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The Bishop's Wife (also released as "Samuel Goldwyn's Cary and The Bishop's Wife"), the classic 1948 Henry Koster (nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for this film) romantic religious fantasy comedy ("It's human! 'The Bishop's Wife' captures all of the warmth and rich humor of Samuel Goldwyn's 'The Best Year of Our Lives'."; "It's happy! After seeing 'The Bishop's Wife' you'll agree it is one of the nicest things that has ever happened to you!"; "It's heart-warming! It's the kind of a picture you'll never forget - it will leave you with a wonderful glow!"; "One of those really rare pictures that leave you with a wonderful glow!"; about a work-obsessed bishop and his neglected wife, and the angel who comes from Heaven to set them straight; nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award; "From the Novel by Robert Nathan") starring Cary Grant (as an angel), Loretta Young (in the title role as the Bishop's wife, Julia Brougham), David Niven, Monty Woolley, James Gleason, Gladys Cooper, Elsa Lanchester, and Regis Toomey. Note that there is quite a bit of conflicting information concerning the casting of this film, but Robert Koster (director Henry Koster's son) mentions that when filming began under director William Seiter, Grant played the Bishop. After a week of shooting, producer Sam Goldwyn fired Seiter, the script underwent six weeks of rewrites, and director Henry Koster took over. He convinced Grant to play the part of Dudley (the angel) instead of the Bishop. When it came time to sell a film with no sex or direct romance, Goldwyn found that business picked up in some markets when the film was advertised as "Cary and The Bishop's Wife" (some posters used the original title and just added the tagline "Have you heard about Cary and The Bishop's Wife?"). Goldwyn also tried selling it as a screwball comedy, a slapstick romp, and a romantic triangle sex comedy. We have never auctioned a one-sheet that has either the alternate title or the added tagline. If anyone knows more about this, please e-mail us and we will post it here.
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

Important Added Info: Note that this still is a key book still, mounted to a linen backing. Many studios spent extra money to have their most special photos, the key book stills, either backed with linen or printed on a heavy paper, both of which enhanced their durability. They had an extra 1" at the left or top, with punch holes, because of how they were stored. Key book stills are far more rare than regular stills, which has increased their popularity among collectors, since only a few keybooks were manufactured per film, and a key book still is guaranteed to be authentic. Someone trimmed away the extra 1" from the left of the still.

Note that this still is part of an amazing collection of 204 scene stills we are auctioning in this set of auctions. All of them were collected by David Mallery, a noted Philadelphia film critic/college professor of the 1960s to the 1990s. He had a great love of movies, and he would go to memorabilia shows and shops in the 1960s and 1970s and he assembled a collection of great original stills from films he loved! He put them into scrapbooks using double-stick tape on the back of each still, and sometimes he would type a paragraph about that movie and put that in the scrapbook as well.

After his passing, his scrapbooks were obtained from his estate, and the stills were carefully removed from the scrapbook pages, but the double-stick tape was left on the back of the stills, although the "sticky" part on the face of the tape was removed. In almost all cases, the tape did not affect the front of the still. It can be removed by a professional or talented amateur, but it has not harmed the still in the many decades since it was first placed in the scrapbook, so I really don't see a reason to do so, but that will be the choice of the new owner of each still!

Mr. Mallery naturally had excellent taste in movies, and he was collecting at a time when you could find great original scene stills from the very best movies (but even in the 1960s and 1970s, it took some work to find them!). This is a rare opportunity to acquire truly great and rare original vintage stills, and they have a wonderful "provenance" as well!

Here is more information about David Mallery. He was a professor of cinematography at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, from the 1960s into the 1990s. He was a founding member of AFI (American Film Institute), and a member of the Motion Picture Academy. He was a film critic who wrote many reviews for many publications, and hosted a TV show where he interviewed directors, actors, and others involved in the film industry.

Over the years, he developed both working and personal relationships with many actors, actresses, and directors, including Frank Capra and his wife, Charlton Heston and others. eMoviePoster.com will be auctioning letters from these celebrities and others to Mr. Mallery in their next auction of signed items!

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