DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE

Original British 40 inch x 81 inch 3-Sheet Poster for the 1954 Ralph Thomas Comedy DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, written by Richard Gordon and starring Dirk Bogarde, Muriel Pavlow, Kenneth More, Donald Sinden, Kay Kendall, James Robertson Justice, Donald Houston, Suzanne Cloutier, George Coulouris, Nicholas Phipps, Geoffrey Keen, Joan Sims, Martin Boddey, Harry Locke, Cyril Chamberlain, Shirley Eaton, Eliot Makeham, Joan Hickson, Brian Oulton, Mark Dignam, Lisa Gastoni, Wyndham Goldie, Noel Purcell, Bruce Seton, Amy Veness, Mona Washbourne and Richard Wattis.

The now venerable first film of Richard Gordon’s stories of the medical students of St. Swithin’s is a happy experience thanks to a bunch of Equity’s finest in their prime. The film’s settings and jokes have acquired a period charm: 66 years ago the nation was convulsed when irascible surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt (Robertson Justice) asked ‘What’s the bleeding time?’.

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 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 W.E. Berry, Ltd., Bradford

The poster is in good folded condition with 2 holes towards the centre, some fold wear (particularly in the bottom sheet), and other minor faults, in 3 separate sheets.