I've been looking for a first release since I started collecting and after 5 years figured it would be next to impossible to find. The movie was a box-office bomb and it sat languishing in a storage vault until after the Cold War (
the film has a really long and interesting history). Even if people were collecting posters back then, this probably wouldn't be at the tops of their list to save. It did have really cool art by a local painter, which may have helped it a bit. Still, I doubted there were many, if any floating around for purchase. Then of course I found one
The original is (quite obviously) on the left. It's printed on MUCH lower quality paper stock in terms of materials (acidic, tanned, fragile), but at the same time it had a nicer, heaftier feel. The later printing is on paper probably not as thick as 2 pieces of cheap white printer paper. I was told the reprint was done by the same communist-run national film distribution company that printed the original, probably sometime in the 80s. Although looking at it closely again out of the frame, it looks like maybe 90s. It's a nice screen print, but NOTHING like the original...
The original inks were oil-based, as can be seen by the heavy leaching on the back. They are not very good in terms of long term conservation of the paper, but damn are they pretty. The two posters were placed directly centered under a ceiling light for my photos and you can see how it reflects easily off the later printing -- with hotter reflections in the upper center. The original should show the mirror image of that reflection pattern, but the matte paper and inks just eat the light. They colors have a beautiful saturation and intensity in person.
And in terms of print quality I definitely prefer the original when I see them side-by-side. Much more nuanced detail -- look at the lines on the face and the white ball with smaller red/black balls in it in the lower right. If they did use the original screens to print this they just globbed on the black layer. And the red isn't much better. The inks were also printed in different orders -- the original put down yellow then red, while the later printing put down yellow then grey, and a much lighter grey at that.
Anyway, it's a really well done screen print that an internet picture cannot do proper justice. I'm so happy to have finally found one! If anyone hasn't seen movie and you enjoy watching beautifully shot and technically-amazing filmmaking, then check it out. It's a Soviet-Cuban joint production, so expect it to be propaganda-ish in terms of story. But if you can suspend any biases you may have from the origins of the film, you will be richly rewarded. It has one of the most incredible long shots in the history of cinema!
"In another scene, the camera follows a flag over a body, held high on a stetcher, along a crowded street. Then it stops and slowly moves upwards for at least four storeys until it is filming the flagged body from above a building. Without stopping it then starts tracking sideways and enters through a window into a cigar factory, then goes straight towards a rear window where the cigar workers are watching the procession. The camera finally passes through the window and appears to float along over the middle of the street between the buildings. These shots were accomplished by the camera operator having the camera attached to his vest—like an early, crude version of a Steadicam—and the camera operator also wearing a vest with hooks on the back. An assembly line of technicians would hook and unhook the operator's vest to various pulleys and cables that spanned floors and building roof tops." From the Wikipedia Entry
