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MALTESE FALCON ('41)
MALTESE FALCON ('41) French 1p

Auction History Result

m065 MALTESE FALCON linen French one-panel movie poster '41 Humphrey Bogart

Date Sold: 5/30/2006
Sold For: $9,101.00

An Original Vintage Theater-Used Linenbacked French One-Panel Movie Poster (measures approximately 47" x 63"; known as a 'grande' poster in France) (Learn More)

The Maltese Falcon, the 1941 John Huston crime film noir (nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award; "Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett") starring Humphrey Bogart (as Sam Spade), Peter Lorre (as Joel Cairo), Mary Astor (wonderful and beautiful actress who was far from an overnight success; she made her first movie at age 14 after winning a beauty contest, but spent the next 4 years in minor or uncredited roles; she had a major success appearing in "Beau Brummel" opposite of John Barrymore in 1924, and she also had an affair with him; she had some success in the following years, but it was the advent of sound that kept her a star in the early 1930s, but she often had to take secondary roles as well, and she had many off-screen romances during her film career!; in 1941, she won the Best Supporting Actress award for "The Great Lie", and had her most memorable role that same year in this film; she continued acting until 1964, making a total of 123 movies, and lived another 23 years at the Motion Picture Country Home until age 81; as Brigid O'Shaughnessy), Gladys George (as Iva Archer), Barton MacLane (as Lt. Dundy), Lee Patrick (as Effie), Sydney Greenstreet (in his nominated for Best Supporting Actor Academy Award role; as Kasper Gutman), Ward Bond (as Tom Polhaus), Jerome Cowan (as Miles Archer), and Elisha Cook Jr. (as Wilmer Cook, the "gunsel"). Note that this was the SECOND re-make of this movie (it had been made in 1931 under the original title, and in 1936 as "Satan Met a Lady", starring Bette Davis in the lead role.)

Important Added Info: Note that all of the leading authorities we have consulted, including Stanislas Choko, agree that this poster IS from 1941, and that it was likely one of the last U.S. movies released in France prior to the U.S. involvement in World War II, and of course, the invasion of France. Note that we have been told by leading poster dealers that ALL of the existing examples of this poster known have considerable condition problems similar to that of the poster we are selling here, and have had major restoration. Also note that this French one-panel measures approximately 47" x 63".

Condition: lesser. This poster was linenbacked, but it was either NOT linenbacked by a very talented restorer, OR it was linenbacked many years ago, and has received rough handling over the years, OR it had fairly significant defects that were not well restored. If it was restored, you can clearly see signs of the restoration even from a distance. This is a poster that would surely benefit from additional professional restoration. You can tell which of the above is the case for this particular poster by reading our "pre-restoration" description and also by looking at our "super-sized" image of the actual poster (we are the only major auction company we know of that gives accurate detailed pre-restoration information about linenbacked posters to our bidders, but we wish everyone did!).

The poster had a great deal of stains and smudges throughout. There was a greater amount of stains and smudges along the foldlines and there were some creases, tears, and tiny areas of paper loss on several foldlines, but no significant areas of paper loss anywhere on the poster, including the borders, which had a lot of tears, stains, smudges, and tiny areas of paper loss. The poster was mounted on a thin linen backing many years ago, and the person who did so did the most minor attempts at restoration, basically just coloring in some solid areas, and making no attempts to remove stains. While this poster clearly has significant defects, it is also clear that this is a GREAT poster waiting to be "rescued" (and, as we mentioned above, we have been told that ALL of the existing examples of this poster have had similar condition defects). Re-linenbacking by a top professional will not be an easy job, but there are several top restorers who are capable of this job, and I felt it was important to let the buyer of this poster choose WHICH restorer they wanted to do the restoration, and also to give the restorer direction in HOW they wanted the poster restored.