Did you know that English one-sheets and some other sizes were not created to be used in England?

Bruce

I have strongly suspected for decades that English one-sheets (and some other sizes of English movie posters) were not created to be used in England, but were actually made to be used in other English speaking countries (primarily Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the U.S., when the U.S. did not make its own one-sheet).

Why did I think this? Because I have been consigned literally millions of movie posters from every corner of the globe, and I noticed that whenever I would be consigned movie posters from England they would almost NEVER include English one-sheets, but instead included British Quads, and that when I DID get consigned English one-sheets, they almost always came from the above four countries (Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the U.S.), and that I almost NEVER received British Quads from any of those four countries. In addition, I have not encountered English collectors who can tell me they saw English one-sheets on display at their English cinemas.

And that made perfect sense! All of those four countries had their own one-sheets, so theaters could easily display English one-sheets in the same display cases or frames, but none had a size like a British Quad, so they couldn't display those. And in addition, the U.S. had three-sheets, six-sheets and 24 sheets, so it made sense to make those for English movies to export to the U.S. (although oddly, they called them by double the U.S. names, six-sheets, 12-sheets, and 48-sheets, and they made them slightly larger, likely having to do with the English printing presses at that time).

But I never had absolute proof of this, until I was consigned a 1949 English pressbook for Hamlet, which contains the "smoking gun" proving this, in the form of two pages reproduced below! It confirms what I wrote above. It has two pages in the back, and one is labeled "POSTERS FOR UNITED KINGDOM AND EIRE", and that page shows the British quad, the door panel, and the English half-sheet.  The facing page is labeled "POSTERS FOR OVERSEAS", and it shows the English one-sheet, six-sheet, 12-sheet, and 24-sheet! 

So now we know for sure that, after World War II, British Quads, English door panels, and English half-sheets were made for use in the "United Kingdom and Eire", and that English one-sheets, six-sheets, 12-sheets, and 24-sheets were made for use "overseas"!

Sven

Well done Bruce! Great detective work.

Matt

Good work Bruce!

HONDO

Good work Bruce.

Interestingly a 3 sheet was not mentioned on the Hamlet English press book. I have seen examples of where they were used overseas in the 1950s.

Bruce mentioned English one sheets were mainly consigned to him from Canada, South Africa, America and Australia. I can't vouch for South Africa, but Canada and the USA in the 1950s had Rank Organisation distribution offices set up in these two countries, where the various posters would have been sent to. Australia was an exception in that BEF released and produced their own posters for Rank product in the 1950s. I believe the posters consigned from Australia were originally used in New Zealand where Rank Film Distributors ( N.Z. ) Ltd., Lion Film Distributors ( N. Z. ) Ltd. and other New Zealand film distributors. used the British posters there. New Zealand was an interesting country were film posters, used in distribution there, were originally printed in  Australia, the U.K. U.S.A.,  and  actually some were printed in New Zealand.

Eisenhower

Great stuff, Bruce! Thanks for sharing!

110x75

Good stuff!

jayn_j

I agree, very enlightening.

But it raises a different question concerning US printed international 1 sheets.  These also went to English speaking countries, but if the British 1 sheet didn't get used, that would mean a very limited market.  Further, is there any example of a US printed quad out there?  It would seem that the parallel situation existed for US produced but limited release films.

Mark

This poster is sometimes described as an English International one sheet, but I'm not convinced. All the English one sheets I've found in Aust have been for English-made films. Is there some other evidence?