Part III of our May Major Auction ends Thursday, beginning at 7 PM CST at http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/sort/4/14.html. This part contains 208 great movie paper items of all sorts, a "best of the best" of our "regular" auctions (except it has NO linenbacked posters, because those were in Parts I & II)!
There are really great one-sheets, half-sheets, inserts, window cards, and other sizes, and also lots of great non-U.S. posters from many countries, and I REALLY think you need to look everything over at the above link, especially because there are "only" 208 items.
But I also want to call your attention to five
REALLY unusual items that are included, because you might not see them again for many, many years, and I don't want any interested bidders to not be aware of them!
Look at this BRINGING UP BABY signed framed 8x10 still at
http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=4225044. This is an incredible item! The movie features a trained leopard (the "Baby" of the title), and that leopard was played by Nissa, and was trained and owned by Olga Celeste. At some point during the filming of the movie, someone took a picture of the leopard lying on the set, next to a gag poster that read "GREATEST SHOW ON THE LOT See NISSA THE LEOPARD - ADMISSION 25 cents, also HEPBURN & GRANT Admission 10 cents Including tax, and autographs"!
Olga Celeste wanted a great memento of the movie, and she had the director Howard Hawks, plus most of the cast and crew sign this photo (naturally, the top people signed in large bold letters in the top left, and everyone else wrote their name where they could in the bottom half of the photo). Miss Celeste herself wrote "Greetings, Olga" in the lower right of the photo. The photo was nicely matted and framed (likely in 1938), and it was found in Miss Celeste's estate, and it was auctioned at Christie's in 1989 in their "Collectibles Auction Sale #6841", and it was lot #349.
Look at this 12 Affiches Du Cinema 1979 French art portfolio at
http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=4225046. It features movie art by Raymond Gid, a legendary illustrator of great French movie posters over many years. This book was a dream of famed French movie poster illustrator Raymond Gid, and he was able to realize it in 1979. The portfolio consists of loose end papers, with two double pages that contained a title page, a page with his signature, and a 2-page spread listing the names of the prints of the posters contained in the portfolio. There is a single folded 2" x 20" "bookmark" that has the number of the specific edition of the portfolio printed at the ends of the bookmark!
There are twelve folded posters contained within the portfolio, each of them measuring 23 1/2" x 31 1/2" (which is 60 x 80 cm). The posters are posters that Monsieur Gid designed during his extraordinary career (some are ones that were used, and others are ones that were not used, and there is a wonderful special tribute poster for Charlie Chaplin)! The films include Vampyr, Les Diaboliques, Le Silence de la mer, Histoires Extraordinaires (The Living Dead), La Fille aux yeux d'or, The Birds, French Can-Can, Un coeur gros comme ca, and Therese Raquin.
Only 40 of these portfolios were created! One could only wish that someone had ever created a similar portfolio of U.S. posters, either by a single artist like this one, or by multiple artists! Note that each of the posters has a printed paper snipe glued to the back, giving the name of the movie and cast and crew credits for that movie. We have seen another example of this portfolio offered for sale for $1,800!
Look at this 1950s local theater 15x26 metal display sign at
http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=4225095. It is from the Ellinwood Theatre in Ellinwood, Kansas. This display contains drugstore counter displays for "Tropic Zone", "The Left Hand of God", "Sudden Fear", and "Rancho Notorious". In addition, the consignor of this metal display sign (who obtained it directly from that theater in the 1950s!) also received five printed unused movie tickets from the theater, and those are included as well (we have photographed those tickets at the bottom of the display sign).
Note that most movie theaters in the 1950s had signs similar to these, but very, very few of them have survived (we have only seen a few). Not only is this one in the best condition of any we have seen, but it even has its original "drugstore counter displays" in place! Note that the display has its original metal easel backing, allowing it to be free standing on a counter
Look at this 1932 BELA LUGOSI/BORIS KARLOFF 8x10 still at
http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=4225051. This is from a press conference that Universal held in 1932, where these two legendary horror film stars were photographed together, perhaps for the very first time! The back of the still has printed information about the front and it calls them "Universal exponents of horrors" and calls them "Bela (Dracula) Lugosi" and "Boris (Frankenstein) Karloff", and says that they "are good friends and friendly rivals", and that Lugosi "will play in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Suicide Club and Karloff in The Old Dark House by J.B. Priestley and The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells".
Of course, the Universal version of "The Suicide Club" was never made, and while Karloff did star in "The Old Dark House", it was newcomer Claude Rains who ended up starring in "The Invisible Man", which did not come to the screen for three more years. Note that our consignor is a major still collector of many many years, and this still was the prize of his collection, and he paid $1,000 to acquire it, and we are sure it would be a great prize for the new owner of this wonderful still!
Look at this JAWS 2 8ft x 12ft unassembled standee at
http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=4225001. This wonderful "standee" was printed in 4 sections designed to overlap (it was only the paper poster portion, because it would have cost an insane price to ship this fully assembled to theaters).
What the theaters got were the four sections of the poster, with an instruction sheet, which told them to mount the four sections to a 3/8" backing. They then needed to cut out the bottom center area, and then assemble the sections as shown in the diagram, and add "reinforcement joints" and then "attach to easel partitions"! When finished, this would provide the theater with an amazing standee that could be placed at their entrance so that customers would literally enter the mouth of the shark to get in the theater!
We don't know how many theaters ordered this standee, or how many actually assembled it, but this is an incredibly rare unassembled standee, and it is the only one we have ever seen or heard of! The new owner can either leave it as it is, mount it on linen as it is, or actually turn it into the standee it was meant to be by following the instruction sheet! In each case, that new owner will have an amazing poster, which will surely be a cornerstone of any "Jaws" collection!
The above five items are just a handful of the incredible rarities contained in this very special auction, so
PLEASE take a few minutes to look over all 208 items in this auction at
http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/sort/4/14.html. If you wait too long (they close Thursday) then you will miss out!