EASY MONEY

Original British 11 inch x 17 inch Trade Advert from Kinematograph Weekly for the 1948 Bernard Knowles Gainsborough Comedy EASY MONEY, based on the play by Arnold Ridley and starring Greta Gynt, Dennis Price, Jack Warner, David Tomlinson, Marjorie Fielding, Jack Watling, Petula Clark, Mabel Constanduros, Maurice Denham, Mervyn Johns, Gordon McLeod, Bill Owen, Guy Rolfe, Raymond Lovell and Frank Cellier.

A four-part film about characters who have won (or think they’ve won) a fortune on the football pools. Warner heads a family, not far removed from the Huggets, who find that the money makes them quarrel, Johns hands in his notice. Price finds that crime comes easily, and Rigby helps out his favourite band.

Advert 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.

The advert is in very good condition with one vertical centre fold and slight paper loss and wear where the staples were.