“Wings”
The 1927 Paramount release starring Clara Bow—the “It” girl—received the award for Best Production at the first Academy Award ceremony in 1929. The Academy itself possesses one of only two known original Style A one sheets for “Wings.” When a post-awards 1929 reissue came up for auction in 2006 it brought in more than $18,000, while a unique 26″ X 40.25″ Style D, the only one known to exist, auctioned for more than $86,000 in 2005.

“All Quiet on the Western Front”
This powerful anti-war film was named Best Picture at the third annual Academy Awards in 1930. (Two Academy Award ceremonies were held in 1930—one in April, and a second in November.) A very rare 22″ X 28″ half sheet featuring a shell-shocked Lew Ayres brought more than $6,500 at auction in 2008.

“Cimarron”
The 1931 RKO release was the first Western to win an Oscar. An 11″ X 14″ lobby card of stars Richard Dix and Irene Dunne auctioned for more than $3,000 in 2007.

“Grand Hotel”
MGM’s star-studded feature took the 1932 Best Picture award. The extremely rare one sheet (27″ X 41″) sold for $48,000 in 2006.

“It Happened One Night”
The Frank Capra classic starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert was the first film to sweep the five major Oscars, including Best Actor, Actress, Picture, Director and Screenplay. The only known 3 sheet (41″ X 81″) Style B sold for $35,850 in 2008.

“Mutiny on the Bounty”
The 1935 Best Picture winner was the only film to ever have three different actors nominated for Best Actor: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, and Franchot Tone. Paper from this movie has not fetched huge prices in the past, but is on the increase. A one sheet (27″ X 41″) sold for better than $2,500 in 2002, while a 14″ X 36″ insert sold for nearly $3,000 in 2008.

“Gone With the Wind”
The 1939 Oscar winner is one of the most beloved movies of all time—and its paper fetches some of the highest prices in the marketplace. An original Style C one sheet showing Scarlet running through a burning Atlanta sold for $20,700 in 2006, and a rare “plume” style CF 27″ X 41″ one sheet sold for better than $8,000 in 2008.

“Mrs. Miniver”
Greer Garson won Best Actress for this 1942 MGM hit, which also took Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actress (Teresa Wright). One sheets are rare for this film but 22″ X 28″ half sheets are selling in the $3-5,000 range.

“Casablanca”
Original posters from the 1943 Best Picture winner consistently bring some of the highest prices in the marketplace. An original release one sheet (27″ X 41″) brought $25,300 in 2005, while a Style B half sheet (22″ X 28″), a rare version showing all the film’s main characters, sold for nearly $39,000 last year.

“Lawrence of Arabia”
One sheets (27″ X 41″) of the “camel” Style A with art by Howard Terpning—the most sought after poster of the 1962 Best Picture winner—brought $11,000 and $14,000 at two auctions in 2008.

Allan Maurer is a Worthologist who specializes in Hollywood and movie memorabilia.

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The Academy Award of Merit, otherwise universally known as the Oscar.

Known universally as Oscar, the statuette stands more than a foot high (13.5 inches) and is made of gold-plated Britannia metal by R. S. Owens and Co. in Chicago. Designed in 1929 by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons and sculpted by George Stanley, Oscar is an art-deco image of a knight standing on a reel of film, hands gripping a Crusader’s sword. The five spokes of the reel represent the five branches of the academy: actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers.

Mexican film director Emilio “El Indio” Fernández reportedly posed naked for the original design.

For the first three years, the awards were made of solid bronze and then changed to Britannia metal, a stronger metal that is an alloy of tin, copper and antimony, much like pewter. After casting, the statues are polished, and then plated with a series of metals: copper, nickel and silver. The final plating is 24K gold. Oscars are believed to contain more gold than any other major award statuette.

During World War II when metals were scarce, the academy distributed Oscar statues made of plaster. When the war ended, the plaster awards were swiftly replaced with authentic metal statuettes. All the plaster substitutes were believed destroyed until one surfaced recently in the academy’s vault.

The only change in the design of Oscar over the years has been in the base. Originally, it was slightly smaller and made of Belgian black marble. Since 1945, the base has been slightly taller and made of spun brass plated in black nickel.

Unique Oscars

A few unique Oscars have been created over the years. Ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s 1937 Oscar statuette sported a movable jaw, in honor of his Charlie McCarthy dummy. Walt Disney received a standard Oscar statuette and seven miniatures for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1938. Shirley Temple received a miniature “junior” Oscar in 1934 at the age of 6.

