Poster collectors

So since I dredged up an old thread I found that was specifically about Polish posters I decided to start one for film posters in general. I’ve only been collecting for a few years now but I’ve got a few good ones already and was wondering if anyone else here shares my passion.

Does anyone have any gems? I only buy originals unless there are some films I just have to have that are way too expensive in their original printings.

I have a few interesting ones, a There Will Be Blood, signed by the cast… A very stylish Shadows and Fog, A pretty rare Drowning by Numbers, A French version of The Phantom of Liberty… and quite a few others I’ll have to dig out and check up on to remember that I own.

I’ll snap some pictures when I get home of the few I’ve actually gotten around to framing and hanging on the wall.

I have a neat one from Touch of Evil hanging above my television.

I have a poster for the Brothers Quay’s Institute Benjamenta, which I prize (they were on sale when I saw it at The Film Forum in NYC).

A poster for Svankmajer’s Alice, painted by the director, purchased via eBay. (Wish I had a pic of that one to post)

An Italian-language poster promoting the double-bill of Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. This one is of particular sentimental value, because my mother dragged me along to see this double-bill when I was no more than 6-7 years old, and I got spooked and starting crying, and she had no choice but to leave the theater!

I have a few Polish circus posters (CYRK) – these are very cool and fun. As far as film posters go, I once bought an original Vertigo poster for 3 dollars.

I have an extensive collection of Fassbinder memorabilia which I got when I was working and then when I had my severance pay. I’ve only managed to get about a quarter of the posters framed, but they include theatrical posters from Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. Also, lobby cards, theater programs, stills, and press kits.

I have a There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Pulp Fiction (even though I’m not too huge on the film), Vertigo and Godfather.

Here are a few, sorry for the shoddy quality, taken with my iphone:

Shadows and Fog and Polish Elephant Man:

Signed TWBB:

Detail:

Phantom of Liberty:

And the Video version of Big Time:

When I was young I lived very near to our town’s last remaining old giant palace. The owners at the time were authentic hippies, and wonderful people. When I was about seven, they gave me a whole stack of used posters for my birthday because they knew even then what a cinephile I was (and would turn out to be). After that, I’d hit just about every theater in the city of Pittsburgh to ask for them, and when that horrible period when all the old great palaces were closing forever, it was a bonanza for me as far as the acquisition of posters went.

I still have a ton of them, even all those originals, and instead of selling them on Ebay or the like, I now give them to my film students. I know a lot of them are worth a lot of money now, but I’m not yet destitute and I don’t really need it, and anyhow, they were originally given to me and I was able to enjoy them all these years. My reasoning is that my film students will really appreciate them for what they are and the wonderful thing they represent and not only as some kind of “investment.”

But …

I also have a friend in London who makes small posters for European film festivals. He has carte blanche permission to use any original artwork he can get his hands on. Since I have begun teaching film he has given me a whole slew of them, the majority of them Criterion titles. I also give these to students (one of whom is now a regular on this site and who just received a few). They are all 11×14 (the same standard size as old lobby cards), and if you really, really are in need of a small poster of one or more of your favorite titles, shoot me an email and I may be able to accommodate you. All I’ll ask is the price of copying and postage, which would probably be around $13-15.

I can’t guarantee I have all the titles, but it’s always worth a try.

@Surrealist Gesture I’d love to see your Drowning By Numbers poster!

I have a bunch of posters of films by Peter Jackson specifically (I’m not sure how I obtained them all), Reservoir Dogs, and whatever they give me for free at screenings. My friend sent me this I Heart Huckabees one that I love:

I’ve collected some Saul Bass (not the REALLY expensive ones like Anatomy of a Murder or Vertigo, but the mid-priced ones)

One Two Three
Such Good Friends
The Cardinal
Advise & Consent
The Two of Us
Exodus
The Human Factor

non-Saul Bass, I have an absurd collection:
Cherry, Harry & Raquel
Missing
Frances
Hight Anxiety
Birdy
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens
Galaxina
Birdman of Alcatraz (Peak masterwork)
Seconds
Pretty Poison
Reds
Carnal Knowledge

Samantha:
I have yet to frame that one yet but here’s a dark picture of my DBN poster, these others were in the same tube so I thought I’d put them up as well…

Wow, that is suuuper 80s.

I like that you held them flat with DVDs, haha.

