Movie mania

The team at Chilcotts Auctioneers came up trumps again with a story about a film poster collection.

They received the collection from a vendor in East Devon, whose son had been an avid collector of movie posters.

Some of these date back to the 1930s and 40s and are quite rare – while I was researching the story I discovered that posters at the time were often recycled due to paper shortages.

A number of the posters brought back memories of watching black and white films on a Sunday afternoon, particularly those advertising Margaret Rutherford as ‘Miss Marple’. I remember those films really well! The collection included posters for well known films including Hello Dolly and Whistle Down the Wind, but also films I had never heard of, such as the X-rated Diana Dors movie, Yield to the Night.

The collection, which is being sold at Chilcotts September 10th ‘Fine Art, Antiques and Collectors’ Items’ sale, is wonderfully eclectic. I must say I am tempted to make a bid for some of the prints myself.

Strike a pose

When we discussed a photograph to go with the press release, I was thinking of having some of the Chilcotts team looking at one of the posters holding a bag of popcorn, perhaps even a candyfloss on a stick. But their own suggested creative won the day. They took the Wizard of Oz poster (the most sought after poster in the collection) and recreated it with themselves playing all the characters: Jenny Bell as Dorothy, Duncan Chilcott as the Wizard, Liz Chilcott as the Cowardly Lion, Oscar Everard as the Tin Man and Dudley Broome as the Scarecrow. I couldn’t have done it better myself!

Lots of interest from the media as usual, with the Express & Echo asking me to generate more photos of the posters so they could do the story justice.

Next up for Chilcotts, we’re moving back in history to the Civil War!