Officially, the statue is named the Academy Award of Merit, but everyone, even the academy, calls him Oscar. Legend has it that he received this name from Margaret Herrick, the academy’s longtime librarian and later executive director, who nicknamed him after a favorite uncle.

Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky first used the name in print in his column about Katharine Hepburn’s first Best Actress win at the sixth awards presentation in 1934. The academy itself didn’t use the nickname officially until 1939.

The academy is fiercely protective of Oscar, posting this warning on its Web site: “The Oscar statuette is the copyrighted property of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the statuette and the phrases Academy Award(s)’ and ‘Oscar(s)’ are registered trademarks under the laws of the United States and other countries.”

All nominees for Oscars since 1950 have been required to sign a legal document requiring them and their heirs “not to sell or otherwise dispose of” the statuette, or if they can no longer keep it, to sell it back to the academy for $1.

Selling Oscars

Whenever an Oscar comes up for sale, the academy’s legal department moves swiftly to identify the origin of the award and, if possible, block its sale.

The heirs of the Mary Pickford estate recently came into conflict with the academy when they tried to sell one of the Oscars awarded to the silent film star. Pickford won the Best Actress Oscar, one of the first ever awarded, for her performance in the 1929 melodrama “Coquette.” In 1976, she received a second honorary Oscar for her contributions to the film industry, including cofounding United Artists and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The 1929 Oscar, estimated to fetch at least $500,000 at auction, should fall outside the 1950 time limits, but the academy counters that the agreement Pickford signed for her 1976 award also covered the earlier statue.

Orson Welles’ Best Screenplay Oscar from “Citizen Kane” when it was up for auction.

Orson Welles’ daughter, Beatrice, had similar difficulties trying to sell her father’s Best Screenplay Oscar for the 1941 classic, “Citizen Kane.” The academy sued her in 2003, saying that she had signed an agreement in the 1980s when she received a replacement Oscar not to sell it or the original if it was ever found. She recovered the original and put it up for auction at Sotheby’s, but the academy blocked the sale.

The courts ruled that the agreement in this instance did not cover the heirs of the award’s recipient, and Beatrice later sold the Oscar to a charitable foundation. It in turn put Oscar up for auction and the statue finally went on the block in December 2007 at Sotheby’s, estimated to bring in $800,000 to $1.2 million (up from estimated $400,000 in 2003). However, it was withdrawn when bids failed to meet its reserve price.

Some still reach collectors

Despite the best efforts of the academy, some pre-1950 Oscars do reach the gavel:

• The award for Best Picture, 1941, “How Green was My Valley,” sold in 2004 for $95,600.

• Ronald Colman’s 1947 Best Actor award for “A Double Life” sold in 2002 for $175,000.

• Bette Davis’ 1938 Best Actress award for “Jezebel” sold in 2001 for $578,000.

• Clark Gable’s 1934 Best Actor award for “It Happened One Night” sold in 1996 for $607,500.

• The Oscar awarded to “Gone with the Wind” for Best Picture in 1939 sold in 1999 for $1.54 million.

• Steven Spielberg is known to have bought the statuettes awarded to Clark Gable and Bette Davis at auction and subsequently returned them to the academy.

Clark Gable accepting one of his three Oscars (“It Happened One Night,” “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “Gone with the Wind.”)

Fifty awards are cast each year by R. S. Owens. Imperfect casts are destroyed. Any unused awards are placed in the academy’s vault until the next year. All these measures keep Oscar one of the most sought-after and hardest-to-find collectibles in both the awards statues and movie memorabilia categories.

Image and name of Oscar © A.M.P.A.S.

Allan Maurer is a Worthologist who specializes in movie and Hollywood memorabilia

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The Style A poster for the 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” done in different sizes, depicts the wheel-shaped Space Station One, is the most common.

Science fiction superstar Isaac Asimov once called Bob McCall “the nearest thing we have to an artist-in-residence in outer space.”

Starting off with a love of aviation and a desire to draw, McCall has become one of the foremost illustrators of the history of aviation, documenting space missions, designing commemorative stamps and patches for space shuttle crews.

If you have been to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, you probably recall his magnificent six-story tall mural depicting man’s conquest of the Moon that dominates one wall of the main floor.

