Above: The official poster of the First Cannes International Film Festival in 1946. Design by LeBlanc.
80 years ago, albeit a little later in the year (the first three editions took place in the fall), the First Cannes International Film Festival was held. A competitive festival from the get-go, the official selection vying for the top award of the Grand Prix was a crowded field of 44 films—twice as many as this year—from 18 different countries. (The Palme d’Or, the main award as we know it, wasn’t introduced until 1955.) The mostly European jury was made up of one representative per country, and included Iris Barry, the British-American film critic and the first film curator of the Museum of Modern Art, representing the USA, and Soviet director Sergei Gerasimov representing the USSR.
The majority of the films were concerned with the world war that had ended only the previous year, though there were also three biopics about musicians: The Great Glinka (all films from 1946 unless otherwise noted), a Soviet film about Russian composer Mikhail Glinka, Rhapsody in Blue (1945) about George Gershwin, and The Magic Bow, a British film about the Italian violinist Paganini (played by Stewart Granger).
The best known films in the first edition of Cannes—or the films that have best survived the passage of 80 years—are Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944), Charles Vidor’s Gilda, Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945), Emilio Fernández’s María Candelaria (1943), Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1945), and Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious, the reels of which were apparently screened in reverse order at the festival.
There were eight films from the USA in competition, more than any other country, six from the host nation of France, six from the USSR, five from the UK, five from Italy, two each from Sweden, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Portugal, and one each from Romania and Switzerland. The rest of the world outside of the USA and Europe was represented by just two films from Mexico and one each from Egypt and India.
Eleven films ended up tying for the Grand Prix, including Brief Encounter, The Lost Weekend, María Candelaria, and Rome, Open City. but also the less well known Torment (1944) by Alf Sjöberg. The Last Chance (1945) by Leopold Lindtberg, Men Without Wings by Frantisek Cáp, Neecha Nagar by Chetan Anand, Red Meadows by Bodil Ipsen and Lau Lauritzen Jr., La symphonie pastorale by Jean Delannoy, and The Turning Point (1945) by Fridrikh Ermler.
As obscure as some of those titles are, I managed to find at least one poster for most of the films in the 1946 competition and out of those I have selected 16 of the most beautifully illustrated designs.
Above: French poster by J. Fourastié for The Battle of the Rails (René Clément, France, 1946), winner of the International Jury Prize.
Above: French grande by Jean-Denis Malcles for Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, France, 1946).
Above: Italian 2-fogli for Brief Encounter (David Lean, UK, 1946), joint winner of the Grand Prix.
Above: UK quad for The Captive Heart (Basil Dearden, UK, 1946).
Above: Italian poster by Alfredo Capitani for A Day in the Life (Alessandro Blasetti, Italy, 1946).
Above: French grande by Boris Grinsson for Gilda (Charles Vidor, USA, 1946).
Above: Soviet poster for The Great Glinka (Lev Arnshtam, USSR, 1946).
Above: Danish poster for Letter from the Dead (Johan Jacobsen, Denmark, 1946).
Above: French grande by Boris Grinsson for The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, USA, 1945), winner of Best Actor and joint winner of the Grand Prix.
Above: French poster by Pierre Pigeot for A Lover’s Return (Christian-Jaque, France, 1946).
Above: 1959 Polish poster by Anna Huskowska for María Candelaria (Emilio Fernández, Mexico, 1944), joint winner of Best Cinematography and the Grand Prix.
Above: 1948 French grande by Pierre Segogne for Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1946).
Above: French grande by Pierre Pigeot for The Red Meadows (Bodil Ipsen & Lau Lauritzen Jr., Denmark, 1945), joint winner of the Grande Prix.
Above: 1949 Polish poster by Jan Mucharski for Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1945), joint winner of the Grand Prix.
Above: Soviet poster for The Stone Flower (Aleksandr Ptushko, USSR, 1946), winner of “Best Color.”
Above: 1947 Polish poster by Henryk Tomaszewski for La symphonie pastorale (Jean Delannoy, France, 1946), winner for Best Actress and joint winner of the Grand Prix.