The origin and development
of the American moving
picture poster
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster
Gary D. Rhodes
F
rom the silent film days to the present the movie
posterhasbeenacenterpieceoffeaturemotion
picture marketing. Poster designs have become
indelibly linked with the movies they advertise,
often to the degree that their images act as
embodiments of their films for collective memory.
Long after their initial marketing responsibilities conclude,
the posters remain iconic images in film history
and culture at large.
Though film posters were not prized by museums
and collectors until the latter years of the twentieth
century, discussion of their importance dates
back to their early usage. In 1914, for example, poster
designer Scotson Clark of the Cheltenham Advertising
Service offered a detailed vision of what posters
should do for the moving picture community and of
what he himself attempted to create for the Mutual
Film Corporation:
It is evident that the mission of the poster is to
attract people. The poster must bring the people
across the street. Secondly, having gotten
them there, you must tell them in as few words
as possible what they will see when they get
inside. You must excite their curiosity sufficiently
to make them part with their nickel,
dime, or quarter. Thirdly, you must appeal to
their artistic sense, and managers are apt to
underrate this quality of the general public’s
mind.1
Clark’s assessment of the poster’s mission
has not been undermined or changed over the passing
years. Aside from the relative consistency of their
usage during the twentieth century, however, movie
posters present a fascinating array of issues related
to their origins, development, and problems. Their
story through 1915 – at which point their early development
was largely complete and controversies regarding
their nature basically settled – is a key
element of film history that has largely gone unad-
dressed.
The birth of the moving picture poster was an
outgrowth of the pre-existing tradition of ‘show printing’,
the type regularly advertised in the pages of
such turn of the century trade publications as The
New York Clipper. Advertisements for such companies
as the Hitchcock Publishing Company, the
Great American Show Print, Incorporated, and the
Thomas & Wylie Litho Co. (all of New York), as well
as the Erie Lithographic and Printing Company (in
Pennsylvania with a New York branch) and the Great
Western Printing Co. (in Missouri), show the importance
and the commonplace status of lithograph
publicity posters.2
These companies offered posters
for ‘circus’ and ‘show’ usage in the earliest years of
the twentieth century, with an emphasis on color (one
or two being the most common) and on size.
With regard to size, the nomenclature soon
associated with movie posters was already in place:
half-sheet, one-sheet, three-sheet, and even the
twenty-four sheet that would eventually advertise US
films on city billboards. Even the sizes of these posters
were quite similar to what later became the standGary
D. Rhodes, formerly an Assistant Professor at
the University of Oklahoma Film & Video Studies
Program, is currently Lecturer in Film Studies at The
Queen’s University-Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is a
writer/director of film documentaries and the author of
such books as Lugosi (1997), White Zombie (2001)
and Alma Rubens, Silent Snowbird (2006, with Alexander
Webb).
Correspondence to gdrhodes@gmail.com
Film History, Volume 19, pp. 228–246, 2007. Copyright © John Libbey Publishing
ISSN: 0892-2160. Printed in United States of America
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 228
ard dimensions of the US movie poster. Hitchcock
Publishing offered half sheets at 21 x 28 and onesheets
at 28 x 42, whereas later Hollywood would
standardize these sizes into a 22 x 28 half-sheet and
a 27 x 41 one-sheet.3
Hitchcock even offered halfsheet
‘long hangers’ at 14 x 42, very close to Hollywood’s
later insert posters that measured 14 x 36
inches.4
These similarities of measurement and imagery
(e.g. garish colors and large typeface) are not
coincidental. It is very clear that the early film industry
believed that the circus poster had led to the creation
of the moving picture poster.5
A 1911 issue of the
Moving Picture World [hereafter MPW] claimed, ‘The
poster in the form we now know it originated with the
American circus’.6
Later, a 1918 issue of Motion
Picture News said, ‘[t]he first moving picture posters
were obviously inspired by the old fashioned circus
posters, and they were handled in much the same
manner – they were striking and lurid, and had a color
scheme consisting of about twenty-eight different
shades of red’.7
The industry also noted similarities in how
posters were displayed. For example, a 1915 issue
of the Exhibitors Film Exchange wrote that, ‘Many
current productions – which are exquisite works of
art – are exploited in the lobby and in front of the
theater with billboard and handbill ideas that have
carried over from the early days of the circus in
America’.8
Acknowledging these roots, however,
hardly made them acceptable to some members of
the film community. In 1911 Motography had asked,
‘Circus and side-show enterprises – here today and
gone tomorrow – make good use of the poster, but
is a moving picture theater on a par with such amusements
or something higher? We know they are
higher.’9
Born out of the circus poster tradition, the
moving picture poster certainly was a presence as
early as 1900 and was flourishing by the years
1910–1915. A 1913 Chicago Daily Tribune article
suggested that ‘[a] review of recent moving picture
posters may not be amiss, although any adequate
account of them would rival the vastness of the
Congressional record, so many and wonderful are
they’.10
The development and proliferation of the
poster in the period from 1910–1915, however, was
frought with debates and difficulties over their allegedly
offensive and even immoral imagery.
Development of the US moving
picture poster
The date of the earliest moving picture poster in the
US is difficult to discern. The dawn of film exhibition
in the 1890s was accompanied by various forms of
publicity, such as newspaper announcements,
handbills and posters. What we do know is that the
first moving picture posters performed the generalized
function of promoting not an individual film or
film type, but instead heralded the simple fact that
moving pictures were being screened at a given
venue.
A catalogue published in 1900 by Sears, Roebuck
and Company of Chicago, Illinois, offers one of
the earliest discussions of the movie poster in the US,
a discussion that seems to have been aimed at the
travelling exhibitor. Their ‘Special Poster List’ offered
14 x 21 inch posters ‘illustrated with appropriate and
very attractive engravings’ promoting their ‘Optigraph
Moving Pictures’.11
They also offered ‘Double
Combination Entertainment’ posters paired with
either their stereopticon or their graphophone (Sears’
‘talking machine’ version of the gramophone) in the
slightly bigger size of 18 x 24. The final option – the
‘Triple Combination Entertainment’ poster – advertised
all three devices using the slightly larger size of
19 x 25. The catalogue also offered ‘Rubber Printing
Outfits’ that could add the ‘dates, places where exFig.
1. A
Hennegan stock
poster as
illustrated in their
1906-07 “special
catalogue”
Posters, Tickets,
Window Cards,
Etc.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 229
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 229
hibitions are to be given, prices for admission’, or any
other information that the exhibitor believed neces-
sary.12
Two years later, a more lengthy discussion of
posters appeared on a ‘Question and Answer’ page
included in a 1902 catalogue by the Kleine Optical
Company. In promoting their posters, Kleine declared
that, ‘We are firm believers in good printing
and have gone to considerable expense in devising
cuts and posters to accompany our outfits, our customers
being charged but a small part of the cost as
we throw in a large part free of charge’.13
The key
phrase in that text, however, is ‘a large part.’ Posters,
of course, did generally cost exhibitors money, rather
than being provided free by film companies.
A major question for early exhibitors was where
best to obtain posters. In the early years of the
twentieth century the creation and distribution of
moving picture posters was largely the purvue of
companies other than those who actually manufactured
films. For example, a 1904 Kleine Optical Company
catalogue says that ‘[i]t is not practical for the
dealer in moving picture machines to furnish all of the
various sizes of posters that may be required, especially
the larger sizes. It is advised that the exhibitor
deal directly with the printers who make a specialty
of show printing.’14
That advice did not keep Kleine
from selling a small number of posters itself, however.
Their own posters were available in four different
designs and in sizes of 18 x 24 and 24 x 36 inches.
For the frugal exhibitor, the Kleine images were created
to be ‘general in character so that they can be
used for practically any outfit’.15
This approach is
similar to that of the 1900 Sears, Roebuck catalogue,
and was repeated in many early offerings. In 1906,
for example, the ‘Crescent Eng-Ptg. Co’ of Evansville,
Indiana, advertised ‘Moving Picture Posters,
Artistic Designs in Colors’.16
Their purpose was apparently
to promote the screening of films, but not
any particular film.
Still, by 1903, the exhibitor had to question
whether such a generic ‘stock’ poster was the best
advertisement, or whether he/she should turn to the
emerging single-film poster.17
In May of that year a
French catalogue printed in English and distributed
in the US indicated the availability of ‘large’ posters
promoting six individual titles, including Samson and
Delilah, The Sleeping Beauty, and Ali-Baba and the
Forty Thieves.18
Similarly, in a December 1903 issue
of The New York Clipper, the Donaldson Lithograph
Company of Newport, Kentucky advertised ‘Lithos
for Motion Pictures’, announcing the availability of
lithographs promoting ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Fairyland,
and many other scenes’.19
This trend continued the following year as individual
film posters increasingly began to be offered
in various sizes. In April 1904 The AckermannQuigley
Lithograph Company of Kansas City advertised
‘moving picture paper’ in The New York Clipper
for films of the Japanese-Russian War and the St.
