BALLAD OF JOE HILL

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1971 Bo Widerberg Drama THE BALLAD OF JOE HILL starring Thommy Berggren, Anja Schmidt, Evert Anderson, Cathy Smith, Franco Molinari, Kelvin Malave, Sven Sjolander, Hasse Persson, David Moritz, Richard Weber and Joel Miller.

A turn-of-the-century Swedish immigrant in New York becomes a labour leader, turns to revolution and kills a grocer. Widerberg gives this madeup story his customary glossy treatment which can still conjure up a powerful evocation of time, place and mood, and there’s an effective lead performance from Berggren. Title song sung by Joan Baez.

The poster art is by Peter Strausfeld. Strausfeld was interned in the Isle of Man at the Onchan Internment Camp during the War where he met the Austrian producer George Hoellering. In 1947 Hoellering opened the Academy Cinema on Oxford Street and invited Strausfeld to produce some posters for the cinema which he did in wood and lino-cuts till his death in 1980.

The Academy Cinema, built in 1913, was saved from conversion to a shopping arcade in 1928 by Elsie Cohen of the original Film Society, who proceeded to run it as an arthouse which is how it was ran till it’s closure in 1986.

The posters became a London landmark, in fact very few were used outside of London, resulting in very small print runs of 3-500.

Printed by Ward & Foxlow

The poster is in very good unfolded (rolled) condition with a small crease in the bottom left corner. On the reverse there is signs of slight water staining at the left edge – from the front this is only slighttly visible in the border and not at all in the artwork

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