I found an article in Illawarra Daily Mercury (Tuesday 14 December 1954 page 10) which states "...in this R.K.O Radio re-release...".
Also The Australian Women's Weekly (Wednesday 9 March 1955, page 42) it has a "City Film Guide": where Wonder Man will be playing at the Palace (Re-Release). As an aside it also says playing at The Liberty will be the re-release for Gone With the Wind
In fact I found plenty of evidence that would suggest (for future reference) that the film was re-released generally on the East Coast in 1955 and 1956 on the West.
I think John makes two good points for the poster being an original 1. being the poster is the same as its US counterpart and 2. the logo being without the four stars in the 1945 advert matches the logo on the poster. Whether this logo design was in use generally or not the logo matches for the movie.
One would need to look at the logo across across a wider period of time to see if there where the changes (the four stars) really kick in and that will take some time as not all adverts have the logo.
eg
I have found the boxed 4 star logo in use in 1940 in an advert for The Flying Deuces
I have found the non 4 star logo in use in 1945 in an advert for The Enchanted Cottage
Need more time. But I still don't think (as I said on the previous page) that the logo is an indicator of date of release.
I firmly believe the logo on the Australian one sheets is the key to the Wonder Man quandary. I have gathered together some more information and hopefully with some images I am hoping to receive shortly will help convince the gathering numbers of doubters to agree with me about the Wonder Man posters.
In the two posters above, the Aussie one is missing a musical note to the left of Dandy's head and red dot above his head while the other Aussie poster the "in" is missing above "Wonder".
The other Aussie (Boxed RKO) poster does look like more attention was paid to faces of Danny and Virginia. Jury is out for me but gut feel tells me the 4 star boxed is the original, it's hard to tell without more info really???
I think it's more about being absolutely sure tham doubting your research.
I am always happy to see these things discussed out so everyone is happy and look forward to the final evidence to put to bed another poster...if not well no big deal, it's just a poster and besides we haven't had a good tar n feathering round these har parts for weeks.
The most important thing to take into account here is that one needs to separate one sheet posters from what went on printing wise with daybills and other advertising material. They don't agree logo wise in many cases with each other. I have an example for a 1943 RKO film where the Australian one sheet has the boxed stars but the daybill and the herald are without the stars. Definitely no re-release would have happened with this title. I will give more details soon regarding this film.
The argument that it's been directly copied from the US poster has flaws as I've mentioned in my last post
When Australian artists copied US posters or press books they were absolutely not attempting to replicate the art exactly. They just used the art as a template to come up with a similar poster. The point I am making is that the details on the Australian one sheet that Bruce sold are very similar to the US one sheet and almost certainly copied from the US one sheet. That doesn't necessarily prove anything but I also don't see any proof beyond doubt that the poster in question is a reissue.
Definitely agree there can be different logos between Daybills and One Sheets, but I have also found (albeit not an exhaustive search) there are different logo (designs) in use in the adverts at the time, which is why I feel that the logo shouldn't be used to date the poster.
My point is, either one of them could of been copied directly from the US poster. The writing under the stars names in the boxed RKO poster is the same and in the same position, in the other it's down a little and the "Goldwyn Girls" isn't in bold lettering.
It seems obvious to me both were copied from the US poster, and by copied it is more a copy of similar rather than a 'carbon copy' - so the question which was copied first, which surely must come down to which is the most similar?
My point is, either one of them could of been copied directly from the US poster. The writing under the stars names in the boxed RKO poster is the same and in the same position, in the other it's down a little and the "Goldwyn Girls" isn't in bold lettering.
That's certainly true.
There must be some reason why the director and distributor's details were left off the second poster.
One thing you have to consider is: It is probably that the original AU poster was a free-hand copy of the US poster, It is also possible then, that the re-release one is a copy of the AU original. Afterall there is no US re-release and the Australian re-release was 10 years after the original, it is possible an original US poster was not at hand to copy.
So between copies one does lose something in the translation (possible) which one has lost more?
When I look at both AU copies there is at least half a dozen obvious differences.