Louis World’s Fair. Exhibitors could purchase eightsheets,
three-sheets, one-sheets or half-sheets for
either film topic.20
An examination of the Chicago Projecting
Company’s ‘Entertainers Supplies’ catalogue of
1907 shows a continuing drive towards posters promoting
individual films or film topics. They offered 18
x 24 posters advertising their specific moving picture
and stereopticon package of ‘The Spanish American
and Filipino Wars’, which included views entitled ‘A
Trip Through Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Phillipne
Islands’.21
At the same time, they offered posters
simply advertising ‘the Motion Pictures’.22
Despite a
growing number of single-film posters, it is true that
the vast majority of moving pictures in this period did
not have pre-printed posters available. For this reason
(as well as others possibly, such as cost efficiency),
exhibitors still required posters with a more
general approach.23
Hennegan and Company
Perhaps the most notable of the early lithographic
companies printing moving picture posters – at least
in terms of the sheer number of trade ads run – was
the Hennegan Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1904
Hennegan offered 21 x 28 half-sheets that featured
generic phrases like ‘Marvelous Moving Pictures’
and ‘Don’t Fail to See the Great Moving Pictures’,
both available in quantities as low as 50, apparently
aiming for the price-conscious exhibitor.24
They also
offered three-sheets (at ‘7 Feet high by 3 1/2 Feet
wide’) and six-sheets (at ‘7 Feet high by 7 Feet wide’)
that were promoted as suitable ‘for any moving picture
show’.25
That same year, Hennegan also featured fourcolor
half-sheet posters for at least seventeen specific
films, including The Great Train Robbery, Charge
of the Rough Riders and Geisha Dancing Girls, and
promised ‘other up-to-date views, as film is issued’.26
In some cases they offered more than one poster for
a single film, apparently for those films they believed
to be among the most popular with audiences. For
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 230
230 Gary D. Rhodes
example, two of their featured titles, The Eruption of
Mount Pelee and The Passion Play, were each offered
in two different styles. A smaller number of these
titles, including The Passion Play, were also offered
as three-sheets that could be bought in quantities as
small as ten.27
Hennegan also attempted to bridge
the gap between posters for individual films and
more generalized posters with such two-sheets as
Prize Fight, which could promote ‘any’ fight film.28
Their ca. 1905 catalogue offered a larger range
of three-sheets promoting individual films, with such
titles as Tracked by Bloodhounds and The Bold Bank
Robbery. The catalogue also includes posters for
relatively generic scenes, such as Base Ball, Fire
Rescue and Fire Department that – like their earlier
Prize Fight poster – were able to be used with any
number of films addressing the subject matter. A
range of 11 x 14 ‘Window Show Cards’ pictured such
individual titles as The Bold Bank Robbery and more
general images like President Roosevelt.29
Hennegan repeatedly announced their generalized
‘Moving Picture Printing’ in advertisements in
The New York Clipper in 1905.30
The rather simple ad
appeared numerous times until in mid-1906 the company
began to promote one of their specific posters,
The Destruction of San Francisco.31
This poster was
similar to Prize Fight in that it could promote any film
about the San Francisco earthquake. But Destruction
of San Francisco was also unique in that it was the
first specific moving picture poster that Hennegan
advertised in a trade publication.
Along with their trade publication ads and
catalogs in the US, Hennegan had decided by 1907
to advertise their wares in England as well. Their
‘Moving Picture Printing’ ad appeared that year in the
British publication The Optical Magic Lantern and
Cinematograph Journal.32
Although it is not verifiable,
perhaps the advertisement abroad was an attempt
to bring new customers to a business that was by
that time failing. At any rate, the ads ended by 1908.
Indeed, by 1906–07, lists of Hennegan posters
had expanded only by a few specific film titles, such
as half-sheets for Meet Me at the Fountain, The
Counterfeiters and Highway Robbery. They still featured
a large line of generic film posters with such
phrases as ‘A Show that Pleases Both Old and
Young’ and ‘Three Hours of Fun and Frolic’.33
After
1907, however, the catalogs and ads in the Clipper
seem to stop. It is difficult to determine the fate of the
company, which quite possibly went out of business
or shifted to other pursuits.34
Moving picture posters from other
lithographic companies
The creation and distribution of posters was not
consistent in early US cinema. Advertisements and
articles in the pre-1915 trades imply that the bulk of
posters in that period were developed by a variety of
lithographic companies who were not owned by the
film manufacturers. Rather, the film manufacturers
contracted with lithographic companies who developed
and printed the posters for their films. By 1910,
ads suggest that these posters were overwhelmingly
created to promote single films, not generic film
screenings. An example of such an arrangement
would be the Goes Lithographing Company of Chicago,
which produced eight-sheet posters in 1911
for such films as Crusaders, or Jerusalem Deliv-
ered.35
Similarly, the A.B.C. Company of Cleveland,
Ohio – cited by Epes Winthrop Sargent as having
originated ‘true-to-the-film’ moving picture posters –
offered lithographs for Kalem features in 1912.36
By 1912, exhibitors could increasingly acquire
posters from lithographic companies like A.B.C. at
film exchanges in major cities where they also obtained
the moving pictures themselves.37
That same
year, MPW wrote that ‘[u]ntil the system employed by
the exchanges is altered to permit houses to know
well in advance what they are to have, the pictorial
paper cannot be used to the greatest advantage’.38
The argument here was that exhibitors did not have
enough knowledge of what posters were available
and when they could be purchased. This affected the
exhibitor’s ability to budget for them, as well as obtain
them in time to benefit from the kind of advance
publicity they could offer in the days before a screen-
ing.
As opposed to going to their local exchanges,
exhibitors could in some cases purchase posters
directly from the lithographic companies themselves,
Fig. 2.
Hennegan’s first
advertisement
promoting a
poster for an
individual film
subject,
Destruction of
San Francisco.
The Billboard (2
June 1906): 43.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 231
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 231
who advertised their offerings in trade publications.
The Exhibitor’s Advertising and Specialty Company
was one of the more prominent advertisers of posters
in the early 1910s.39
Headed by Arthur D. Jacobs and
based in New York, the company featured a large
number of specific films in some of their ads, including
titles like Shrinking Rawhide, The Diamond ‘S’
Ranch, Patchwork Quilt and and the Battle of
Pottsburg Bridge. They also featured a series of
color, 28 x 42 one-sheet poster portraits of ‘America’s
Popular Photoplayers’, with the featured stars including
John Bunny, Alice Joyce, Gene Gauntier and
Maurice Costello.40
The Photo Play Advertising and Specialty Co.
of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, offered similar star portraits
in 1912. In color and sized as one-sheets (at 28
x 42), the featured actors included Florence Turner,
G.M. ‘Broncho Billy’ Anderson, and the same players
(with different graphics) offered by Exhibitor’s Advertising.
These images were in addition to Photo Play’s
wide selection of specific moving picture posters for
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Cinderella, Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde, East Lynne and many others.41
Curiously, their listed posters also included
films like Shrinking Rawhide and The Diamond S
Ranch, titles also offered by the Exhibitor’s Advertising
and Specialty Company. As Photo Play Advertising
claimed to be a ‘licensed and independent’
company with ‘something new every week’, this duplication
begs the question of whether some film
manufacturers were allowing more than one firm to
create posters for given titles, or whether more than
one company was printing and/or selling the same
poster images.42
Regardless, in 1912 Photo Play Advertising
revealed in an industry trade journal that they had just
had a major transaction at a trade show called the
Motion PIcture Exhibitors’ League: the customer was
‘Montgomery, the live wire from Jacksonville, Flor-
ida’.43
Their triumph with Montgomery was important,
as Frank Montgomery, also known as the ‘Moving
Picture Man’, was well-known in the industry for his
advertising expertise. He was someone who, through
careful advertising, had helped transform numerous
failing moving picture theaters into successful enterprises.
Montgomery’s advertising technique generally
meant flamboyant newspaper promotions; as he
once said to MPW, ‘I use lithographs, but not many
...’.44
Convincing him to buy more posters than he
had in the past was good reason for Photo Play to
celebrate.
For exhibitors, the buying of single-film posters
from lithographic companies became a question of
which single-film posters to buy and display. The
1913 US release of Quo Vadis is an example of the
increasing variety of advertising paper that was being
created. For that one film, the Otis Lithograph Company
of Cleveland, Ohio, offered two different onesheets,
two different three-sheets, two different
six-sheets, a sixteen sheet, two different twenty-four
sheets, and a thirty-two sheet poster for the film.45
Exhibitors could choose to buy any combination of
these posters, including just one of them. More likely,
though, the variety of images and sizes suggests an
exhibitor demand for many different posters to use
at their theater and elsewhere in their town or city.
