BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE

Original British 22 inch x 28 inch Half Sheet Poster for the 1956 Michael Powell War Film THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE starring starring John Gregson, Anthony Quayle, Peter Finch, Bernard Lee, Ian Hunter, Jack Gwillim, Lionel Murton, Christopher Lee, Anthony Bushell, Peter Illing, Michael Goodliffe, Patrick Macnee, John Chandos, Douglas Wilmer, Andrew Cruickshank, Anthony Newley, John Schlesinger and Muriel Smith.

Powell and Pressburger’s final film together is a Second World War picture about the British navy’s pursuit and scuttling of the German pocket battleship Graf Spee at Montevideo.

Poster art by Eric Pulford (1915 – 2005). Having taken life classes at Leeds College of Art for 5 years Pulford was apprenticed as a commercial artist in 1931 to Gilchrist Bros a process house of 24 staff. Leslie Whitchurch, a partner in a Leicester based agency and also a part-time publicity manager for Rank, became aware of Pulford’s work and asked him to do some freelance work for him. Then in 1943 Rank invited Pulford to start a publicity department for them in London resulting in posters for “Henry V”, “Odd Man Out” and “Oliver Twist”. When the head of Downtons advertising agency, Charles Collins, died, Pulford was asked to take over. He became chairman and managing director but still spent most of his time designing posters. He retired in 1986. Pulford is responsible, either through his own artwork or design, for several hundred posters, some for classic films such as the ones already mentioned plus “Edge of the World”, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, “Genevieve”, “Reach for the Sky” and “A Night to Remember”. He is, without doubt, the most important force in British film poster design from the mid-1940s to the early 1980s.

Poster printed by W.E. Berry, Ltd., Bradford

The poster is in very good folded condition with a small piece out of the bottom left corner and a few edge nicks.