During the last pass through the Top Ten By Year project, 1978, I introduced a new tradition during all my round-up coverage; the Poster Appreciation post. I’m about 60% finished with my latest year, 1925, and figured, why not establish the poster post as an early prelude to the festivities to come? So here we are. This has been, to put it frankly, a shitty time for me. The distraction of this project has been a help, and then it wasn’t, and now it is starting to be again.
In most cases I have unfortunately been unable to identify or give credit to any artists who contributed to or created these pieces. There is not a lot of easily accessible documentation regarding artist credit so sadly I don’t have much to offer on that front.
So let’s start with posters for lost films. In culling together a watchlist for 1925, there were numerous posters I’d see that would have me longing to see a film right away. And of course it was often accompanied by discovering that the film was not available and considered lost. But at least we can still ogle at the advertisements and use them as a romanticized launching pad for our idealized versions of what might have been.
All survival statuses provided by the Progressive Silent Film List.
The Morgan Lithograph Company was one of the top poster lithographers in the early years of cinema. Here are three Paramount posters handled by them.
Almost all of Bebe Daniels’s silent films are considered lost, which is such a shame because look at this!”Susan’s mania was speed”?!?! She looks completely indifferent as she whizzes down a big yellow arrow. She’s so over the adrenaline. There’s no way the film would live up to this image, but every Bebe Daniels poster I see makes me mourn the fact that I can’t experience most of her filmography.
Here’s a few featuring the work of Boris Bilinsky! If you want to read more about him or see more of his work, here’s a great article on MUBI for you.
Speaking of Joyless Street, here are two other posters for Pabst’s film:
Renowned and versatile artist Alexander Rodchenko created some masterworks of graphic designs with his movie posters. Here are a few for 1925 films:
Here is another amazing poster for Battleship Potemkin. This one by the Sternberg brothers. Another MUBI article for your pleasure.
The last two posters may be my favorites because I can never get enough of illustrations of dark-lipped sexy women framed by a pop color.
These were GREAT!