Moving picture posters from film
companies
In the years between 1910–1915, US film industry
trade publications indicate through both articles and
advertisements that several key moving picture
manufacturers had begun to offer posters directly to
exhibitors. The trend illustrates a move by some
manufacturers to assume greater control over the
marketing of their product. For example, Bison Films
announced free, four-color lithograph posters offering
either images or plot synopses in 1910. That
these were available gratis was a rarity, and a benefit
that exhibitors had seldom previously enjoyed; presumably,
though, the posters had to be returned to
Bison after use.46
That same year the Méliès Company
in the US offered one-sheet posters for weekly
releases that combined ‘picture illustrations’ and
‘reading matter’.47
Kleine, ‘in pursuance of its always progressive
and “uplift policy”’, announced an ‘experiment’ in the
first quarter of 1911 in which they opted to reproduce
a photographic image from their films on posters
rather than using illustrations.48
Though most examples
of posters appearing in trades continued to use
artwork rather than photographs, in 1912 the Great
Northern Film Company did offer (for a ‘small cost’)
16 x 20 glossy posters showing multiple photographs
to accompany their two- and three-reel films.49
That
same year, Gaumont also offered a half-sheet
‘photo-poster’ to US film exchanges for their release
Written in Blood.50
During this period the trades discussed a
number of specific posters that film manufacturers
offered. Thanhouser’s Romeo and Juliet (1911) received
special attention for being the first ‘regular
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 232
232 Gary D. Rhodes
release on a manufacturer’s regular release day’ to
be ‘honored with a three-sheet poster’, as opposed
to the more standard one-sheet.51
The following year
Thanhouser also made news by augmenting their
by-then standard posters (two different one-sheets
and a three-sheet) with much larger eight-sheet posters
for the film Jess (1912).52
Echoing Thanhouser’s
approach, the Buffalo and Pawnee Bill Film Company
offered eight-sheets for The Life of Buffalo Bill
(1912), as well as a ‘full variety’ of other poster sizes
and images in an effort to avoid the ‘shortage of
paper’ that had apparently occurred with numerous
films of the immediate past.53
The increasing involvement of film companies
with posters created for their own films might have
made it easier for an exhibitor to obtain both film and
advertising materials from the same source. The
number of film prints and relevant posters at film
exchanges grew and became better coordinated. In
1913 Motography called it a ‘sine qua non that the
middleman handling the sale of films should also
supply the poster’.54
Such coordination of efforts
continued with the industry’s movement towards the
studio system.
By 1914, for example, Universal contracted
with the Morgan Lithograph Company ‘to establish a
separate art department for our special benefit ...’.55
The much-publicized agreement involved over one
million dollars, allegedly the largest contract ‘in the
history of lithography’.56
While still relying on a lithographic
company rather than creating posters in
house, Universal possessed greater control than
ever over their poster image creation and printing.
Universal’s P.D. Cochrane – the ‘Man Behind the
Poster’ – oversaw ten Morgan artists, all ‘masters of
oil and water color’ who devoted themselves ‘exclusively
to work on the Universal posters’; the artists
were even situated in a building adjoining the studio’s
premises.57
The resulting success of Universal’s
agreement with Morgan led the way to studios
consolidating control of poster creation in the months
and years after 1914.
‘Home-made’ moving picture posters
Of course, obtaining pre-printed posters was not the
only option in this period. In May 1909 a two-part
article in MPW discussed the need for better posters
and suggested that one way to proceed was for
exhibitors to create their own. The author gave directions
on how to approach the task, including the need
to hire a professional artist locally and not to ‘haggle
over a few dollars’.58
Discussion of ‘home-made’
posters continued nearly three years later in a 1912
MPW, their status at the time judged to be ‘generally
the result of intelligent workmanship’.59
At the same time, the trade advised exhibitors
to trust only ‘competent hands’ because ‘[b]ad spelling,
bad English, and foolish sentences’ occasionally
crept into the posters.60
‘Only yesterday while walking
along Sixth Avenue we saw a tremendous banner
with this ‘strange device’: ‘Driving Home the Cows’,
‘A Great Civil War Drama’, MPW wrote.61
The two
films were separate, but in the hands of the designer,
the poster’s mention of the Civil War seemed more a
description of the cows. These problems, though,
did not detract overall from some very artistic ‘homemade’
posters that some theaters created. One ‘M.
Rosenberg’ hired artists to take the pre-printed posters
for Dante’s Inferno as a foundation and then
create new artwork for the film ‘by drawing and the
airbrush process’.62
As late as 1915, Epes Winthrop Sargent wrote
that carefully-constructed ‘home-made’ posters
could be ‘an ideal form of decoration, but few exhibitors
can afford to maintain a staff of artists.’ He
added, ‘Some [managers] feel that they cannot even
afford to employ a sign letterer occasionally, but in a
small town it is often possible to make the painter
Fig. 3. A George
Kleine trade ad
promoting the
availability of
posters and
heralds in various
sizes and
formats. (Moving
Picture World, 21
December 1912):
1158.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 233
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 233
come to the house’. Sargent even suggested giving
a local painter free rent in exchange for creating a
‘specified amount’ of poster work.63
Displaying the poster
Once an exhibitor decided to purchase, rent, or
create posters, he or she still had to determine how
to use them effectively. Questions over how many
posters to use and where to hang them were common.
In 1906, a booklet for Enterprise Instruments
and Outfits suggested that, ‘it is only necessary to
see that [our posters] are distributed and posted up
in conspicuous places, on fences, buildings, in store
windows, etc.’64
Here the advice might well have
been aimed at the travelling exhibitor whose screenings
would not have been anchored at the same
geographical location for lengthy periods of time.
As the number of moving picture theaters
grew, the issue of posters displayed on their premises
became more important. A 1912 discussion by
one exhibitor gave the following description of their
poster strategy:
When we started using the three-sheets – Martin
Chuzzlewit was the first – we had two nice
looking galvanized stands with small lights
across the top and part way down the sides
made to fit around the corner of the lobby. They
proved to be such an attraction … that we
decided to build two three- and one six-sheet
stands on the side of our building which forms
one side of an alleyway.65
The theater’s success with patrons through
use of these posters led them to obtain even more
stands to hold posters on the other side of the theater
and inside the lobby.66
In 1913 Motography warned exhibitors that
‘[c]arelessly placed posters can easily ruin the architectural
effect of the theater’.67
The placement and
number of posters to be used were key to the discussion.
One 1912 manual for theatre managers advised,
‘The lobby should not be filled with posters.
For a high class theatre only two or three are required
...’.68
Also important was the relative condition
of the posters, some of which could be badly worn
after lengthy use at more than one theater. For Motography,
this was a more important factor than the
number of posters; they suggested that ‘[y]ou can’t
use enough posters in front of your house if you are
using fresh, clean, new ones’.69
To keep posters fresh and clean, the trade
publications offered numerous suggestions. ‘Do You
Mount Your Posters?’ a brief article in a 1912 MPW
asked readers. It suggested that the answer to this
question of backing posters on some supporting
surface should be a resounding yes. They promoted
the Poster Mounting Company of New York, who had
‘been in the business for some time’ and helped
‘picture men’ prolong ‘the life of their posters’.70
An article by Joe Brandt in a 1914 Motography
also commented on poster mounting, suggesting
that it was a method of keeping posters in good
shape when they were displayed by one theater,
returned to an exchange, and then used by yet another
theater. Nevertheless, Brandt described a conversation
with a film exchange worker in which he
learned that:
[N]o matter how careful [the exchange] shipping
department was when the paper went out,
when it came back nine cases out of ten it had
been so badly handled and so badly creased
that when unfolded it looked like a checkerboard.
It doesn’t take long to put a piece of
mounted paper in an awful state. Sometimes
even a ten-day runner customer will get a piece
of paper that will be so badly bunged up that
it is a disgrace to have it hanging in his lobby.71
Brandt added his belief that ‘mussed up posters’
were a certain way to achieve a ‘black eye from
the public before it has even entered your theater’.72
Strangely, no mention is made by Brandt about any
‘black eye’ given by the exchange to exhibitors who
returned posters in noticeably worse condition.
With poster mounting alone not sufficient to the
task of keeping posters in good shape, poster
frames grew in popularity. The Exhibitors’ Advertising
Fig. 4. An
exhibitor’s
hand-made
advertising art
supplements
IMP’s own
posters for From
the Bottom of the
Sea (1911).
From Picture
Theatre Facts
(1912).
