FIRST REBEL

Original British 17 inch x 22 inch Trade Advertisement for the 1940 William A. Seiter Adventure THE FIRST REBEL (ALLEGHENY UPRISING), based on the factual story “The First Rebel” by Neil H. Swanson and starring Claire Trevor, John Wayne, George Sanders, Brian Donlevy, Wilfred Lawson, Robert Barrat, John F. Hamilton, Moroni Olsen, Eddie Quillan and Chill Wills.

In 1759, in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Valley, local settlers and Indian fighters try to persuade the British authorities to ban the trading of alcohol and arms with the marauding Indians. .

The Advertisement was originally on two separate pages but has now been professionally joined and backed onto conservation paper. The overall size is now 18 1/2 inches x 23 3/4 inches.

Trade advertisements are colourful posters aimed at cinema managers, which were either slipped in, or part of, the weekly film trade journals which were available to them by subscription but were not sold to the general public. The large size Trade advertisements are about the size of US half sheet posters and have a centre fold which is usually hard to discern when flat. Most were designed to be pulled out, and some were attached by staples. Most have the date in tiny letters in one of the top corners.
The publishers own copies from the 1930’s were destroyed by fire and water damage during the Blitz and Wartime paper drives decimated those held by cinemas making them quite rare.