The boxed RKO has the yellow on the right running all the way down to Danny's sock, same as the US, and the ratings triangle is printed over the top of the yellow whereas the middle poster is designed around the ratings triangle.
One thing you have to consider is: It is probably that the original AU poster was a free-hand copy of the US poster, It is also possible then, that the re-release one is a copy of the AU original. Afterall there is no US re-release and the Australian re-release was 10 years after the original, it is possible and original US poster was not at hand to copy.
So between copies one does lose something in the translation (possible) which one has lost more?
Good points David. I'm sure there was never any thought or requirement to doing an exact copy.
If as you say, the re release was copied from the Australian original then that points to the one with the stars in the logo being the later release.
Can you explain how the boxed RKO has the same musical notes and red dot below "woods" as the US poster, if it was copied from the middle poster above?
the Censor Stamp is an overprint (it prints through the yellow), the other one it is designed into it. The yellow runs the full size the other stops at the Censor Stamp
it is missing "in" (Danny Kaye in)
it is missing "with" (with Virginia
"with the Golden Girls" is more like the US version
I cant explain it either but if the third poster was copied from the US one sheet why did they leave out the directors and distribution details and how come it appears on the other poster? Can anyone explain that? Those details were surely copied from the original US one sheet to the one that Bruce auctioned.
I know that Hondo will have some more to say on this but my feeling is that you need to be absolutely certain before pronouncing one original and one a reissue.
I also liked Chris's simple approach that a first release poster has finer details on the artwork e.g. look at the woman's faces on both the aussi one sheets.
Are there examples of other aussi paper where this does not hold true?
I actually think the US poster was available for Aussie design and printing for both releases. Two different artists involved with two different managers overseeing the artists at the time of both printings?
Maybe the US poster was catalogued at the time of first release and not the Aussie?
Which brings us back to square one.
Can we break it down a little further. John's question is a good one.
"why did they leave out the directors and distribution details?"
I have researched every RKO Australian one sheet I could find find and have confirmed every one sheet from 1940 to 1948 has the 4 star logo on them. The titles as follows -
1940. Fantasia
1941. Dumbo, The Little Foxes, Mr. And Mrs. Smith
1942 .
1943 . Behind The Rising Sun
1944 . Tender Comrade, None But The Lonely Heart
1945 . Wonder Man
1946. The Stranger, Notorious!,Tarzan And The Leopard Woman, The Falcon's Adventure
1947 . Crossfire, Out Of The Past, The Long Night, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty
1948 . Blood On The Moon, Every Girl Should Be Married, Joan Of Arc, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
The following are logos without the 4 stars. There are 32 in all.
1949 . The Window
1950 . The White Tower, Armored Car Robbery, Treasure Island, Our Very Own, The Woman On Pier 13, Born To Be Bad
1951 . Payment on Demand, Drums In The Deep South, His Kind Of Woman, Cry Danger
1952 . Clash By Night, Rancho Notorious, Beware My Lovely
1953 . Peter Pan, Sea Devils, Devil's Canyon, Never Wave At a WAC ,Split Second
1954 . The French Line, Beautiful But Dangerous, Killers From Space, Cattle Queen Of Montana
1955 Son Of Sinbad, Underwater!, Wonder Man
1956. While The City Sleeps, Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, Great Day In The Morning
1957 . Jet Pilot, That Night!
1958. I Married A Woman
Then RKO product released by MGM in Australia.
As I mentioned before you have 3 different areas to look at and these being Australian one sheets, daybills and other advertising material.
The logos on daybills with 4 stars stopped being printed in the early 1940's and apart from Banjo in 1947 which did have 4 stars on it there appears to be no other daybill examples of 4 stars going right up till 1958.
The Newspaper classified advertisements had both with and without stars well into the 1940"s.
I have attached from the 1943 RKO film Behind The Rising Sun an Australian one sheet, daybill and Theatre programme images Note both the daybill and the programme have the logo without stars but please note the one sheet has the 4 stars appearing.