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 234
234 Gary D. Rhodes
Company, who also manufactured posters, offered
a frame on an easel stand for ten dollars that included
an opening within the frame for the theater’s name
on a printed card, as well as six other narrow placards
to offer greetings to the potential ticket buyer (‘Welcome’),
or announce ticket prices (‘Admission 5
Cents’). Remaining spaces could announce up to
three moving picture titles with both a plot synopsis
and photograph from each, and an announcement
of other programmed events (e.g. ‘Illustrated
Songs’).73
Another company marketing theater frames
was the Chicago Metal Covering Company, which
offered large one-sheet frames with removal backs
that, if desired, featured a locking mechanism. The
company also promoted the soldered joints of the
frame as a key selling feature. The frames were also
available without an easel, so they could be displayed
on the theater’s walls. As with the Exhibitor’s
Advertising frames, those made by Chicago Metal
were seemingly intended for both interior and exterior
use.74
Film companies themselves also saw an opportunity
in marketing poster frames, seeing a link
between frames and their own marketing strategies.
Imp sold an oak one for five dollars in 1911 without
an easel; it could be used with an easel the theater
already owned or hung on the theater ‘front.’ The Imp
frame offered ten openings for photos/posters, and
it was shipped with ten ‘fine photos’ of Imp stars.75
In 1912 an ad in The Kinetogram offered ‘The New
Edison Lobby Display Frame’ that also came with ten
photos, each in this case being of the ‘Popular
Edison Players’.76
That same year the Great Northern
Special Feature Film Company also offered its own
frame, which MPW described as ‘an improvement on
anything ever put forth in the way of Lobby Dis-
plays’.77
The frame needed no easel on which to
stand or nail on which to hang. It was a tall, tri-fold
frame that stood on its own and featured fifteen
openings for 11 x 14 poster ‘photogelatins’ of the
type later called lobby cards.78
Though frames attempted to protect the
poster and enhance its display, they too could act as
a perceived eyesore. Epes Winthrop Sargent wrote
in a 1912 issue of MPW about screening ‘The Special
Release’. In it, he reminded exhibitors to:
[r]emove damaged pictures from frames and
see that all glasses are whole. If you have many
frames remove some [so] that there may be
plenty of space for those who wait to gain
admission. Only those frames that hang on the
walls should be retained for photographic display.
Take the easel frames inside and hang
them up, storing the easels somewhere where
they will not be in the way.79
By 1915 Sargent’s advice grew more grandiose,
suggesting that moving picture posters should
be surrounded with attractive props appropriate to
the film subject. For example, for the film Mother’s
Roses (1915), he advised ‘natural flowers and ferns’,
with the entire display covered with a ‘glass front’ to
keep out dust and ‘meddling fingers’.80
Key figures in early poster sales
Rarely were posters offered to exhibitors free of
charge; the aforementioned free 1910 Bison posters
were somewhat of an anomaly. To the extent that this
did happen, MPW wrote in 1911 that the free use of
posters was an ‘abused’ system, as theaters were
not generally returning them. As a result, no posters
were available to other theaters that screened the
same motion picture during the weeks after its initial
Fig. 5. Poster
frame advertised
by the Chicago
Metal Covering
Company.
(Moving Picture
World, 5 July
1913): 72.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 235
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 235
release.81
The trade concluded that it was better to
‘charge every exhibitor ten cents per poster and allow
a rebate of five cents for every one returned’ in
reuseable condition to the area film exchange where
most exhibitors obtained their rented films.82
Given the cost of posters and debates over
their merits, sales persons were sometimes necessary
to persuade exhibitors to purchase or rent posters.
Other sales persons were hired by lithographic
companies to persuade film companies to hire their
firm for poster creation. Little is known about the
people who pioneered poster sales in those two
areas, but they provided a crucial role in gaining
posters increased acceptance. It was due in part to
their diligence and success that displaying posters
moved from an option to a necessity.
In 1912, for example, MPW wrote about Arthur
Brady, ‘The Poster Man’, who had made his start with
poster publicity during the ‘infancy’ of film exhibition.
At that time, under his (rather formal) nickname ‘The
Aesthetic Sign Painter’, Brady devoted his attention
to designing cards and banners promoting films.83
He soon shifted from this work to selling movie posters,
which over time became the biggest part of his
business. MPW called his poster company ‘one of
the largest in this country by the simple process of
evolution’.84
Another notable figure in poster sales was
Jeannette A. Cohen, whom MPW declared in late
1913 to be the only woman involved in that part of the
film industry.85
In the spring of that year Cohen had
decided to pursue the poster business by teaming
with the H.C. Miner Litho Company of New York to
sell posters to moving picture manufacturers for their
films. She created a poster department at Miner, but
rapidly moved on to the Metro Litho Company where
she developed moving picture posters for sale to
exhibitors. The trade attributed Cohen’s rapid rise to
fame in the poster world to her ‘straightforward business
way’.86
The industry also lauded the efforts of Joseph
S. Edelman, president of the Sterling Advertising
Service and, beginning in 1914, the director of advertising
for the World Film Corporation. Prior to that
time, he was known for various successful advertising
campaigns associated with Ingersoll watches
and with real estate man Joseph P. Day. Edelman’s
entry into the film world resulted from his theory that
posters were the key way to promote feature films. In
1914, The Atlanta Constitution carried his statement
that:
I hope to do for the World Film corporation [sic]
what the moving pictures did for the films by
their ‘close-up’ method. I intend to concentrate
results on the posters, by using the most artistic
means possible. There has been no parallel
development in the advertising of films that has
kept step with the wonderful development of
film production. The result has been that the
best work is secured and by getting close to
the film itself, one can see that printed matter
is a matter of prime importance. There is a
crying need for posters that have the imprint of
thought and ability … In the material gotten out
at present, there is little that can be recommended,
yet what is more important than advertising
matter to draw out an audience?87
Like Brady and Cohen, Edelman clearly believed
in the value of the poster. Their efforts – along
with the work of the many salespersons whose stories
were not chronicled by the press – proved critical
in achieving a growing acceptance and proliferation
of moving picture posters.
Fig. 6.
Three-sheet
posters plastered
on the wall of the
Liberty Theatre in
Salt Lake City.
(Moving Picture
World, 24 August
1912): 762.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 236
236 Gary D. Rhodes
Industry discussion of posters
Discussion of the early film industry is hampered by
the fact that US trade publications devoted to moving
pictures do not emerge until 1906 with Views and Film
Index and 1907 with The Moving Picture World. And
the arrival of the trades did not immediately herald
printed discussion of certain topics: discussion of the
moving picture poster did not occur in them to any
real degree for two to three years after they began
publication.
The earliest film industry article on poster usage
seems to be one that appeared in The Optical
Lantern and Cinematograph Journal in 1905; though
published in England, the trade was distributed in the
US. The advice given in ‘A Lesson in Advertising’ may
not have penetrated everyday US exhibition practice,
but it does offer some early advice:
It should be remembered that it is cheaper to
have 500 posters of one kind than 100 each of
five different wordings. The continual appearance
of the same poster makes a lasting impression,
and consequently the reader begins
to have its striking lines fixed on his mind. Most
likely, after casually seeing the poster once or
twice, he will ultimately stop and carefully read
through, and if the matter is attractively put will
want to know more and finally visit the show.88
The need for strong poster presentation is also
discussed in the article, with the unnamed author
admonishing exhibitors to use ‘neatly dressed’ men
in sandwich boards for roving displays of film post-
ers.89
One of the earliest poster discussions of any
length by a US trade came in the February 1909 issue
of The Nickelodeon, which believed, even at that late
date, that a need existed to describe the use of the
poster to readers:
The poster is nothing more than a large, detached
display advertisement. As a matter of
fact, the same layout that was used in the
newspaper display might serve very well as a
poster, everything being proportionally larger.
Posters may be any size from 12 by 18 inches
to the big ‘three-sheet’ billboard poster. However,
24 x 36 inches is about as large as the
picture theater manager will ever care to use.90
The article went on to suggest the need for
lithographs to include an illustration, rather than text
alone, but noted that the illlustration might well be a
‘picture of the theater building’ rather than any other
kind of image.91
Only one week later MPW offered an editorial
entitled ‘The Poster End’ that proclaimed:
The poster is or has been the Ishmael of the
moving picture business. Until recently nobody
seemed to care for him. Any old thing in
the way of a crude design and crude printing
suited your indifferent moving picture theater
exhibitor – any old thing with some idea of the
dramatic situation and plenty of crude color
was considered good enough to put outside
the moving picture theater ... Shall we see fine
specimens of color printing, good designs and
all the rest of it, advertising the films all over the
country? Are we, in short, to witness the theatricalization
of the moving picture at the poster
end of matters? ... If we are on the eve of a
reform in the poster end of matters, and if we
should get an artistic and commecial development
of the moving picture poster, the mind is
staggered by the possible extent of the business,
which is bound, in the nature of things,
to multiply so enormously that the existing
manufacturers will hardly be able to cope with
the demand likely to be thus created.92
The editorial ended with an admission that the
author was aware of the increasing attempts made
in the direction of a higher class of poster. Such
language as ‘theatricalization’ suggests a hope that
the moving picture poster would move from its circus
poster origins to the perceived higher class of the
legitimate stage/theater poster.
Later in 1909 an article in MPW expressed
disappointment with the current poster situation.
