Unicorns

[Harry Caul]

I find it interesting how many times the designs on these old propaganda posters get re-purposed.  For instance:

Original WII rationing poster vs. Bill Maher's re-purposing to sell his book:

     

Or in Hungary from a few years ago:

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/james-kirchick/rhetoric-hungary

Take a look at the poster on the right, which can be found all over Budapest. It advertises a new book by three intellectuals affiliated with the ruling, nationalist-conservative Fidesz Party. The book’s title is, Who Attacks Hungary, and Why? No need to read the book, for the answer is contained in the cartoon beside it. There stands a giant black boot—with the European Union logo impressed on the sole—stomping down.

Now take a look at the image on the left. It is a famous, anti-fascist poster created by a Hungarian graphic designer. It too features a stomping boot, but this time with Swastikas emblazoned on the sole, and the command “Never Again!” written on the top. The poster was created in 1955 to mark the 10th anniversary of Hungary’s liberation from fascism, and it is the realization of George Orwell’s unforgettable description of 20th century totalitarianism: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

So there you have it. In the view of three leading Fidesz ideologists, the European Union’s mild criticisms of a raft of controversial laws passed by the Hungarian government is the equivalent of the Nazi assault on Hungary. Such reductio ad Hiterlum arguments are always obnoxious, but they carry a particularly vile tinge in Europe, especially in a country where 450,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz. Adding to the insult, is that this poster was plastered across Budapest on the day the speaker of the Hungarian Parliament wrote a terse letter in reply to Nobel Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, who recently announced his decision to return the Hungarian government’s highest state prize after the speaker attended a memorial service for a deceased fascist writer and politician.   

Harking back to past struggles is a tried and true tactic of Fidesz and its leader, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Yet, having earned his chops as an anti-communist student activist, before maturing into the conservative leader he is today, Orban tends to paint his enemies as being of the left, often times associating them with the communists who invaded and occupied Hungary. See, for instance, the speech he delivered earlier this year on Hungary’s National Day, in which he likened the EU to the Soviet Union, declaring, “We are more than familiar with the character of unsolicited comradely assistance, even if it comes wearing a finely tailored suit and not a uniform with shoulder patches.”

Leading figures of Hungary’s ruling party are clearly displeased with the European Union, and some are starting to ask why their country remains a member. They might soon regret if leaders in Brussels start asking the same thing.

Here's a better pic I found of the advertisement:






Maybe this should go in the 'stolen art' thread? 

[erik1925]

Recycling at its finest, it seems.

[erik1925]

Maybe "Miss Blood Nurse" 3D does go in this thread, too, Vick?  Or are 4-5 copies too many to qualify?  Dunno.   

[Harry Caul]

Woo Hoo!  Added two rare Russians to my Soy Cuba collection last night.  SUPER happy with the prices considering how high they went the only other time they surfaced at auction (about 2.5 years ago also at eMovie).  I managed to track down the black & white poster from a seller in Russia about a year ago, but they wanted $5000 for it!  Glad I waited

[110x75]

Saw that yesterday Mr. Caul. Congrats. 

[paul waines]

Well done Matt, you deserve them...

[Undead]

Congrats!!! Hearing that someone found one of their unicorns no matter what it is is the best story of all.   

[erik1925]

Great story, Matt.

Congrats on snagging both of these. 

The second one reminds me of a woodcut or linocut in its style, too.

[brude]

[erik1925]

That is not the image of either of the Thai LOTR posters I bought. I never did any research but I think cj did - he has one poster image up on his site. Both are double-sided and I don't think many surfaced as was first speculated. I firmly believe that the posters, which were printed locally, were to have been distributed in the SE Asia region but were pulled because of the HSBC logo printed on them - the bank having pulled out of a funding arrangement. I'll try and post images of the two posters when I get a chance. I do not subscribe to the popular view that everything that comes out of Thailand has to be a fake and I will keep an open mind as to whether they are original or not until firm evidence surfaces either way.

Jon, I share your despair at ever finding that BTTF.

Mark

This is the other Thai English-style language one sheet I have - like the US style D but with the following tag-line -

One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them



Mark

Hi Mark.

I was curious about the size of these Thai posters. You mentioned that they are entirely in English and double sided. Are they actually COO posters meant For Thailand? Or produced/printed there to be used in other English speaking countries?

