DOCTOR AT LARGE

Original British 22 inch x 28 inch Half Sheet Poster for the 1957 Ralph Thomas Comedy DOCTOR AT LARGE, based on the novel by Richard Gordon and starring Dirk Bogarde, Muriel Pavlow, Donald Sinden, James Robertson Justice, Shirley Eaton, Derek Farr and Michael Medwin.

Dr. Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) graduates and sets out into the world. Hilarious internships with a miserly doctor and his young wife, a country doctor paid in kind not cash, and a quack specializing in rich neurotic women. He applies for a surgery position at a hospital, insults the senior surgeon, then rescues one of the hospital’s Governors and finally gets his place on the staff.

Poster art by John Stockle. Stockle was born in Stoke Newington in 1928 but moved to Enfield in 1934 where he spent the rest of his life. After leaving school he obtained a position as a junior at the Samson Clark advertising agency in Mortimer Street. In 1955 he joined the Arthur S. Dixon agency as a general artist and was eventually put in charge of the Columbia Pictures account who were releasing Hammer films. “I designed and did finished artwork for several Hammer films: “The Camp on Blood Island”, “The Snorkel”, “The Revenge of Frankenstein”, “Further Up the Creek”, “I Only Arsked” and “The Damned” (Stockle). His first film poster was for “Footsteps in the Fog”. “I painted Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons in poster colour, designed a logo and put it on some black paper. I was astonished that this, my first piece of work, was accepted” (Stockle). This set the pattern for the rest of his career, his last poster being “White Mischief” with Charles Dance and Greta Scacchi on a black background. Arthur S Dixon eventually merged with other agencies and then Stockle found himself working for, as with many other well known artists, Eric Pulford.

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

The poster is in very good folded condition with a few short crossfold tears.