McCall excelled at painting the future. As a young commercial illustrator, his work appeared in leading magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post and Popular Science. Then, in the early ’60s, Life asked him to illustrate an article on future spacecraft.

His visionary work on this project led to an invitation from Stanley Kubrick to come to England to paint advertising posters for the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” (MGM, 1968). The posters he produced for Kubrick, depicting the technology of the future, are highly collectible today. Three different one sheets are in circulation.

The Style B poster from “2001: A Space Odyssey” shows men working on the Moon.

Style A, done in different sizes, depicting the wheel shaped Space Station One, is the most common. An authentic 1968 poster in excellent condition sold for about $650 at auction last year. A similar poster was used for the 1980 rerelease of the film, and a version was adapted for the 2001 rerelease.

A French version of the 1968 one sheet (a one sheet is usually 27” by 41” vertical, the most common style of poster today) sold for $131.

Other sizes of this poster are even more desirable. A three sheet (a vertical poster 41” by 81”) of Style A sold for nearly $1,200 in 2008. A six sheet measuring 81 x 81 brought nearly $800.

A one sheet of Style B, showing men working on the Moon, sold this year for about $700, while a copy autographed by actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood brought about $950.

Style C, depicting the Centrifuge, is the rarest and most valuable of the McCall “2001” posters. It was designed specifically for the Cinerama version and was sent only to theaters equipped with the wide screen technology. A Style C one sheet sold at auction for over $4,000 in 2007.

The rarest of “2001: A Space Odyssey” posters is the Style C, depicting the Centrifuge. It was designed specifically for the Cinerama version and was sent only to theaters equipped with the wide screen technology.

One aspect of McCall’s work is its almost photographic quality. The Style C is an excellent example. Although it looks like a photograph or still from the film, it is in fact an illustration. McCall’s printed signature appears in the lower left corner.

A variety of other artwork McCall created for Kubrick’s epic is occasionally seen, including standees, banners, counter displays, insert posters (vertical, 14” by 36”, a format no longer seen, including some controversial “minty white” versions), lenticulars, lobby cards (11” by 14”), window cards, pressbooks (which contain stories, art, and posters available for advertising), movie stills and large format 40 x 60 glossy posters—all highly collectible.

A half sheet (horizontal, 22” by 28”) with McCall’s artwork recently brought nearly $800 at auction.

None of McCall’s “2001” artwork comes close in value to another “2001” movie poster, called “The Eye,” created for the 1969 launch of the 70mm version of the film. The psychedelic Eye, used primarily for “wild” posting on building sites and bulletin boards, was printed in far smaller quantities than any of the other posters, and typically brings upwards of $9,500 when one appears at auction.

McCall also created illustrated posters for the films “Ice Station Zebra” (MGM, 1968), “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (20th Century Fox, 1970), and “Juggernaut” (United Artists, 1974).

“The Eye,” created for the 1969 launch of the 70mm version of “2001” features the psychedelic Eye, used primarily for “wild” posting on building sites and bulletin boards.

Posters from “Juggernaut” can be found for as little as $16, while “Ice Station Zebra” posters bring from $35-$85, depending on condition. McCall’s posters for “Tora! Tora! Tora!” go for around $100; a set of eight lobby cards, mostly illustrations, sold for $262 in 2008.

Other films that show McCall’s vision of future spacecraft and technology include the Disney film “The Black Hole” (1979), on which he served as art director, and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (Paramount, 1979). Some of his illustrations were used on the lobby cards for these films, which average $250-$300 for a mint-condition 8-piece “Star Trek” set and $35-$65 for “The Black Hole” set. Examples of McCall’s original illustrations for these films can be seen online at www.mccallstudios.com.

Allan Maurer is a Worthologist who specializes in movie memorabilia.

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Hollywood Museums in Vietnam and Ohio

By Allan Maurer

The interest in movie memorabilia stretches from Cleveland, Ohio to Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam.

We ran across two interesting items about museums with mouth-watering collections. Thirty years ago, Nguyen Thanh Liem worked at a Beverly Hills beauty parlor and had a steady clientele of movie stars from the silent era to western and action films popular in movie heyday.
Liem collected about 2,000 signed photos of Hollywood stars, many from the silent era, as well as 40,000 costumes, more than 1,000 pairs of shoes that once belonged to famous singers and Hollywood stars, as well as some of their love letters.

