Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 192

Yesterday, we took a look at the Other Company poster for Ann’s last film on her Warner Bros. contract, The Case of Stuttering Bishop. Today, here’s the official Warner Bros. one-sheet for the same film.

The artwork is much more simple than the Other Company version with an emphasis on text over images. It is a nice photo of Ann, and I am amazed that Warner Bros. would feature her so prominently on the artwork, considering her legal battles with them for most of 1936 and the fact that by the time this film was released she was no longer under contract with them. The red and green is a weird combo and I don’t think I would hang this up outside of the holidays.

Even though the Other Company is, in my opinion, more aesthetically pleasing, collectors are particular so it’s the official Warner Bros. poster that is more in demand and commands a higher price tag. When it comes to Ann, I am not particular – I guess completest would be an accurate description, so I own them both.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 191

In 2002, I found this one-sheet for The Case of the Stuttering Bishop at a movie memorabilia convention. It was only $75, which seemed on the low side for a 1930s, Warner Bros., Perry Mason film, but I wasn’t going to question the price. I bought it and went on my merry way. Some years later, I found out why I paid so little so it – the poster was not an actual Warner Bros. promotional piece but was an “Other Company” one-sheet.

Back in early 1930s, the studios controlled most every aspect of movie distribution, which included the manufacturing and distributing of posters – a job that in the eyes of the studio was a bit of a drain on resources. Eventually, a company called the National Screen Service (NSS) took over this aspect of the business, and mass produced posters on a large scale, which is why items from the 1940s and beyond are much easier to come by than those of the 1930s. Before the NSS made it easier for theaters to get poster art, a small number of posters and lobby cards were produced and traveled from theater to theater with the reels of film. For some of the theaters in the less metropolitan areas, the posters would be in shreds or so massacred with pinholes by the time they arrives that they were unusable.

This is where the alternate poster companies came into the picture. In some places, theaters would employ individual artists who created unique artwork, and there is an excellent book available on this topic. Then there were companies who actually received permission from the studios to fill this gap for the smaller towns. Leader Press was one that was around in the early to mid-30s and as soon as they went out of business, the Other Company popped up (yup that was the name of the company).

The only restriction the studios seemed to have placed on these companies was that their name not appear on the posters. If you take a close look at this poster, you’ll notice that “Warner Bros.” is nowhere to be seen.  I’m not sure how long the Other Company was around or what studios they worked with. This poster appears to be a stone lithograph, and I actually think it’s much prettier than the Warner Bros. poster, which I also own.

Just because I have to come up with another six months of posts, I am going to wait until tomorrow to post the WB version and then you can decide which one you like better.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 190

Yesterday on eBay, I won the privileged of paying for this 8×10 embossed portrait of Ann by famed photographer George Hurrell. Money’s been a bit tight in our household lately, so I was hoping to get it for less than I did. But in all honesty I’m lucky it didn’t go for much more. Hurrell is one of those photographers that can cause collectors to go into a feeding frenzy.

A few years back, I wrote about the Hurrell’s in my collection that were personally owned by Ann. Since then, I have obtained three more Hurrell’s through various online auctions. I am actually kind of bummed that it’s autographed, mainly because it’s personalized and I have no clue who that person is. About nine years ago, there was a eBay dealer who had an unsigned copy of this same photo listed and he wanted $350 for it. When it didn’t sell, I contacted him and offered $150. He wouldn’t take it and something tells me it’s still at his place, collecting dust. If I have learned anything in 15 years of collection on Ann Dvorak, it’s that stuff always comes around again. It may have taken me almost a decade to add this photo to the collection, but I now have and at a price I can kind of live with.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 189

A Life of Her Own may contain one of the strongest performances of Ann Dvorak’s career, but it was a Lana Turner movie, and that’s how it was promoted by MGM. Of all the poster art that accompanied the film, I believe this lobby card is the only promotional piece that featured Ann. For as minimal as Ann’s appearance on the posters for A Life of Her Own may be, she still fared better on this film than Our Very Own where she didn’t even warrant a lobby card cameo. By 1950, Ann’s career was winding down which really was reflected in the poster art for her supporting roles.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 188

This window card from Dr. Socrates is one of those items I have had for so long that I sometimes take it for granted. In 2000, I was working at a memorabilia shop called the Hollywood Poster Exchange. The late, great Bob Colman, who ran the place, delighted in the fact that I collected on someone as obscure as Ann, and would tell everyone who walked through the doors about my interest. Long time customers would bring in Ann items to give me, and some of the other dealers would also bring in pieces to sell. This window card was one of those dealer items.

I think I paid around $125 for this window card, which was an astronomical sum at the time. However, considering I have not had the opportunity to obtain any other paper items from this film, I think the purchase price was worth it. This 10-year-old photo of the poster is rather lousy, but you’ll have to trust me that it’s impressive artwork in person and it’s not often that Warner Bros. posters featured Ann so prominently.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 187

Offhand, I can’t think of any other Ann Dvorak films that received a title change for a re-issue besides The Private Affairs of Bel Ami which hit theaters a second time as Women of Paris. I guess the studio thought the latter was a more provocative title for a film where George Sanders sleeps with a lot of, well -  women of Paris. The image of Angela Lansbury clinging to Sanders leg was on the original poster art, but all the other women were added later, making the re-issue a more worthy addition for my collection than the original. It’s also worth noting that for the Women of Paris, Angela Lansbury’s starring name was curiously swapped out for Marie Wilson’s.

I came across this one through my friend Darin. His buddy, Tanya, picked this poster up at a papershow for $1 sometime in the 1990s. She bought it because she liked the title, but I don’t think she ever hung it up or actually watched the film. After I became friends with Darin and started collecting on Ann, he kept urging Tanya to cough it up. It took a few years, but she eventually turned over her dollar Ann Dvorak poster to me.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 185

Wishing all of you in the U.S. a fab holiday…and a decent Thursday to the rest of the Ann Dvorak fans around the globe!

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 183

After yesterday’s post, the Year of Ann Dvorak is halfway over. I have somehow managed to stick to my incredibly foolish commitment of blogging about Ann Dvorak everyday in 2013. For those of you coming late to my silly games, I decided to engage in this year-long blogathon in order to promote my book Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel, which is due out in November from University Press of Kentucky. I also saw it as a way to make up for the lack of content produced for this site while I was finishing up the biography.

I am celebrating entry #183 by posting of photo of Ann-D gussied up in Flame of Barbary Coast.