Collectables: X-rated posters are hot investments
10th October 2003
Collectables: X-rated posters are hot investments
Posters for X-rated American films from the 1950s to 1970s are
“the next hot collectable”, says John Windsor in The
Observer. Interest in them is already increasing in anticipation
of the November publication of the first-ever guide to them by Tony
Nourmand, co-owner of The Reel Poster Gallery in London, and Graham
Marsh, an art director, illustrator and author.
Unlike mainstream film posters, not many of the few X-rated posters
that were issued have survived. There is no record of some of the
films they were made to advertise, and in their day the posters
were “cheaply printed trash, binned at the end of their runs
in sleazy cinemas”. Today, their lurid designs, mostly by
unknown artists, and their corny taglines, have acquired a kitsch
appeal.
Since the publication of Nourmand and Marsh’s first volume,
Film Posters of the Sixties (1997), their books – eight of
them – have “won a reputation as market makers”.
Before the Sixties book was published, you could buy a British
poster for Goldfinger (1964) for around £60. Now you would
have to pay about £3,000. The Italian Job (1969) rose from
about £30 to £750. X-rated posters are already rising
in price ahead of the book’s publication.
Collectable director’s names include Russ Meyer, Radley Metzger
and Joseph Mawra – and you will have “struck gold”
if you can find any X-rated film posters for legends such as Marilyn
Monroe and the director Francis Ford Coppola, who both “kicked
off their careers by making blue movies”.
Home video made X-rated film posters in 1976 as the under-the-counter
trade could do without posters to advertise their wares.
X-rated Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s (Volume I) is published
by Snoeck at £19.95 (see www.x-rated collection.com). The
Reel Poster Gallery 72 Westbourne Grove, London, W2 (0207-727 4488)
is offering a few duplicates for sale.
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