In the years since, emp has sold five of these Thai produced LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring posters, also described as being made for English speaking countries.These all measure about the size of a US OS (approx 27x40), and not the standard size of a Thai poster which is approx, 21x31 inches, and not double sided:

http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/film_title/LORD%2520OF%2520THE%2520RINGS%253A%2520THE%2520FELLOWSHIP%2520OF%2520THE%2520RING/tag/xtype%253AThai/archive.html

Are your posters similar to these? 

[erik1925]

Mark, the smaller jpeg image you posted from back in 2010 looks to be the same as the image below (sold by emp in 2013 - http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/archiveitem/7003416.html).



Are they the same poster-critter?

[marklawd]

Yes, they look the same. I think I bought the first two offered on ebay and grossly overpaid. They are fairly rare (but not unicorn-rare) and surely original but the market doesn't seem to place much value on them. Mine are 27 x 40 and as speculated previously, intended for distribution in SE Asia.

Mark

[erik1925]

Thank you, Mark. I appreciate the info/update.

[guest4955]

Fishler turned down Profiles In History / Joe Maddalena to auction it off for him, just a couple years ago, on "Hollywood Treasure," so I would think he still has it. (and it's a cool update, regardless) 

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/mBEdEFzNwfM" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/mBEdEFzNwfM</a>

1) What was the point of this? He ain't selling. Everybody knew that b4 this interview. Whole int. seems staged.

2) John Warren says Fischler is ... ahem ... lying about this:

Over the next year or two we sold the [Royal Theater] collection. We recouped our investment within six months. My investors were extremely happy. They all now liked movie posters very much. Steve Fishler liked them so much he started collecting them. He has amassed quite a collection since that day in Tennessee when we decided to become partners and buy a collection in Canada. His collection includes a little poster we fondly call the Frankenstein six sheet.

How he came to own that six sheet is another story, quite different from the version we have seen on television. The poster was not found in a locked suitcase.

But that's another story. And I'm not at liberty to divulge, unfortunately, for it's a great yarn and spans the globe.

[guest4955]

Unicorn; n.; a mythical creature resembling a horse, with a single horn in the center of its forehead.

But this is a poster forum, so a unicorn in terms of posters would be those posters that you have heard tales or seen pictures of but you do not really believe exist beyond that until you see one yourself with your own eyes.  I won't ask which unicorns you are searching for, but some of us have such posters in our collection.  Lets see them! 

My 2:

I'll update Scan's very first post in this thread. He later posted this pic elsewhere.



Love to land this one myself but just impossible.

You can see the peekaboo effect in this other Prestige !S:

[guest4955]

Finally found the nearly-impossible-to-find international English language one sheet for LA Confidential from a dealer in Europe.  It is the real deal, not the Sonis version, although ironically the dealer was using a stock image of the Sonis reprint! I'm not thrilled that it's folded but I got it for a very good price and who knows when a rolled one will show up.  Now I need to find the absolutely-impossible-to-find Canadian one sheet....

My earlier pics are missing so I'll update here.

I was referring to this:



As I later learned this was the first international 1S. Kim Basinger poses as Veronica Lake in this one.

It was not easy to find this but much easier than my search for the second int. 1S, which I'll describe in the next post.

Not many collectors have this version. (Mark Lawd has one.)

I unfortunately sold it when I dropped out of the hobby.

It's a must-have, so in Round 2 I bought the identical Aussie 1S from a dealer:



Be warned there are authentication issues withe int. 1S, as explained here:

http://moviepostercollectors.guide/MPC_Authentication_LA_Confidential.html

Don't buy the Sonis 39" reprint:



Watch out for the video 1S, which is commonly advertised as the 1S:

[guest4955]

My Canadian LA Confidential poster finally arrived. Just a few dings here and there but overall excellent condition: 

I was referring to the second international/"Canadian" 1S.

I spent literally HUNDREDS of hours in Round 1 searching for this one. I scoured many international dealer's websites for it. I weekly checked the UK, Canada, and US International Ebay sites for it. I posted WTB ads on all the forums.

FINALLY in 2011 out of the blue it popped up on US International Ebay. The seller claimed she found it in an LA poster shop. It looked legit, so I immediately bid for it. It quickly went to $400, so I convinced the seller to end the auction early and paid $800 for it. Not fair to the other bidders, but desperate times call fore desperate measures!