The credit information left off the Wonder Man 4 star one sheet was probably incompetence or even laziness on the printers part. How much checking was done at the printers, as there were incorrect cast credits on some posters from the 1940's but the daddy of them all is the daybill from 1944 with the film's title boldly printed as The Port Of Forty Theives and this wasn't picked up by someone before it was printed. So it is more than possible some credits being excluded is a distinct possibility.
If you look closely the poster's artwork is marginally better artwork on the 4 star poster which one would think would appear on an original release poster.
Something else to note is both one sheets were printed by F.Cunninghame who printed RKO one sheets in both 1945 and 1955 so if one is thinking because it is the same printer they could have been printed around the same time the same argument holds for 1945 and 1955 re-release.
I know this isn't 100% proof that the Wonder Man 4 star logo is 1945 and the no star logo is the 1955 re-release but it makes sound sense to me .If someone can produce a first release Australian RKO one sheet from the mid 1940's to 1948 without the 4 stars on it or a post 1949 RKO poster with the 4 stars, I will have to change my thinking but until then I'm happy with my conclusions that mainly rest on the logos.
I need to mention I found RKO one sheet images for two films without either logo on them.The films are The Woman In The Window ( 1944 ) & Tomorrow Is Forever ( 1945 ) which both have an International Pictures Inc. logos on them only.The Woman In The Window doesn't mention RKO at all and Tomorrow Is Forever on the bottom of the poster ''An International Picture - Released by RKO Radio Pictures" along the bottom. For daybills of the same titles The Woman In The Window have no RKO logo but ''Distributed By RKO Pictures along the bottom and Tomorrow Is Forever has a RKO Logo along the bottom of the poster. No stars on the logo which was common practice with RKO daybills during this period. International Pictures in 1946 merged with Universal to form Universal International. By The 1950's the International titles originally distributed by RKO were being re-released in Australia including Tomorrow Is Forever by United Artists and The Woman In The Window by either Ray or IFD. There were only 7 International films made between 1944 and 1946 that were distributed in Australia through RKO. US posters only carried the International logo on them with a very small mention that they were distributed by RKO. This information on International has no direct bearing on the Wonder Man poster situation but I have mentioned it just in case it was brought up down the track.
That is actually a pretty small sample from the RKO films that were released during those years. I have a copy of the RKO film library for movies that were released in Australia and there are 760 titles listed which includes a lot from 1940-48.
The question I would be asking is why did they print some RKO one sheets with the four star logo and the corresponding daybills without the four star logo? If the logo was "official" and possibly changed after 1948, it should have been the same on all advertising and not just confined to one sheets.
As to the slightly better artwork on one of the posters being significant, I don't think that is a factor. Take the Butterfield 8 daybills for example. The reissue had a lot of people fooled for a very long time because the artwork was better than on the orignal.
Re the credit information being left off the second poster, my feeling is that this would have been done for a reason and not due to the laziness of the artist.
I'm afraid I am not really convinced one way or the other - good arguments to support both sides.
I think the 4 star RKO logo appeared only on Australian posters but please correct me if I'm wrong.Why should the advertising logos have to be uniform? We are in Australia and we do things a little different on occasions.
As for the Butterfied 8 re-release having a better design than the original this is probably right but the likeness of Elizabeth Taylor on the original, ln my opinion, is marginally better. This is one example only of a re-issue poster being slightly better than the original so I would like to see some other examples if possible.
As John said - good arguments to support both sides so let us keep the discussion rolling along.
If someone can produce a first release Australian RKO one sheet from the mid 1940's to 1948 without the 4 stars on it or a post 1949 RKO poster with the 4 stars, I will have to change my thinking
Well I had a scan around various sources and I have not - I have however discovered a whole lot more posters from that period that I really would like to have.
I did find a Dumbo Daybill with no stars, that does't fall within your parameters, but I would like that poster...it made me sad to realise how many early Disney's I don't have. Damn you Danny Kaye!
So I have been reading up on RKO history to determine if there was any coinciding factors to justify a change in the posters. In 1948 Howard Hughes bought RKO and then basically ran it into the ground. Could this have impacted anything?
Comments
I firmly believe the logo on the Australian one sheets is the key to the Wonder Man quandary. I have gathered together some more information and hopefully with some images I am hoping to receive shortly will help convince the gathering numbers of doubters to agree with me about the Wonder Man posters.
