FACE

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster Proof (a trial print of the poster before the lettering is added) for the 1958 Ingmar Bergman Drama THE FACE (THE MAGICIAN) (ANSIKTET) starring Max von Sydow, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, Naima Wifstrand, Åke Fridell, Lars Ekborg, Bengt Ekerot, Toivo Pawlo, Erland Josephson, Gertrud Fridh and Bibi Andersson.

With The Magician, an engaging, brilliantly conceived tale of chicanery that doubles as a symbolic portrait of the artist as a deceiver, Ingmar Bergman proved himself to be one of cinema’s premier illusionists. Max von Sydow stars as Dr. Vogler, a nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions whose magic is put to the test in Stockholm by the cruel, eminently rational royal medical adviser Dr. Vergérus (Gunnar Björnstrand). The result is a diabolically clever battle of wits that’s both frightening and funny, shot by Gunnar Fischer in rich, gorgeously gothic black and white.

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 poster is in good to very good condition with a fine central vertical crease, a 6 inch horizontal tear at the right edge and 2 1/2 inch tears in the bottom border.