I displayed it often during Round 1:





*****

Somehow a poster designer contacted me about this poster and sent a pic of his copy with designer notes on it:



*****

When I was forced to consign my collection in 2015, it sold for $3,111 at EMP. EMP sold another 5 in the next two years:



In the final sale, EMP posted the following info:

 Note that this rare poster (which measures 27" x 40" [69 x 102 cm]) has been shrouded in mystery since it first surfaced in the hobby several years ago! It was first seen in the collection of a well known Canadian collector/dealer/researcher who received the poster in 1998 from a theater he was connected to, when the movie was being re-released, and he surmised that it had been created for that 1998 re-release (possibly to capitalize on the many Oscar nominations it had received), but he noted that it had a 1997 copyright, and he could not explain why. It was not until 2013 that we learned much more about this poster! A different example of this poster was consigned to us by a former Warner Bros. executive who received samples of many alternate styles of one-sheets, some of which were apparently never distributed to theaters. The executive received this poster at the same time as the regular 1997 poster, so we think it was surely created at that same time. Perhaps some of them WERE distributed to some theaters in 1998 at the time of the Oscar nominations (perhaps only ones outside the U.S., including the one in Canada, where the first one surfaced, and that makes sense, because the poster has no ratings, which would indicate it is an international one-sheet), but that does not change that it is a 1997 poster! Since that time, we have auctioned four more examples of the poster (although it is possible that we were re-consigned previously sold ones). Now we are auctioning this poster for a seventh time (but again, it is unclear whether one or more of those seven were re-consigned, so we don't know how many of the posters are currently known to exist). The poster we are currently auctioning was consigned to us by a couple who ran a movie theater when this movie was being shown, and after showing the movies, they saved several posters that they especially liked, and this poster was one of them! So this poster comes to us directly from the theater that received it in 1997!

[guest4955]

The international one sheet for THE BIG LEBOWSKI qualifies as a unicorn IMO.

Back in Round 1, these would pop up once in a blue moon on eBay. I finally snagged one in 2012 for $275. EMP resold mine for $551 in 2015 and subsequently sold 2 more for more $:



Only one is being sold currently to my knowledge:



*****

Charlie interviewed the poster designer in 2012:





*****

I also bought the much-more-obtainable French 1P:



*****

Eddie has more info/pics here:

https://www.filmonpaper.com/posters/the-big-lebowski-one-sheet-international/

[guest4955]

The striking Eva Green full-size Dark Shadows 1S may be a unicorn.

I think it was only distributed as a wilding 24x36 and bus shelter (T has one.)

The eBay seller told me he had a direct connection to the studio to get this one.



I don't remember what I paid for it, not too much. EMP resold it for a hefty $190:

[skyjackers]

Can't go wrong with Eva. Seems there is a Johnny Depp version too. I've not seen any others in the set on sale anywhere but maybe they exist?

[erik1925]

I remember before Dark Shadows came out that year, that the full sets of these wildings were plastered on various temporary walls (building sites etc) here in West LA. I thought they were very eye catching displayed together like that.

[eatbrie]

This is the kind of stuff that I would never touch, unless I had definite proof that it was indeed printed by a studio. 

It is way too easy to print a poster nowadays, and I don't trust any of these single sided one sheet format of wilding and bus stop posters.  I remember a long time ago someone was selling a bunch of Harry Potter character posters.  I called a friend of mine who works in distribution at WB - I mean, it is her job to know - and she had never heard of these posters except for online marketing.  I'd be extremely cautious.  I mean, if you like it, go for it, but I would always assume it's a reprint.

T

[eatbrie]

And notice how everybody has a studio insider.  In this hobby, I don't trust anyone but myself and Dale.

T

[guest4955]

Well it felt/looked just like an original, razor-sharp printing, etc.

It was 39.25"/100 cm, possibly for metric-countries.

I definitely recall the dealer only had two of these. A bootlegger would have an unlimited supply.

As it happened, the buyer (Adam C.) of the other copy later contacted me and said he believed his was original too.

[eatbrie]

A bootlegger would have an unlimited supply.

Not if you originally printed it for yourself.  You don't need to be a bootlegger.  I can take any jpgs, go to my wife's company and have it printed razor sharp, 27x40in.  Then put it on my wall and sell it a few years down the line as an original.

T