Writer Hans Leigh had received ‘a consignment of
about twenty posters to illustrate the most recent
films on the market’ and found that ‘[i]n nearly every
case a man and a girl were looking at each other, but
neither was doing anything in particular ... Now,
wouldn’t it be just as easy, and just as cheap, to make
these people doing something [sic] that would make
a passerby want to pay a nickel to see?’93
Leigh
explained to lithographic companies that the public
wanted to see action over subtle suggestion.
By the following year, though, it seemed the
sheer number of posters for individual film titles was
increasing. In June of 1910, F.H. Richardson wrote
in MPW of a ‘poster bug’ that seemed to him extensive
enough to term it ‘posteritis’.94
He had witnessed
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 237
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 237
a major shift in 1910 from limited poster usage at
theaters in New York City to their possible overuse.
Though Richardson did not dismiss the possibility
that ‘one or two neatly printed, framed posters [can
add] to the attractiveness of the average theater
front’, he decried the ‘garish, poster-plastered,
cheap-looking, tawdry get-up’ he saw at many thea-
ters.95
His best advice was to decorate theaters in a
‘quiet’ way, rather than plastering them ‘with cheap
looking posters in all the colors of the rainbow’.96
Richardson was not alone, as another 1910
article in MPW quoted an unnamed, ‘eminent critic’
saying that ‘if the [photo]plays in the theater are
anything like the posters on the walls, I never want to
visit and see them’. The article continued to suggest
that only ‘cheaper and poorer’ theaters used the
available ‘crude and inartistic’ posters with their
‘flaming, glaring colors’; moving picture posters were
‘very seldom seen in front of the best houses’.97
Bearing in mind their circus origins, the critic here
drew a link between poster usage and lesser-quality
moving picture theaters.
Similarly, in November 1911, Motography addressed
the question of the poster’s merits:
The poster proposition is a severe tax on the
motion picture industry. Does it fill a real need
or is it only an imaginary necessity? ... There is
no profit in posters, except it be to the poster
manufacturer. The film makers consider them
a nuisance, the film exchanges a bother, and
the exhibitor an extra tax on his pocket-book;
and what actual benefit are they? Of the patrons
of a moving picture theater, ninety percent
never read the posters in front.98
The belief that ‘ninety percent’ of the patrons
did not read the posters seems here to be little more
than speculation, as no kind of survey or study is
cited.
At any rate, complaints from such critics hardly
quelled the growth in the number of posters and
poster types. According to The Nickelodeon in 1910,
‘Nearly every film manufacturer now gets out a different
poster for every release’, even though ‘gets out’
still meant collaboration of some kind with lithographic
companies.99
Indicative of this increasing
usage, the De Witt C. Wheeler Company and the
Jerome H. Remick Company worked together in
1910 to create one-sheets for individual song slides
of tunes played in moving theaters for use in their
displays. The Film Index reported that ‘... Mr. Wheeler
has been overflowed with requests for these post-
ers’.100
The rise of posters like these, as well as the
proliferation of single-film posters, suggest that the
days of the more generic images were largely over
by 1910.
To the degree that exhibitors themselves complained
about posters, it was primarily on the question
of poster cost and availability, as The
Nickelodeon reported in 1910.101
The following year
new complaints arose as to whether the rising
number of single-film posters was actually creating
less distinction among poster images rather than
more. In 1911, for example, MPW conveyed complaints
from exhibitors in New York City and Cincinnati
that involved the ‘sameness in appearance of
one company’s posters and others in which the title
of the film is made the least prominent [feature]’.102
It added the belief of some exhibitors that a simple
display of a good film title might well draw more
audience members that garish colors.103
Controversies over poster images
The relatively limited number of surviving pre-1915
moving picture posters makes a modern study of
their images a necessarily incomplete task.104
However,
printed editorials and articles in both industry
trades and newspapers suggest a robust and at
times extremely heated debate about early poster
imagery. Part of the controversy erupted from the
belief that all too often a poster’s artwork did not
accurately reflect the content of the film it promoted.
The Nickelodeon complained in 1910 that:
Fig. 7. Patrons
repulsed by
“crude and
inartistic” film
posters.
(Motography, 4
January 1913): 7.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 238
238 Gary D. Rhodes
Either to reduce the expense of posters, or to
fill a vacancy, many exhibitors use posters that
are not at all in keeping with the subject of the
film. This practice, in many instances, has the
effect of deceiving the public, and if allowed to
run is bound to work a detriment to the busi-
ness.105
The writer added that ‘... if each exhibitor would
use a new, fresh poster of the kind prepared by the
manufacturers, there would be an end to the question
...’.106
The implication of that remark suggests
that some exhibitors did not always bother keeping
up to date with their displayed posters, which may
have meant the theater exterior promoted a different
film than was projected in the theater interior. Another
trade mention of this problem suggested that sometimes
exchanges – against the wishes of the manufacturer
of the film – knowingly supplied incorrect
posters.107
The MPW of 1911 went even further, decrying
the ‘lying showman’ who was a ‘discredit to the
business as a whole. He is fooling himself and not
the public.’ The lie was, of course, the display of
posters for films that weren’t being screened. Even
P.T. Barnum gave the public more reality than this
breed of exhibitor, it was claimed. ‘There are no
intricacies to the ethics of the poster. They can be
summed up in one word: “Truth”’.108
In some cases, however, exhibitors had problems
because they did use the correct poster, but the
poster’s art misrepresented what the film was about.
In 1913 an editorial in The Chicago Daily Tribune
claimed, ‘[i]t is said that many times the dramas
shown on the screen ‘inside’ are not remotely like the
posters ‘outside.’ Whether this may be construed to
mean relief or disapointment for the public is food for
conjecture’.109
Along with joking about the accuracy
of poster imagery, the author recounted one situation
in which an exhibitor took the poster-film disconnection
very seriously, writing that ‘[i]n desperation the
manager hung the following placard in a conspicuous
place: “We show pictures on the inside not
shown on the outside”’.110
That the exhibitor still
displayed the posters, however, is a sign of their
perceived necessity by 1913.
It does seem that at least one film company
understood the complaints and attempted to address
them in their own posters. In 1910 MPW congratulated
Vitagraph for accurately representing
images from their films, rather than opting for the ‘...
usual flashy thing, which generally gives a wrong
impression of the character of the subject’.111
The
same issue chided companies releasing posters that
‘exaggerated’ what scenes were in the actual moving
picture. In particular, MPW decried posters for the
film Richelieu, which featured artwork of men
dressed in 1910 fashions rather than the more historically-correct
costumes seen in the film.112
On some occasions, poster artwork depicting
images not seen in the films were not mistakes or
intentional deception, but instead a kind of artistic
license. For example, in 1912 MPW reported the
Solax Company’s plan: ‘[i]nstead of a scene from the
picture this enterprising concern has incorporated in
its posters a combination of artistic effects which
bring out the central theme of the picture’.113
Still,
some exhibitors and filmgoers viewed such thematic
artwork as fraudulent. The same MPW article announced
that, ‘[o]ne exhibitor has taken the stand
that he and his patrons are mislead [sic] by showing
a scene or an object that is not seen in the picture.
The exhibitor maintained that such practices hurt the
industry and had a tendency to arouse distrust’.114
Discussion on this topic decreased in the trades after
1912, but that may be less due to its disappearance
as a problem than press coverage of a different
poster debate.
Both industry trades and city newspapers began
to address the belief that too many moving
picture posters drew only on the violent aspects of
the films they advertised. In 1912 MPW wrote that
‘[t]oo often the most sensational or shocking scene
is taken for the subject of the lithograph. Such a
poster gives no true idea of the reel, which it is
supposed to advertise. The poster is worthless, unless
it accomplishes that much’.115
Some exhibitors
may have believed that view, but clearly many others
who displayed these ‘shocking’ posters did not;
more likely, they saw the sensationalism as a method
of gaining audience members.
More problematic than concerns over the advertising
ability of a ‘shocking’ poster were negative
responses from moral groups and local authorities.