Hung up in my room is a Dr. Strangelove poster, an 8 1/2 poster, a The Godfather poster but it isn’t the theatrical one, the French On the Waterfront Poster, and a Taxi Driver tin poster. I also own signed Pulp Fiction and GoodFellas posters but my mom won’t let me hang them up because since the last earthquake she is worried I will get smashed. I got them on ebay and think they are fake though because they were cheap and both have Samuel L. Jackson’s autograph but the signature is different.

@Samantha… Those are books actually… These are all stored in my office/library so no DVDs near by… but regardless, some nice books:
Images – Ingmar Bergman
Images – David Lynch
It is Dangerous to Look Inside… – A pictoral History of Bunuel
and
Truffaut, Correspondence 1945-1984 – Truffaut

Oh, oops! Now I see.

Do any of you collect any of the older jobs?

double

I have one of The Night My Number Came Up (1955, Ealing Studios). Have had it for a few years but still need to get properly framed.

I would LOVE to collect older posters, unfortunately they are almost always just too expensive for me… I have many prints of older posters such as The Kid, Sunset Boulevard, Vertigo, Sabrina, etc. but I’m not in possession of a single original that predates the 1970s…

I’ve got a few movie posters (mostly of 80’s trash), but this one’s my favourite:

I have a badass LadyKiller from 1933

i began buying posters 20 years ago at auctions conducted by the seattle international film festival folks. beautiful, huge, european posters. some of the titles—amarcord, ginger and fred, in the realm of the senses, mauvais sang. my favorite one, though, and my favorite film of all time — 8 1/2 — was signed by barbara steele. i carried this framed poster with me to a private screening of 8 1/2 here in seattle a few years ago during a weeklong “felliana” event hosted by the university of washington. there was the stunning ms. steele. i walked over with a sharpie pen and asked if she’d be so kind…

i also think the new posters offered at “polish posters” (google it) are fantastic and very reasonably-priced. everyone interested in posters should peruse that site.

The closest thing to an actual movie poster that I own:

Too big, I know. Wonder who’ll be the first to name all the movies referenced…

I envy you so much!

Sepesy, your collection is amazing

Very nice!

I have that Vivre sa vie poster from Criterion’s site in my bedroom – my first attempt at making a frame too and it turned out pretty well.

I also have a nice heavy duty french Lolita poster that I need to put up again…

The only other thing on my wall is a Trevor Brown painting that scares everyone away..

I’d take pictures, but my camera broke :(

holy hell sepesy, you got like a cinematic sanctuary going…

haha Just like Antoine Doinel, right?

That’s the tv room in my old house, and those are the sizes I prefer. I’m wondering if a lot of those people here who were born post-1980 even know that movie posters used to come in a variety of sizes other than the One-sheet since in their lifetimes they have only known that size. The film companies went to a standard one-sheet size in 1985 and ceased all production of the others.

In addition to the size you’re all now most used to, there were also half-sheets, inserts, window cards, and lobby cards.

The half-sheets were just that — half the size of the one-sheet, but the artwork was sometimes different ad it was horizontal rather than vertical.

Insert s, the taller, skinnier posters like those for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull shown above, were just as long as a one-sheet but only about 1/3 of the width. Further, Australian daybills, like those for Apocalypse Now and Nashville above, kind of match those, just a little shorter.

Window cards, would have been given to other businesses in the town that would put them on display to show what was playing at the local theater. This was kind of like a Chamber of Commerce, good neighbor gesture. They usually had the same artwork as the one-sheet, except that they had a space for writing on the top or bottom where people would print the times and the place of the show.

Lobby cards were 11×14 and always had still shots of scenes from the films. They usually came 8 to a set, and sometimes had a title card which was the same artwork as the half-sheet only shrunken down.

A lot of these have now become big biz for sellers and collectors. Look them up on Ebay — just type any of those key words — and you’ll get a good idea of what I’m talking about.

And my offer still stands. Just send me titles and I’ll get back to you if I can provide them.

The thing with the older posters — and, hell, with the films they represent! — is that so much time and effort went into the artwork and the look of them, even just the logos. Like so much, that seems to be lost now.

I still think the prettiest and best looking movie poster of all is Chinatown ’s.

Excellent Collection Christopher! That Chinatown is beautiful indeed…

And Cineaste:
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE post a picture of your 8 1/2 poster, that’s my favorite film of all time as well, so I’m very interested to see it!