eMoviePoster.com
Auction History Result 4k044 PHANTOM EMPIRE Belgian R1940s Gene Autry in most spectacular serial of the age, rare! Date Sold 3/7/2019 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Undated (probably 1940s) Re-Release Theatrical Folded Belgian Movie Poster (measures 14 3/4" x 19 1/2" [37 x 50 cm]) (Learn More) The Phantom Empire, the 1935 Otto Brower & B. Reeves Eason science fiction (sci-fi) singing cowboy western musical (!) serial ("A Mascot Master Serial") starring Gene Autry ("The world famed star of radio and screen"), Frankie Darro, Betsy King Ross, Smiley Burnette, Dorothy Christy (as Queen Tika), Richard Talmadge, and Wheeler Oakman. Note that this is one of the wackiest serials ever! Gene Autry owned the "Radio Ranch" where he broadcast he weekly radio show from. In this movie, he discovers that the "ancient continent of Murania" (a lot like Atlantis) had sunk beneath the ocean, but that the inhabitants, called "Muranians", had survived in underground caverns, and some of them lived in a cavern directly below his Radio Ranch! They were very peaceful, and very scientifically advanced, having invented television, ray guns, and really funky robot outfits, but they felt threatened by the Earth people from the surface who discovered them, and in this movie, Autry alternately tries to stop the Muranians from attacking the Earth people, while taking frequent breaks to perform songs on his radio show! This was one of the very few science fiction movies of the 1930s, and also one of the very few to show robots (actually men in robot suits)! Also Note that Richard Talmadge was born "Sylvester Alphonse Metz", and he was an acrobat with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. He got a job in Hollywood as a stuntman for Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and then graduated to starring in movies, always performing lots of stunts. He had two acrobat brothers, Otto Metzetti and Victor Metz, who appeared with him in some of his movies. NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that we have previously auctioned three examples of this poster, and one of those three was printed on the back of a map as this one is (see below), and the other two were not. All four posters have the same small text in the bottom border, but the two that were not printed on the back of maps may have been from a later printing than the ones that are on maps. This poster is printed on the back of a map or part of another poster! Why is this? During World War II, there were massive paper shortages in Belgium. Where Belgian movie posters had previously been approximately 23" x 32", there was such a shortage of paper that not only did they often have to print them on the back of other posters or maps, but during World War II, the size of the posters shrank dramatically, with some of them as small as 11" x 15". This situation continued even after World War II, until around 1946 or 1947, when they began making Belgian movie posters in a size of roughly 14" x 22", which became the standard size, and continued for decades! The posters like these that are from during World War II or immediately after, and which are printed in a small size (often on the back of other posters or maps) are INCREDIBLY rare (surely they did not print many, and surely many of them were soon recycled themselves! Note that this poster was folded at one time but has been laying flat for a long time and will be sent rolled in a tube. Condition: good. The poster was printed on the back of a map (see above). It may have originally had a larger blank border, because we have auctioned another example that had that, but that is not always true with posters printed on the back of maps. It was also glued to some kind of backing board and later removed, and it has many creases and light scuffs scattered throughout. It was folded once in each direction and someone performed slight touch up to the upper half of the vertical fold. They also did slight restoration to the border defects. Please look closely at our super-sized image before bidding on this poster. Learn More about condition grades 
Postal Mailing Address:
Bruce Hershenson, P.O. Box 874, West Plains, MO 65775. (For our UPS or FedEx address, click here) phone: +1 417 256-9616 fax: +1 417 257-6948 E-mail: Contact Us Hours of Operation: Monday - Friday 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM & 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (CDT) |
|||||||||||||
