Friday, March 2, 2018

Some Polish movie posters from the 1920s and 1930s, part 2

I love looking around digital databases. And if those databases are located in other countries, all the better.

Recently, I returned to Polona, a digital archive from Poland which features Polish books, magazines, newspapers, and ephemera - such as movie posters. Except for the first poster shown in the first post, a 1939 poster for When You're in Love (1937), and the last poster in the last post, a 1932 poster for Prix de beaute (1930), I didn't find any other posters related to Louise Brooks career, but I did find a number of rather attractive posters promoting American films of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. (Most of the posters in this digital collection date from the 1930s, when Brooks' career was in sharp decline and her films were seldom shown in Europe.)

Interestingly, these posters are predominately typographical in design, with very few images. The best of them play with design, varying the size, color, orientation and type of font displayed. There are more than 1700 posters. Here are a few that caught my eye due to their design or the film or stars featured. Tomorrow's post will feature even more posters.

King Kong, with Fay Wray (who I once had the pleasure to meet)

Monsieur Beaucaire, starring Rudolph Valentino
Monsieur Beaucaire as Mr Beaucaire
Buck Jones, in a "sensational film"

Had to include this because I'm reading the Miriam Hopkins bio by Allen Ellenberger, and loving it!

An odd pair: Heidi, with Shirley Temple, and La Grande Illusion, with Erich von Stroheim

My Man Godfrey, one of my favorite films, starring Carole Lombard and William Powell

Charlie Chaplin, in The Gold Rush

Buster Keaton, in Doughboys

Charlie Chan in Honolulu
Last of the Mochicans

an example of a dual language poster, in Polish and Yiddish

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