Hondo
In the two posters above, the Aussie one is missing a musical note to the left of Dandy's head and red dot above his head while the other Aussie poster the "in" is missing above "Wonder".
The other Aussie (Boxed RKO) poster does look like more attention was paid to faces of Danny and Virginia. Jury is out for me but gut feel tells me the 4 star boxed is the original, it's hard to tell without more info really???
Yeah that's right.
The argument that it's been directly copied from the US poster has flaws as I've mentioned in my last post.
The most important thing to take into account here is that one needs to separate one sheet posters from what went on printing wise with daybills and other advertising material. They don't agree logo wise in many cases with each other. I have an example for a 1943 RKO film where the Australian one sheet has the boxed stars but the daybill and the herald are without the stars. Definitely no re-release would have happened with this title. I will give more details soon regarding this film.
Good news tar and feathering isn't on the agenda.
Hondo.
When Australian artists copied US posters or press books they were absolutely not attempting to replicate the art exactly. They just used the art as a template to come up with a similar poster. The point I am making is that the details on the Australian one sheet that Bruce sold are very similar to the US one sheet and almost certainly copied from the US one sheet. That doesn't necessarily prove anything but I also don't see any proof beyond doubt that the poster in question is a reissue.
Looking forward to seeing more from Hondo!
My point is, either one of them could of been copied directly from the US poster. The writing under the stars names in the boxed RKO poster is the same and in the same position, in the other it's down a little and the "Goldwyn Girls" isn't in bold lettering.
That's certainly true.
There must be some reason why the director and distributor's details were left off the second poster.
Good points David. I'm sure there was never any thought or requirement to doing an exact copy.
If as you say, the re release was copied from the Australian original then that points to the one with the stars in the logo being the later release.
I cant explain it either but if the third poster was copied from the US one sheet why did they leave out the directors and distribution details and how come it appears on the other poster? Can anyone explain that? Those details were surely copied from the original US one sheet to the one that Bruce auctioned.
I know that Hondo will have some more to say on this but my feeling is that you need to be absolutely certain before pronouncing one original and one a reissue.
I actually think the US poster was available for Aussie design and printing for both releases. Two different artists involved with two different managers overseeing the artists at the time of both printings?
Maybe the US poster was catalogued at the time of first release and not the Aussie?
Which brings us back to square one.
Can we break it down a little further. John's question is a good one.
"why did they leave out the directors and distribution details?"
I have researched every RKO Australian one sheet I could find find and have confirmed every one sheet from 1940 to 1948 has the 4 star logo on them. The titles as follows -
1940. Fantasia
1941. Dumbo, The Little Foxes, Mr. And Mrs. Smith
1942 .
1943 . Behind The Rising Sun
1944 . Tender Comrade, None But The Lonely Heart
1945 . Wonder Man
1946. The Stranger, Notorious!,Tarzan And The Leopard Woman, The Falcon's Adventure
1947 . Crossfire, Out Of The Past, The Long Night, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty
1948 . Blood On The Moon, Every Girl Should Be Married, Joan Of Arc, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
The following are logos without the 4 stars. There are 32 in all.
1949 . The Window
1950 . The White Tower, Armored Car Robbery, Treasure Island, Our Very Own, The Woman On Pier 13, Born To Be Bad
1951 . Payment on Demand, Drums In The Deep South, His Kind Of Woman, Cry Danger
1952 . Clash By Night, Rancho Notorious, Beware My Lovely
1953 . Peter Pan, Sea Devils, Devil's Canyon, Never Wave At a WAC ,Split Second
1954 . The French Line, Beautiful But Dangerous, Killers From Space, Cattle Queen Of Montana
1955 Son Of Sinbad, Underwater!, Wonder Man
1956. While The City Sleeps, Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, Great Day In The Morning
1957 . Jet Pilot, That Night!
1958. I Married A Woman
Then RKO product released by MGM in Australia.
As I mentioned before you have 3 different areas to look at and these being Australian one sheets, daybills and other advertising material.