For example, in a 1909 article in The Boston Globe
entitled ‘High Public Morals’, the Archdiocesan Federation
of Catholic Societies held a meeting at which
they decided ‘to undertake a crusade for a higher
public moral standing’ against not only moving picture
shows but also moving picture posters.116
This
crusade included recommendations for ‘more stringent
legislation’, as well as commendations for poliFILM
HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 239
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 239
ticians of any party that showed ‘a disposition’ towards
curbing such ‘offensive’ problems.117
In some cities, these concerns were raised
specifically on behalf of area children. The Washington
Post in 1911 spoke about a law against the
exhibition of posters ‘presenting to the youth of the
District pictorial representations of the commission
of or attempts to commit crime’.118
The law prohibited
such scenes in moving picture posters as well as in
circus publicity. To show a willingness to enforce this
law, the police ‘inaugurated a crusade’ against exhibitors
in violation.119
They soon found a violator in
Joseph D. Coblentz, proprietor of a moving picture
theater that displayed a poster ‘depicting the James
boys holding up a train and firing a volley in the air
with their pistols to intimidate the passengers’.120
Coblentz was brought before a judge on 30 March
1911 and pled ignorance of the law. The judge took
the exhibitor’s bond and released him, the ‘test case’
serving apparently to act as a serious warning to
theater owners against ‘any further exhibits of lurid
lithographs on the street’.121
Debates over ‘lurid lithographs’ grew after the
Washington DC incident. MPW suggested in April
1912 that ‘[m]any exhibitors have complained to us
that there is too much display of guns and masks and
weapons of all kinds on the posters. This, unfortunately,
is but too true.’122
In a separate editorial that
year, the World also complained that:
[i]t sickens us every time to look at the huge
banners displayed on the streets of New York,
wherever traffic is the heaviest, announcing
motion pictures of ‘famous bandits’ and ‘terrible
crimes.’ Millions of people pass these
places, see these awful banners (and posters),
and not unreasonably conclude that the motion
picture is little better than a pictorial Police
Gazette in motion. Thus for the sake of a few
wretched nickels, incalculable harm is done to
this great industry.123
The moral question over the posters was then
linked to the long-term economic well-being of the
industry. Discussion of posters and economics extended
to examining the question of why moving
pictures did not draw the upper classes in large
numbers. In 1913 Motography had ‘... no difficulty in
finding an adequate reply to this obvious question.’
Their answer was the ‘common, vulgar, garish posters’
that needed to be ‘abolished’ in order to attract
wealthy patrons.124
The publication proceeded to
speculate that any live theater event ‘would be ruined’
by the exhibition of such images, which were,
‘50 per cent worse than the most atrocious poster
advertising the most plebian play in the evilest and
most poverty stricken purlieus [sic] frequented by the
veriest riff-raff of the amusement going public’.125
The
industry’s concerns about poster problems of this
type seemed to reach their peak in 1913, as did the
outrage over posters in city newspapers.
For example, the Chicago Daily Tribune noted
in May 1913 the sheer amount of questionable poster
images and their ‘lurid lettering’, mentioning that ‘[i]t
is strange that somebody has not suggested the
more offensive poster is a proper field for censor-
ship’.126
What the journalist did not seemingly realize
was that other cities had already begun censoring
posters. Exhibitors in Cleveland in January 1913 announced
their plan to end their use of poster displays,
a plan that was ‘thrust upon them under
penalty for violation by Mayor Baker and Chief of
Police Kohler’.127
In other words, the exhibitors faced
arrest if they had not collectively decided to discontinue
using posters. This in the city that was home to
the A.B.C. Company which had helped trailblaze the
single-film poster.
By March 1913, Mayor John F. Fitzgerald of
Boston sent a letter to the managers of local movie
theaters in which he decried the awful state of posters
depicting scenes of ‘robbery, safe-breaking,
stage robberies, murder, suicide, and other crimes’
to vulnerable passersby like children.128
Mayor
Fitzgerald felt the ‘morals of the community’ demanded
his insistence that absolutely no posters of
any kind could be displayed outside the moving
picture theaters without having been approved by the
mayor’s office. The penalty was not arrest, but perhaps
something even worse: ‘the suspension or
revocation’ of the theater’s license to operate.129
The intensity of anti-poster sentiment was
strong enough for MPW to note that the police in one
unnamed city improperly arrested an exhibitor for
displaying an offensive poster image. The moving
picture the poster advertised had passed an area
board of censors, which automatically meant the
poster promoting it was lawful to display. The exhibitor
was quickly released, with the board of censors
apparently not considering how much poster images
could vary from the content of the films they promoted.
Regardless, the exhibitor’s release very
much pleased MPW, a trade that was opposed to
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 240
240 Gary D. Rhodes
and very worried about potentially offensive post-
ers.130
Likely as a result of the industry and public
outcry, some poster designers and theater exhibitors
moved in the direction of creating and displaying less
offensive imagery. In a July 1913 issue of MPW,
author W. Stephen Bush wrote that:
There is a wholesome and commendable tendency
just now to keep away from flamboyant
lithos and to make the lobby display attractive
to others than dime-novel readers. This is particularly
noticeable in the cheaper sections of
the city. Prominent thoroughfares that were but
a year ago plastered over with hideous
blotches, giving a leprous aspect to a whole
block, are now comparatively clean.131
Bush claimed the clientele stopping to look at
these more appropriate posters was of a higher
‘quality’, presumably meaning the kind of upperclass
demographic Motography had suggested were
offended by lurid poster images.132
A December 1913 Motography editorial on
‘The Poster Censorship Question’ included opinions
by J.V. Ritchey, a one-time exhibitor who had ‘become
active in the poster end of the motion picture
art’.133
He believed that ‘almost every’ poster was
designed with the help of an actual still photograph
from the moving picture and chosen with the ‘thought
of the National Board of Censorship requirements
continually acting as a standard.’ He also believed
that the ‘amount of objectionable posters’ was quite
small.134
Motography agreed that, if the situation was
as Mr. Ritchey described, there would be no cause
for concern or censorship. But they seemed uncertain
that the reality comported with Ritchey’s description
that most posters were not offensive. Instead,
they hoped for a ‘natural improvement’ based upon
the ‘frame of mind’ that Ritchey and hopefully other
lithographers held.135
A ‘natural improvement’ of the type Motography
hoped for showed some signs of occurring.
Bush’s beliefs were echoed in 1914 at a New York
City convention, where a ‘practical and experienced
man’ gave a poster talk about the trend towards ‘the
rational and the sensible’ in posters.136
At the same
time, it does seem certain that this trend had not
completely overtaken the more sensational and offensive
imagery of prior years. In January 1914, for
example, MPW editorialized about the ongoing use
of violence in posters and suggested that they would
soon be reading poster critiques like:
‘[t]he drops of blood on the six sheets were
most realistic. It is suggested that the bottom
of the mounted six sheet be saturated with red
ink and that the crimson fluid be permitted to
flow dropwise into a bucket under the ban-
ner’.137
Although MPW was joking about the amount of
blood on posters, in Chicago the poster situation was
so heated during 1913 as to cause action at the
beginning of the following year. Censorship was in
place by February 1914, as Chicago’s Chief of Police
instructed police officers to remove ‘all large signs,
posters, and other obstructions [presumably easels]
in front of moving picture theaters.’ Owners would
first have to apply for permits from his office to display
posters.138
In May 1914 the mayor of Springfield, Missouri
banned all moving picture posters, then quickly told
exhibitors that he was conditionally rescinding the
ban. The reason for his change of heart is unknown,
but once again theaters could display posters. New
rules, however, meant that they were limited to displaying
two one-sheets and two three-sheets, all of
which had to be placed in frames.139
The ill-feeling
towards posters in Springfield was based less on
Fig. 8.
Cleveland
exhibitors under
threat of police
poster
censorship. From
the Cleveland
Leader (1913) as
reproduced in
Stephen
Bottomore, I
Want to See This
Annie Mattygraph
(Pordenone:
Giornate del
Cinema Muto,
1995): 157.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 241
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 241
lurid images than on their large size and ragged
quality. These rules would have displeased exhibitors
who had come to rely on the size of three- and
six-sheet posters.140
A year later, in July 1915, MPW ran a story
about the censor board in Portland, Oregon, who
decried the posters at local moving picture thea-
ters.141
Along with claims that their images were
misleading in terms of the actual moving pictures
screened and that they presented violent scenes, the
board was particularly worried about children who
saw them. Mrs. E.B. Colwell, secretary of the censorship
board, claimed that ‘...one often sees groups of
youngsters standing in theater lobbies examining
posters in minute detail.’ The censor board’s report
suggested that ‘film “paper” as well as the film itself
should be subjected to official scrutiny before being
presented to the public gaze’.142
It does not seem as if the Portland censor
board got its wish, but their beliefs were certainly
shared by many persons inside and outside the film
industry. The controversies over image relevance
and (im)morality seem to have reached a peak between
1910–1915. Of this era in poster history, a 1914
issue of Motography concluded that ‘[a] collection of
such crude, inartistic posters would make a very fine
pictorial chamber of horrors’.143
End of the poster evil
By the year 1915 posters were firmly in place as a key
part of marketing moving pictures. That does not
mean that questions about them had disappeared,
however. An article in the 7 November 1915 issue of
The Washington Post featured the thoughts of the
Reverend E.A. Sexsmith, who believed that films
were ‘one of the most potent opponents of the church
that exist’, and proclaimed that moving picture posters
were ‘poisoning the minds of the public’.144
Some of these continuing complaints still drew
on the circus origins of the poster. The Exhibitors Film
Exchange of 30 October 1915:
It is difficult to conceive of a more unsuitable
manner of advertising many excellent productions
of the day than by the gaudy, bizarre
circus banners and paper which many exhibitors
hang out in front of their theatres. Exhibitors
are far from an intelligent understanding
of the patrons of the better-class theaters
when they are under the impression that stuff
of this sort can possibly attract the intelligent
patron into the playhouses.145
The article continued to admonish theaters
against calling up ‘the idea of a circus sideshow
rather than a modern photoplay’.146
Though arguments of image morality and aesthetics
continued, it does seem that they had lessened.
