HALFWAY HOUSE

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1944 Basil Dearden Ealing Studios Fantasy HALFWAY HOUSE, based on the play “The Peaceful Inn” by Denis Ogden and starring Françoise Rosay, Tom Walls, Mervyn Johns, Glynis Johns, Alfred Drayton, Esmond Knight, Sally Ann Howes, Guy Middleton, Valerie White, Richard Bird, Philippa Hiatt, Pat McGrath, C.V. France, Roland Pertwee, Eliot Makeham and John Boxer. The film was produced by Michael Balcon with a script by Angus MacPhail, Diana Morgan, Roland Pertwee & T.E.B. Clarke, cinematography by Wilkie Cooper and music by Lord Berners.

Poster art by Matvyn Wright. A painter and book illustrator, Wright studied at the Royal College of Art. He joined the Auxiliary Fire Service at the outbreak of the war and exhibited in the Fireman artist exhibitions at the time.

Poster printed by Waterlow & Sons Ltd., London

”Fantasy drama. There come to the Halfway House inn a group of people, each of whom has some special personal problem such as grief at the loss of a son, a marriage gone astray, a general embitterment against mankind or the knowledge that he has only a few months to live. But as it happens the inn was bombed and burnt out a year before and the owner and his daughter killed. The guests react to this strange atmosphere, some in one way and some in another. To each tortured soul, however, it ultimately brings peace and healing, and they return to the real world different and stronger people.

This is an interesting and seriously minded film which does not quite come off. Perhaps film is too realistic a medium to make possible such a combination of the material world and the ghost world, especially when the ghosts (Mervyn Johns and Glynis Johns) are photographed without such elaborate camera angles as was the case in Thunder Rock. To this extent, therefore, it misses fire. On the other hand, the acting of everybody concerned – the Johns, Françoise Rosay, Alfred Drayton, Esmond Knight, not to mention Sally Ann Howes – is on a remarkably high level, much of the exterior photography is lovely and the dialogue has force and wit, so that for all its faults it is a memorable film.” MFB 1944

The poster is in good to very good folded condition with light rippling at the left and right of the poster due to exposure to moisture. There is minor fold separation and 2 short tears at the bottom edge.