Hondo's Daybill and One Sheet Q&A [Re-Titled]
I wish to share my many years of Australian film research with having any questions on daybills in particular fielded to me but also any posters, banned films in Australia, film distributors or anything in fact regarding distribution of posters and films in Australia. I welcome any inquiries large or small.
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Sven I meant questions I can answer not hard ones. I need ones that I don't have to speculate on too much but I often don't mind in doing this anyway. I have a feeling John may have published something on this topic on his website some time ago. When John gets to read this he may offer his opinion.
Ask me a question like are there many W.E. Smith daybills from the 1950s that had the almost same designs in artwork copied for certain MGM titles in the early 1960s by another printer for re-releases?
The hard ones??? Sven asked a fair question. You started the topic and it doesn't mean you have to answer every question. Great topic!
Anyone can jump in.
I am glad you asked this question Sven.
I don't know why this happened but I can give you a list of the titles that fall into this category.
DEEP IN MY HEART
HIGH SOCIETY
I'LL CRY TOMORROW
RHAPSODY
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS
SHOWBOAT
The first five listed were printed by Advertising And Commercial ( A. & C. ) and most likely re-released sometime between 1960 & 1962.
Showboat was printed by Chromo Print and most likely re-released 1959 or even possibly early 1960.
If you have any of the six titles in your collection and believe you have an original if it W.E.Smith printed breath easy now but if it is a A. & C. or Chromo Print it is definitely a re-release.
Did they come to a sudden stop or slowed gradually?
I don't wish to give a brief answer so I will take a little time to organise a more detailed reply for you including titles I have listed somewhere but need to locate to give you a more accurate list than what springs to my mine at present.
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Coming together well but need to do a little more work on this but the result will appear soon.
Before I answer are the poor daybills you mention the duotone daybills only such as Dunkirk and Godzilla or does your observation include also full colour first release daybills. If any full colour daybills are included pleases let me know the names of a half a dozen titles. Once I hear back I will answer your question to the best of my knowledge.
And Lawrence, the duotones are the worst, but a fair number of color ones have sketchy art where there is no resemblance to the actual stars.
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OK. Got confused as it was posted under Hondo's Daybill Q&A...
There are some people here who collect the duotones (sad but true), I think we have a thread somewhere...probably mixed in with some other thread, might be a good idea to start one specifically.
My first observation I will bring to light is by mentioning examples from an Australian daybill and an Australian one sheet of the film A Countess From Hong Kong ( 1967 ) and both printed by the same printer Robert Burton. Great likenesses of Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando on the one sheet but absolutely terrible likenesses of them on the daybill as they look more like Mari Blanchard and Rossano Brazzi. One drawn by a competent artist and the other by someone who shouldn't be employed in this field.
Some printers particularly F. Cunninghame & Co. and Robert Burton on a whole never employed the best artists who were hard to find therefore overall their output suffered.
Watching every penny when the toll television took on the film industry happened and this combined with a lack of good poster artists were in my mind a major contributing factor in the decline of Australian poster art starting in the 1950s. Duotone posters printed for major distributors for first release, re-release or second printings and a fair amount of posters printed for the smaller independents such as Blake, Regent ( RFD ), IFD & Ray Films, regardless of them being first release or re-release they weren't considered to be of much value so el cheapo versions were ordered from mainly unknown printers who were ashamed I imagine to have their names printed on the posters.
Agree or not these are my thoughts.
Richardson Studios started in the 1920s and completed their last posters in 1960 when it was a clean stoppage of designing daybills for Paramount.
The last three daybill they produced as far as records I have show were released as follows ---
The Bellboy ( released in Sydney August 19, 1960 )
Man From God's Country ( released in Sydney August 19, 1960 )
Women Are Weak ( this French film with French Dialogue and English subtitles would have most likely been printed in 1959 or1960 but due to a suitable theatre not being available and it's limited box office potential a release didn't happen until it was finally released in Sydney April 21, 1962 )
Non Richardson printed Paramount daybills started being printed and released in Australia later in 1960 starting with the following.
Psycho ( released in Sydney September 21, 1960 )
G.I, Blues ( released in Sydney December 30, 1960 )
then 1961 onwards.
The Big Night premiered in Australia in 1961 - Richardson Studio for Paramount
A Touch of Larceny (1960) was playing as late as 1963 - Richardson Studio for Paramount
A Touch Of Larceny was first released in Sydney April 8, 1960. ( Sourced from The Film Weekly yearbook ) .
The Big Night was first released in Sydney June 23, 1960. ( Sourced from The Film Weekly yearbook ).
Only limited paper resources available to view after 1954 and no Sydney city paper access and the releases in 1961 showing on Trove are Bourke, Canberra and Granville. A year later they would still be using the original Richardson Studio daybill. Interestingly the supporting film at Bourke was My Pal Trigger from 1946.
I agree there was probably a very real lack of good artists post war (due to the war), of course there was simply a lack of any sort of labour back then, in fact so severe was the manpower shortage Australia implemented its successful migration policy. I can also imagine good quality artists being snapped up by the ad agencies and similar (newsprint etc) - they would have paid far more money than a printer I am sure.
I would also imagine that some of the well established studios like Richardson had a lot of 'older' artist who possibly never went to war, stayed with the company and were too set in their ways to do anything else.
So yes perhaps some of the art was reduced to simply amateurs copying from whatever foreign material they could get their hands on, but I just don't believe it was from any economic reasoning