COUP DE GRACE

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1976 Volker Schlondorff Drama COUP DE GRACE (DER FANGSCHUSS), based on the novel by Marguerite Yourcenar and starring Margarethe von Trotta, Matthias Habich, Rüdiger Kirschstein, Matthieu Carrière, Valeska Gert, Henry van Lyck, Marc Eyraud, Frederik von Zichy, Bruno Thost, Alexander von Eschwege and Franz Morak.

The film is set in Latvia, 1919 at the end of the Russian Civil War. An aristocratic young woman becomes involved with a sexually repressed Prussian soldier. When she is rejected, she is sent into a downward spiral of psychosexual depression, promiscuity, and revolutionary collaboration. A startling tale of heartbreak and violence set against the backdrop of bloody revolution, this is a powerful film that explores the interrelation of private passion and political commitment.

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 Ltd., 19 Harcourt Street, London W1H 2AX

The poster is in fine unfolded (rolled) condition.