In September 1914, for example, Motography
wrote that ‘[t]he poster question is receiving more
and more attention from film manufacturers, and the
standards today are considerably higher than they
were even twelve months ago’.147
In May 1915 MPW
discussed the same issue, stating:
No doubt there has been an improvement in
this respect. Time was when many exhibitors
merely demanded to see ‘the flash’ and cared
next to nothing about the picture. We have
evolved from this stage which, nobody objecting,
we will call the cave period of filmdom.148
By the end of the year MPW announced: ‘There
is talk of standardizing the posters. Many things in
the industry need standardization more or less urgently,
but posters are entitled to first place of the
calendar’.149
The trade admitted that there were
‘signs that the poster evil has abated somewhat.
Indeed, if there had not been some change for the
better the harm done by the lurid poster might have
wrought incalculable injury to the whole industry’, but
Fig. 9. Large
6-sheet posters,
“thrilling in
intensity,”
promoted by
Gaumont in
Moving Picture
World (17
January 1914):
325.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 242
242 Gary D. Rhodes
at the same time they believed that there were ‘still
booking agents and exhibitors who say they care
more for ‘the paper’ than for the pictures ... Such a
sentiment is born in ignorance and is a menace to
the industry’.150
In their view, even at the end of 1915,
not every exhibitor had quite come out of that ‘cave’.
By 1915, however, the poster was moving towards
standardization. Emerging studios worked
closely with lithographic companies and later developed
their own departments for those purposes.
Exhibitors believed in the advertising value of posters
and certainly displayed them with growing skill at
their theaters. They could obtain individual film posters
for essentially every release at their local exchanges.
Despite the variety of troubles the moving
picture poster faced, it became a permanent and
integral part of the film industry. Motion Picture News
in 1919 wrote that, ‘… in their day and time, [posters]
served their purpose – certainly they got results, for
the motion picture had an immediate audience. For
that, the poster was largely responsible, as it was the
direct link between the exhibitor and the public’.151
1. Stephen W. Bush, ‘A New Wrinkle in Posters’, Moving
Picture World [MPW] (26 September 1914): 1766.
2. Advertisements for these companies appear repeatedly
throughout 1901–1902 in The New York Clipper.
3. Advertisement for the Hitchcock Publishing Company,
The New York Clipper (3 May 1902): 236.
4. Ibid.
5. It is true that some of the largest US circuses at times
utilizedvery elegantposter imagesprintedinEurope.
For example, see Jack Rennart, 100 Posters of Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West (New York: Darien House, 1976).
However, trade publications like those cited here are
quite definitive and repetitive in their use of the term
‘circus’ as a derogatory reference to the origin of the
moving picture poster. The allusion was likely to
lesser-quality posters printed in the US and used by
the vast array of small and mid-sized circuses in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Perhaps
this perceived distinction between European and US
designs and printing even explains an advertisement
for Pathé Films [The New York Clipper (21 January
1905): 1141] in which they declared as an apparent
advantage that their moving picture posters were
‘imported’.
6. ‘The Ethics of the Poster’, MPW (13 May 1911):
1054–1055.
7. Daniel Petigor, ‘The Development of the Poster’,
Motion Picture News [MPN] (4 October 1919): 2858.
8. ‘Passing of Circus Display’, Exhibitors Film Exchange
(30 October 1915): 10.
9. ‘The Poster Proposition’, Motography (November
1911): 206.
10. ‘Gaudy Posters Lure to “Movies”’, Chicago Daily
Tribune (4 May 1913): B4.
11. Public Exhibition Outlets – Moving Picture Machines,
Talking Machines (Chicago, Illinois: Sears, Roebuck,
andCo.,Inc.,1900):85.AvailableinAGuidetoMotion
Picture Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors,
1894–1908:AMicrofilm Edition(NewBrunswick,
NJ: Rutgers, 1985), Reel 5.
12. Ibid.
13. Complete Illustrated Catalog of Moving Picture Machines,
Stereopticons, Magic Lanterns, Accessories,
and Stereopticon Views (Chicago: Kleine Optical
Company, June 1902): 160. Available in A Guide to
Motion Picture Catalogs by American Producers and
Distributors, 1894–1908: A Microfilm Edition, Reel 5.
14. Complete Illustrated Catalog of Moving Picture Machines,
Stereopticons,Slides, Films (Chicago: Kleine
Optical Company, October 1904): 119. Available in
A Guide to Motion Picture Catalogs by American
Producers and Distributors, 1894–1908: A Microfilm
Edition, Reel 5.
Fig. 10. Morgan
Lithograph
Company
promoting
posters designed
to ‘make people
think about you!’
(Motion Picture
News, 3 April
1915, inside
back cover.)
Notes
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 243
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 243
15. Ibid.
16. Advertisement for the Crescent Eng-Ptg. Co, The
Billboard (12 May 1906): 3.
17. Epes Withrop Sargent, Picture Theatre Advertising
(New York: MPW, 1915): 59, discusses these two
kinds of posters with the terms ‘stock paper’ and
‘true-to-the-film paper’.
18. Compagnie Générale de Phonographes Cinematographes
et Appareils de Précision (Paris: Pathé
Fréres, May 1903): 8. Available in A Guide to Motion
Picture Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors,
1894–1908: A Microfilm Edition, Reel 4.
19. Advertisement for the Donaldson Lithograph Company.
New York Clipper (5 December 1903): 987.
20. Advertisement for the Ackermann-Quigley Lithograph
Company. New York Clipper (30 April 1904):
231.
21. Catalogue of Stereopticons, Motion Picture Machines,
Lantern Slides, Film Accessories and Supplies
for the Optical Projection Trade, Catalogue No.
120 (Chicago: Chicago Projecting Company, 1907):
418. Available in A Guide to Motion Picture Catalogs
by American Producers and Distributors, 1894–1908:
A Microfilm Edition, Reel 6.
22. Ibid.
23. Sargent, Picture Theatre Advertising: 59, claims that
in the early days of moving picture posters ‘[True-tothe-film/single-film]
paper cost more than double
what stock [generic] paper did’.
24. Complete Illustrated Catalog of Moving Picture Machines,Stereopticons,Slides,Films
(Chicago: Kleine
Optical Company, October 1904): 119–120. Available
in A Guide to Motion Picture Catalogs by American
Producers and Distributors, 1894–1908: A
Microfilm Edition, Reel 5.
25. Ibid., 120.
26. Ibid., 119.
27. Ibid., 120.
28. Ibid, 120.
29. Catalogue of Stands, Streamers, Posters, Window
Shop Cards, Heralds, Tickets, Novelty Folders (Cincinnati,
Ohio: Hennegan and Co., 1904). Available
in A Guide to Motion Picture Catalogs by American
Producers and Distributors, 1894–1908: A Microfilm
Edition, Reel 6.
30. Examples of their ads can be found in The New York
Clipper (25 February 1905): 28; (15 April 1905): 211;
and (21 October 1905): 904.
31. Advertisement for Hennegan and Company, The
Billboard (2 June 1906): 43.
32. Advertisement for Hennegan and Company, Optical
Magic Lantern andCinematographJournal(February
1907): 101.
33. Posters, Tickets, Window Cards, Etc.: Special Catalogue
(Cincinnati, Ohio: Hennegan and Co., ca.
1906–1907). Available in A Guide to Motion Picture
Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors,
1894–1908: A Microfilm Edition, Reel 6.
34. Stephen Rebello and Richard Allen, Reel Art: Great
Posters from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen
(New York: Abbeville, 1988): 19, claim that ‘Hennegan
Show Print thrived into the teens with work for
many film companies, some released by Triangle’.
35. ‘Unique Posters’, MPN (26 August 1911): 6.
36. An advertisement in MPW (10 August 1912): 392,
confirms this point. See also Sargent, Picture Theatre
Advertising: 59.
37. For example, an advertisement for a series of four
Pathé color posters of film stars [New York Dramatic
Mirror (29 November 1914): 29] lists 22 different film
exchanges nationally where posters could be ob-
tained.
38. ‘Billboards’, MPW (24 August 1912): 763.
39. Advertisement for the Exhibitor’s Advertising and
Specialty Company, MPW (9 March 1912): 880.
40. Ibid.
41. Advertisement for the Photo Play Advertising and
Specialty Co., MPW (13 April 1912): 175.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. ‘Secrets of Success’, MPW (7 September 1912): 982.
