equated to the US 3-sheet and 6-sheet
(although perversely they were called 6-sheets and 12-sheets), and
were presumably mostly pasted up, yet another reason why very few
survived. Having ploughed through quite a few UK and US pressbooks
for the same titles from the 20s and 30s, it seems that vertical
"quads" existed for some titles, but very often these were actually
the US 1-sheet! Same is true for lobby cards. Before seeing examples
of this, I had no idea that US materials were used in the UK in this
way.
As somewhat more of a guess, the UK is a comparatively small area,
so I would imagine that posters could be passed from cinema to
cinema a lot more easily along with the actual film prints. This
would obviously mean more wear and tear, and less opportunity for
cinema owners to hang onto them. I know that the film reels were
passed around at quite a frequent rate, as they tended to be booked
on a weekly basis, and new prints were very expensive to produce.
This probably became less of an issue by the time economic boom of
the 60s came along. Even in the 60s though, I've seen notes from
desperate distributors pleading for quick return of promotional
materials due to shortage.
Paul
www.movieposterstudio.com
-----Original Message-----
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:21:21 -0500
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Britsh Quad rarity!
To: [email protected]
Hi Bruce,
Let me offer this as a possible help
The end of the war also brought new government regulations on paper
usage. A maximum poster size was set at 1200 square inches which was
the size of the quad. We have a British pressbook for the 1946
release of Wizard of Oz. As large as that film was, a choice was
given in 2 posters at the maximum size, A 30x40 and a 20x60. Then 2
different smaller 22x28s and a set of 8 black and white stills and
that is ALL that was issued for this film. And with that came a
limitation on how many of each could be acquired. There are many
smaller titles that it would SEEM that only stills were issued.
I personally believe that it also has to do with them being an
island. While all of Europe was devastated, several countries were
known for their paper production and it was a necessary export item.
As paper production came back online, it was a LOT easier to
distribute trees and paper products by trucking to neighboring
countries that were in need than it was to have to load ships and
send them to England and unload them, so Britain was more on their
own for re-establishing their paper production. And I believe items
like toilet paper, educational and government papers and newspapers
took precedent over the film industry advertising.
But again, that is my own belief.
ed
[email protected]
-----Original Message-----
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:09:41 +0100
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Britsh Quad rarity!
To: [email protected]
Dear Bruce,
That is certainly a great sounding Collection that you have coming
up for Auction and I will be keeping my eyes open for the listings.
As collectors ourselves since the 1970’s and later turning the hobby
into more of a business , I can certainly say that the choice titles
from the 1950’s in the British Quad format are becoming almost
impossible to find, especially the ultra collectables such as Bond,
Monroe, Wayne, Hitchcock, Disney etc.
Pre War titles are virtually extinct, and rarely surface, but one of
the factors that affected the availability and eventual scarcity of
many Poster collections that had previously been accumulated in uk
Cinemas, was an Act during the 1970’s which prohibited the storage
of flammable materials in Cinemas and other Public buildings, so
many of those storage rooms got cleared out, and sadly many were
trashed or even used to keep the boilers going during the winter
months!!!.
Also, unlike the USA, the habit of collecting the Ppsters as a hobby
never really took off until the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
At the same time some of the major Printers, such as Lonsdale and
Bartholomew (formerly Stafford and Co) which were based in
Netherfield Nottingham and also W.E. Berry in Bradford went into
liquidation and as far as my research can tell they never kept an
archive of the Posters that they had printed, in the case of
Lonsdale and Bartholomew they dumped many hundreds, possibly
thousands of Posters in skips!!
I would say though that as a collector, there are still quite a few
seasoned collectors who have accumulated titles from the 1950’s and
are sitting on them, an example being our John Wayne collection
which has taken many years to build up.
I did notice, over the past decade on ebay quite a few Vintage
British Quad Posters being Auctioned in America, that mainly
originated from the 20th Century Fox studio, and apparently these
had been sent over to America in the 1970’s by a Film Historian-
Leslie Halliwell I believe, to be eventually auctioned, and the
condition of many of these was virtually perfect, many still being
rolled and with no fading or defects.
Our website www.filmcutts.com , which is still a work in progress
gives more background on the British Quad format aswell as listings
for sale under genres and decades.
Hope that this helps, I am sure that there are many more Collectors,
more knowledgable than me who can throw even more light on this
fascinating subject. I will wait with great expectations for your
upcoming Auctions.
Best Wishes,
Patrick
Nottinghamshire,
England
-----Original Message-----
From: MoPo List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Bruce Hershenson
Sent: 22 April 2009 14:44
To: [email protected]
Subject: [MOPO] Britsh Quad rarity!
I will be listing a single owner collection of British Quads,
beginning the 28th, and the collection contains a lot of older
quads, and I am struck by the fact that, in all my years in the
hobby, I have seen just a tiny number of quads from before 1960 (and
even most titles from the early 1960s seem to be many times more
rare than their U.S. counterparts).
This collection contains 23 from the 1940s, 228 from the 1950s, 120
from the 1960s, and 116 from the 1970s to present!
I am hoping MoPo members (especially long time collectors/dealers,
and even more so those from the U.K.) can weigh in on the following:
1) Am I correct in thinking that there are virtually no quads from
before 1960 in collectors' hands?
2) In all my years, I have personally only ever seen a handful of
pre-1960 quads before viewing this collection; has anyone here seen
any substantial number of them?
3) If they are as rare as I have stated, WHY is that? I understand
that pre-WWII paper from all European countries is super-scarce, but
in all other European countries you can easily find just about every
post WWII title. Why is the U.K. different from the other countries?
Is it that they had far fewer cinemas?
Any light anyone here can shed on this will be greatly appreciated!
Bruce
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