KERMESSE HÉROIQUE

Original 1960s Re-Release British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1935 Jacques Feyder Comedy LA KERMESSE HÉROIQUE (CARNIVAL IN FLANDERS), based on a short story by Charles Spaak and starring Françoise Rosay, Jean Murat, Louis Jouvet, Micheline Cheirel, Lyne Clevers, Maryse Wendling and Andre Alerme.

Bright, bawdy French comedy in which 17th-century Flemish women stoop to conquer the invading Spaniards.

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 Academy Cinema, built in 1913, was saved from conversion to a shopping arcade in 1928 by Elsie Cohen of the original Film Society, who proceeded to run it as an arthouse which is how it was ran till it’s closure in 1986.

The posters became a London landmark, in fact very few were used outside of London, resulting in very small print runs of 3-500.

Printed by Ward & Foxlow Ltd., Harcourt Street, London W1

The poster is in fine condition and has been Conservation Paper-Backed.