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Auction History Result 4s140 HALFWAY TO HELL WC '54 anti-fascist documentary luridly promoted by Kroger Babb! Date Sold 4/14/2009 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Window Card Movie Poster (WC; measures 14" x 22") (Learn More) Halfway to Hell, the 1954 Quentin Reynolds political anti-fascism documentary ("Shocking! Authentic! Dynamic!"; "Quentin Reynolds' Eye-Opening Saturday Evening Post Story"; "It packs the wallop we need!"; "Cast of Thousands"; "Some Living!...Some Dead!"; "It takes you behind The Iron Curtain!"; the movie showed newsreel clips that compared Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Soviet Communism, and made the case that all three were basically the same, and that America must do all it can to fight all such regimes). Note that this was intended to be a serious documentary discussing a serious subject, but master showman Kroger Babb distributed the movie, and he put it on a double-bill with an hour-long African documentary "Karamoja", and created lurid posters of a skeletal man, leading the viewer to think they were seeing some kind of "shock" movie! In addition, in Babb's publicity for the movie, he claimed that the documentary footage of Soviet Russia had been smuggled out by people who risked their lives to do so ("4 Killed Filming It!"), when actually, the footage simply came from earlier documentaries! Also note that we think that the movie was never shown by itself on its first release, and since the second bill just gets a single line on the poster, we are not treating this as a double-bill, but rather as a first release poster for this movie (if anyone knows of any advertising for this movie without the double-bill, please e-mail us and we will post it here). If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that a perpetual calendar reveals that the dates printed on the top of the card correspond to 1956. Kroger Babb was notorious for keeping movies in roadshow runs for years (playing in small towns), and it seems quite likely that this is an original 1954 window card that was later over-printed with 1956 dates. This window card was never folded. Often window cards would be folded across the middle, because that would make them 11" x 14", and they could then be sent with standard folded posters. Most collectors put an added value on a window card that has never been folded. Condition: good to very good. There was once some sort of snipe glued over the center of the card (no doubt with yet another outrageous tagline!), and the snipe was long ago removed, and there is some faint residue from the snipe (which is mostly only noticeable when the card is tilted to the light). Learn More about condition grades 
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