The logos on daybills with 4 stars stopped being printed in the early 1940's and apart from Banjo in 1947 which did have 4 stars on it there appears to be no other daybill examples of 4 stars going right up till 1958.
The Newspaper classified advertisements had both with and without stars well into the 1940"s.
I have attached from the 1943 RKO film Behind The Rising Sun an Australian one sheet, daybill and Theatre programme images Note both the daybill and the programme have the logo without stars but please note the one sheet has the 4 stars appearing.
The credit information left off the Wonder Man 4 star one sheet was probably incompetence or even laziness on the printers part. How much checking was done at the printers, as there were incorrect cast credits on some posters from the 1940's but the daddy of them all is the daybill from 1944 with the film's title boldly printed as The Port Of Forty Theives and this wasn't picked up by someone before it was printed. So it is more than possible some credits being excluded is a distinct possibility.
If you look closely the poster's artwork is marginally better artwork on the 4 star poster which one would think would appear on an original release poster.
Something else to note is both one sheets were printed by F.Cunninghame who printed RKO one sheets in both 1945 and 1955 so if one is thinking because it is the same printer they could have been printed around the same time the same argument holds for 1945 and 1955 re-release.
I know this isn't 100% proof that the Wonder Man 4 star logo is 1945 and the no star logo is the 1955 re-release but it makes sound sense to me .If someone can produce a first release Australian RKO one sheet from the mid 1940's to 1948 without the 4 stars on it or a post 1949 RKO poster with the 4 stars, I will have to change my thinking but until then I'm happy with my conclusions that mainly rest on the logos.
I need to mention I found RKO one sheet images for two films without either logo on them.The films are The Woman In The Window ( 1944 ) & Tomorrow Is Forever ( 1945 ) which both have an International Pictures Inc. logos on them only.The Woman In The Window doesn't mention RKO at all and Tomorrow Is Forever on the bottom of the poster ''An International Picture - Released by RKO Radio Pictures" along the bottom. For daybills of the same titles The Woman In The Window have no RKO logo but ''Distributed By RKO Pictures along the bottom and Tomorrow Is Forever has a RKO Logo along the bottom of the poster. No stars on the logo which was common practice with RKO daybills during this period. International Pictures in 1946 merged with Universal to form Universal International. By The 1950's the International titles originally distributed by RKO were being re-released in Australia including Tomorrow Is Forever by United Artists and The Woman In The Window by either Ray or IFD. There were only 7 International films made between 1944 and 1946 that were distributed in Australia through RKO. US posters only carried the International logo on them with a very small mention that they were distributed by RKO. This information on International has no direct bearing on the Wonder Man poster situation but I have mentioned it just in case it was brought up down the track.
Hondo
Edited: David - placement of image
That is actually a pretty small sample from the RKO films that were released during those years. I have a copy of the RKO film library for movies that were released in Australia and there are 760 titles listed which includes a lot from 1940-48.
The question I would be asking is why did they print some RKO one sheets with the four star logo and the corresponding daybills without the four star logo? If the logo was "official" and possibly changed after 1948, it should have been the same on all advertising and not just confined to one sheets.
As to the slightly better artwork on one of the posters being significant, I don't think that is a factor. Take the Butterfield 8 daybills for example. The reissue had a lot of people fooled for a very long time because the artwork was better than on the orignal.
Re the credit information being left off the second poster, my feeling is that this would have been done for a reason and not due to the laziness of the artist.
I'm afraid I am not really convinced one way or the other - good arguments to support both sides.
I think the 4 star RKO logo appeared only on Australian posters but please correct me if I'm wrong.Why should the advertising logos have to be uniform? We are in Australia and we do things a little different on occasions.
As for the Butterfied 8 re-release having a better design than the original this is probably right but the likeness of Elizabeth Taylor on the original, ln my opinion, is marginally better. This is one example only of a re-issue poster being slightly better than the original so I would like to see some other examples if possible.
As John said - good arguments to support both sides so let us keep the discussion rolling along.
Hondo
The actual logo used on the beginning of RKO films doesn't relate to paper adverting logos that are in question here.
Hondo