The collection includes many other pop cultural items, including documents about John F. Kennedy and other signatures from United State presidents and vice presidents, mementos of Muhammad Ali, and memorabilia focused on Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Madonna.

For the full story “A hair-dresser turns curator with a personal collection of Hollywood memorabilia,” click here.

A Christmas Story Museum

“You’ll shoot your eye out!” says Ralphie Parker’s mother about his dream of having Santa deliver a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas in the holiday favorite movie “A Christmas Story.”
This Thanksgiving, a number of the original cast members, including Scott Schwartz, who, as Flick, got his tongue frozen to the flagpole, and Ian Petrella, the actor who played Raphie’s little brother, will celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary at the plain clapboard house in Cleveland, Ohio, used to shoot all the exterior shots in the film.

The house is now a museum that displays props, costumes, memorabilia and photos from the movie, which fan Brian Jones opened in 2006. The museum draws about 35,000 visitors a year. Across the street, at the gift shop, you can buy a talking Ralphie doll.

To visit the “A Christmas Story” Museum website, click here.

Poster Artists: Alvan “Hap” Hadley

By Allan Maurer

Born in Illinois in 1895, Alvan Cordell Hadley, known to history as “Hap,” created posters for some of the best-loved silent movies, as well as some early talkies. The few original examples that have survived bring astronomical prices at auction, while the reproductions of these classics are some of the best-sellers in the marketplace.

The best known of Hap’s work are his posters of Buster Keaton’s 1927 classics, “The General” and “College,” and Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 Oscar-winning film, “The Circus.” Christie’s East sold the only known surviving original of the three sheet for “The General” at auction in 1994 for $46,000. A restored one sheet of the “blue style” poster for “The Circus” recently sold at auction for better than $13,000.

Hadley’s soulful depiction of the Little Tramp reflected his background as a caricaturist and cartoonist. He began his career during World War I working as an official artist for the Marine Corps, producing propaganda-laden cartoon strips. After the war, he settled in New York City where he dabbled in acting, appearing in the review “Greenwich Village Follies of 1920,” as well as a silent feature directed by George Irving, “Floodgates” (Lowell Films, 1924). His advertising agency developed a reputation for designing the covers of sheet music, including “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” a popular hit in 1925.

Hap’s first known movie poster is a depiction of Clara Bow as the female boxer in “Rough House Rosie” (Paramount Famous Laskey Productions, 1927), surrounded by cartoon faces, all with black eyes. His career continued for some 30 years, during which time he produced movie posters and film titles for all the major studios in Hollywood, especially MGM.

During the 1930s, Hadley produced posters for a number of Howard Hughes films, including “Hell’s Angels” (1930), starring Jean Harlow, and the controversial “Cock of the Air” (1932). Paper from these productions occasionally still shows up at auction. The only known original poster from “Cock of the Air” recently sold for $5,600 at Christie’s London, while a window card from “Hell’s Angels” brought about the same price this year.

Other Hadley posters from less high-profile productions fetch more modest prices. A window card from “Laff It Off,” a 1928 Broadway stage production, recently auctioned for $96. A one sheet of Hadley’s poster for “Reform Girl” (Tower, 1933), featuring rather grim-faced images of Noel Francis and “Skeets” Gallagher brought just $215, while the slightly more attractive poster for “Cheating Blondes” (Equitable, 1933) sold for over $800.

In the 1940s, Hadley created the huge likeness of Roy Rogers seen on billboards during the Republic Productions Roy Rogers publicity campaign and widely reproduced in rodeo magazines.

Hap Hadley died in Los Angeles in 1976.

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Hand drawn movie posters

By Allan Maurer

The magazine Architectural Digest has an interesting piece about the hand-drawn chalk and paint movie posters by staff artists Charles Reese Collier and Sid Smith for Loew’s Grand Theatre on Peachtree Street in Atlanta.

Lowe’s, which showed primarily MGM films, hosted one of grandest premieres in movie history, that of “Gone With the Wind,” on Dec. 15, 1939. With the theatre exterior transformed into a replica of Ashley Wilkes’ Twelve Oaks Plantation, 30,000 Atlanta citizens greeted star including Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard and others.

Herb Bridges, who collects memorabilia associated with both the book and the film, one day received a call from the owner of about 70 of the original handmade Lowe’s movie posters, which had been in storage for more than 60 years.