45. ‘MostMagnificent Line ofPictorialPrinting EverMade
for a Film’ [Advertisement], MPW (12 July 1913): 269.
46. Advertisement for Bison Films, MPW (22 January
1910): 106.
47. ‘Melies Has New Poster’, The Film Index (17 December
1910): 6.
48. ‘A Scenic Poster’, The Nickelodeon (4 March 1911):
254.
49. ‘Attractive Lobby Display’, MPW (27 July 1912): 357.
50. ‘Gaumont Issues Photo-Poster’, MPW (29 June
1912): 1238.
51. ‘3-Sheets and Booklets with Romeo and Juliet’, MPN
(26 August 1911): 7.
52. ‘Eight-Sheets, Too, for Jess’, MPN (18 May 1912):
21.
53. ‘Posters for Feature Films’, MPW (24 August 1912):
779.
54. Harry Furniss, ‘The Poster – A Poser’, Motography
(4 January 1913): 7.
55. Joe Brandt, ‘A Straightforward Talk on Posters’,
Motography (11 July 1914): 41. Brandt’s article was
actually a transcript of his address at the Convention
oftheInternational MotionPictureAssociationinNew
York.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 244
244 Gary D. Rhodes
56. ‘Morgan-Universal Contract Biggest in History of
Lithography’, The Universal Weekly (14 February
1914): 4.
57. Ibid.
58. William I. Sackheim, ‘The Making of Signs and Post-
ersforMovingPictureTheaters’,MPW(22May1909):
670. Thesecond part ofSackheim’sarticle appeared
in MPW (29 May 1909): 709.
59. ‘The Question of Posters’, MPW (20 April 1912): 205.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.
62. Untitled, MPW (17 August 1912): 647.
63. Sargent, Picture Theatre Advertising: 9.
64. Instructions and General Information for Motion Picture
Exhibitors Who Use Enterprise Instruments and
Outfits (Enterprise Optical Company, 1906): 33.
Available in A Guide to Motion Picture Catalogs by
American Producers and Distributors, 1894–1908: A
Microfilm Edition, Reel 6.
65. Epes Winthrop Sargent, ‘Advertising for Exhibitors’,
MPW (24 August 1912): 762.
66. Ibid.
67. John B. Rathbun, ‘Motion Picture Making and Exhibiting’,
Motography (26 July 1913): 69.
68. James F. Hodges, Picture Theater Facts. Also known
as Opening and Operating a Motion Picture Theatre:
How It Is Done Successfully (New York: Scenario,
1912): 18.
69. Brandt: 41.
70. ‘Do You Mount Your Posters?’, MPW (29 June 1912):
1236.
71. Brandt: 41.
72. Ibid.
73. Advertisement for The Exhibitors’ Advertising Company,
MPW (13 April 1912): 182.
74. Advertisement for the Chicago Metal Covering Company,
MPW (5 July 1913): 72.
75. Advertisement for Imp, MPW (6 May 1911): 1048.
76. Advertisement for ‘The New Edison Lobby Display
Frame’, The Kinetogram (1 April 1912): 15.
77. ‘Innovation in Lobby Frames’, MPW (11 May 1912):
538.
78. Ibid. The term ‘photogelatin’ for an 11 x 14 photographic
advertisement can be seen in such advertisements
as one for Warner’s Features, MPW (22
November 1913): 915.
79. Sargent, ‘Advertising for Exhibitors’, MPW (23 May
1912): 1058. This is a different article than Sargent’s
‘Advertising for Exhibitors’, MPW (24 August 1912):
762.
80. Sargent, Picture Theatre Advertising: 17.
81. ‘Free Posters With Reels’, MPW (4 February 1911):
251.
82. Ibid.
83. ‘Brady the Poster Man Moves’, MPW (13 April 1912):
117.
84. Ibid.
85. ‘MissJeanetteA.Cohen–PosterSaleswoman’,MPW
(8 November 1913): 620.
86. Ibid.
87. ‘Joe S. Edelman Now With World Film Corp.’, The
Atlanta Constitution (18 October 1914): C11.
88. ‘A Lesson in Advertising’, The Optical Lantern and
Cinematograph Journal (October 1905): 262–264.
89. Ibid.
90. James K. Meade, ‘Advertising the Show’, The Nickelodeon
(February 1909): 43–44.
91. Ibid.: 44.
92. ‘The Poster End’, MPW (27 November 1909): 752.
93. Hans Leigh,‘Some Poor Posters’,MPW(4 December
1909): 793.
94. F.H. Richardson, ‘Posteritis’, MPW (11 June 1910):
987.
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. ‘The Posters’, MPW (19 November 1910): 1161.
98. ‘The Poster Proposition’, Motography (November
1911): 206.
99. ‘Posters vs. Bulletins’, The Nickelodeon (15 December
1910): 337.
100. ‘Posters Now For Songs’, The Film Index (15 October
1910):3.Anadvertisement inMPW(10 August1912):
590, offered one-, three-, and six-sheet posters for
a large number of songs available from the American
Song Slide and Poster Company of Chicago, which
suggests these kinds of posters remained in use for
at least a few years.
101. ‘Posters vs. Bulletins’, The Nickelodeon (15 December
1915): 337.
102. ‘The Poster’, MPW (6 May 1911): 1007.
103. Ibid.
104. A selection of surviving, pre-1915 US moving picture
posters can be viewed online at www.os-
cars.org/mhl/pc/poster.html
105. ‘Posters vs. Bulletins’: 337.
106. Ibid.
107. ‘Censoring Posters’, Motography (18 October 1913):
263–264.
108. ‘The Ethics of the Poster’: 1054.
109. ‘Gaudy Posters Lure to “Movies”’, Chicago Daily
Tribune (4 May 1913): B4. Later, this same editorial
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 245
The origin and development of the American moving picture poster 245
appeared as ‘Freakish ‘Movie’ Posters’, New York
Times (25 May 1913): X4.
110. Ibid.
111. ‘Original Posters’, MPW (29 January 1910): 122.
112. Ibid.
113. ‘Solax Posters Excite Criticism’, MPW (27 July 1912):
356.
114. Ibid.
115. ‘The Question of Posters’, MPW (20 April 1912): 205.
116. ‘Higher Public Morals’, The Boston Daily Globe (21
January 1909): 3.
117. Ibid.
118. ‘Bans ‘Crime’ Posters’, The Washington Post (31
March 1911): 2.
119. Ibid.
120. Ibid.
121. Ibid.
122. ‘The Question of Posters’: 205.
123. ‘StampOutthe‘CrimePosters’’,MPW(27April1912):
322.
124. Furniss: 7.
125. Ibid.
126. ‘Gaudy Posters’: B4.
127. ‘To Abolish Posters in Cleveland’, Motography (18
January 1913): 45.
128. ‘Mayor Cautions on the ‘Movies’’, The Boston Daily
Globe (19 March 1913): 2.
129. Ibid.
130. ‘Observations by Our Man About Time’, MPW (4
January 1913): 38.
131. W. Stephen Bush, ‘Arms and the Film’, MPW (26 July
1913): 404.
132. Ibid.
133. ‘The Poster Censorship Question’, Motography (13
December 1913): 417.
134. Ibid.
135. Ibid.
136. Ibid.
137. ‘FactsandComments’,MPW(17January1914):387.
138. ‘Gleason Dooms “Movie” Signs’, Chicago Daily Tribune
(17 February 1914): 11.
139. ‘Rescind Poster Rule’, The New York Dramatic Mirror
(6 May 1914): 31.
140. For example, in ‘Advertising for Exhibitors’, MPW (24
August 1912): 762, Sargent quotes from a letter by
an exhibitor in Salt Lake City who suggested his
theatre made regular use of these poster sizes.
141. ‘Posters Cause Comment’,MPW (31 July 1915): 856.
142. Ibid.
143. ‘The Importance of Good Posters’, Motography (20
September 1914): 447.
144. ‘Aim to Make City Dry’, The Washington Post (7
November 1915): 18.
145. ‘Passing of Circus Display’: 10.
146. Ibid.
147. ‘The Importance of Good Posters’, Motography (20
September 1914): 447.
148. ‘Facts and Comments’, MPW (1 May 1915): 699.
149. ‘Facts and Comments’, MPW (18 December 1915):
2151.
150. Ibid.
151. Petigor: 2858.
Abstract: The origin and development of the American moving picture
poster, by Gary D. Rhodes
The advertising and promotion of motion pictures has always been closely tied to the use of posters.
Through an examination of early catalogues and trade publications, this paper traces the history of the
American movie poster from its roots in the circus poster tradition to the establishment of generally
accepted industry standards around 1915. The paper discusses both generic and ‘true-to-the-film’
posters, ‘home-made’ designs created by exhibitors, and the work of such early film poster printers as
Hennegan and Company.
FILM HISTORY: Volume 19, Number 3, 2007 – p. 246
246 Gary D. Rhodes