Film posters are not made to last. They appear on billboards, then they are torn down or pasted over. Sometimes they do not have even that brief visibility. The original 1927 poster for Sergei Eisenstein’s state-sponsored retelling of the 1917 Russian Revolution was dominated by the face of Trotsky. However, just as Eisenstein was getting ready to release October, Trotsky was disgraced. The film had to be cut by a quarter to match a new view of Soviet history; the poster was useless, but it was preserved and is reproduced in Emily King’s book. The odds against the survival of these commercial artworks are reflected in the private market for them. At Sotheby’s New York in 1997, a poster for the 1932 version of The Mummy was auctioned for $453,500. Survival is not guaranteed even for mass-produced material. King reports that there are only three remaining copies of the poster for Casablanca.
That famous poster was designed by Bill Gold, who later teamed up with Clint Eastwood.
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