CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1960 Ralph Thomas Wartime Drama CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS starring Lilli Palmer, Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell, Albert Lieven, Ronald Lewis, Peter Arne, Nora Swinburne, Michael Goodliffe, Megs Jenkins, David Kossoff, Jenny Laird, George Coulouris and Phyllis Neilson-Terry.

Catholic nuns risk their lives to help Jewish children in an Italian internment camp escape to Palestine during World War II.

Poster design 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”. Rank producer Betty Box insisted that Eric Pulford should produce the posters for all her films. This resulted in the agency doing all of Rank’s films. 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 Beuing 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.

Printed by Charles & Read Ltd., London & Harlow

The poster is in very good folded condition with slight tears at the right edge.