The collection include posters from “Lady of Burlesque,” the 1943 film based on stripper Gypsy Rose Lee’s novel, “G-String Murders,” from “The Outlaw,” the notorious Howard Hughes-produced western introducing Jane Russell and her equally notorious bosom, and from “The Yearling,” among others.

For art from the collection see, click here.

Experts Say James Bond Memorabilia Value is Rising

By Allan Maurer

Reuters reports that the value of James Bond memorabilia has “shot up.”

“There is a high level of collector interest in original Bond movie posters,” Astrid Zweynert writes.

While posters from the first James Bond film sold for around $100 British pounds ($164.47) a decade ago, now they sell for as much as 7,500 pounds (a whopping $12,336.76).

You can read the report here here.

100 Horror Film Posters

By Allan Maurer

Now here’s a treat. Andrew Lindstrom’s blog “Well Medicated” displays 100 horror film posters.

My favorites include “Tarantula,” “Planet of the Vampires,” “Day of the Dead,” “Nosferatu,” the rare “Dracula” poster, “Robinson Crusoe on Mars,” and the unusual “Invaders From Mars” poster. The 1950s original version of “Invaders From Mars” was consciously designed to reflect a child’s nightmare vision of the world. Sure did work on me. I had nightmares for months after seeing it, despite the clearly visible zippers on the costumes the Martians wore.

Lindstrom includes lots of other posters, classic and modern.

This is an unusual collection, not the run-of-the-mill posters usually seen from any of the films he includes. You’ll surely have your own favorites.

Go take a look, but don’t droll on your keyboard…

Universal Horror: The Bride of Frankenstein

By Allan Maurer

Beginning in the silent era with “Phantom of the Opera” and “Hunchback of Notre Dame” with Lon Chaney, Sr., Universal Pictures made a series of classic horror films starring the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, the Werewolf, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man that ran through the 1940s.

Posters, lobby cards, glossy stills, banners—just about any memorabilia from these films—pull top-of-the-line prices that range from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. While the original 1931 “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” are creaky, as well as creepy now, collectibles from either bring very high prices in good condition.

All of the Universal horror films featured excellent special effects for their time, relying solely on makeup, camera trickery and the occasional animation. All also had a certain spooky poetry that makes them standout even on repeated viewing today.

“Bride of Frankenstein,” (BOF) directed by James Whale and the first sequel to his “Frankenstein,” is considered by most critics and most fans, by far the best of these horror masterpieces. It’s the one in which the monster talks and meets the old blind man in the woods; a scene parodied to laugh-out-loud perfection in Mel Brooks “Young Frankenstein” in 1974.

BOF included a stirring score by Franz Waxman, memorable performances from Karloff as the monster and Elsa Lancaster as his scream queen bride.

Ernest Thesinger played a campy mad scientist who has created a tiny King, Queen, ballet dancer and other miniature people he keeps in jars. He shares a cigar with the monster saying, “It’s my only vice…”

The creation of the bride during a thunderstorm exceeds even the original monster-comes-alive scene in the original, Waxman’s music lending it all a grandeur seldom matched since.

Even stills in “lesser” condition from BOF sold for more than $70 each recently, and an insert sold for $33,000, while many other items ranged from a few hundred dollars to $3,000 or more for almost any poster or card in decent shape. A single lobby card sold for more than $12,000.

Abbott & Costello Meet the Monsters

By Allan Maurer

There are those who felt the series of Abbott & Costello meet the monsters films that began with “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein” in 1948 and continuing through “Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy” in 1955 were an inglorious end to the Universal Studios monster series.

The first, in which they encounter the Frankenstein monster (played again by Glenn Strange, who never quite gets the pathos Karloff brought to the part), Dracula (Bela Lugosi), the Wolf Man, (Lon Chaney, Jr.) and at the end, the Invisible Man, is the best. “Pulp Fiction” director Quentin Tarantino, has more than once expressed his admiration for it, and I agree that it’s both funny and scary.

There is nothing funny about the prices posters from their meet the monster films bring, though. Movie paper (posters, stills, etc.) from the series, which includes “Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Boris Karloff); and “Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man,” regularly draw auction prices in the hundreds of dollars or much more for single items.

A linen-backed 1-sheet from “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein” sold for $5,400 at auction this year. An unbacked original sold for $3,700 and a Spanish version of the poster for $675.00. An 8×10 still form the film went for $275.

By way of contrast, 1-sheets from “Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy” sold for from $1,300 to $546 from 2000 to 2005.