NEVER STEAL ANYTHING SMALL

Original British 11 inch x 8 1/2 inch Double-Sided Trade Advertisement from Kinematograph Weekly for the 1959 Charles Lederer Musical Comedy NEVER STEAL ANYTHING SMALL, based on the play by Maxwell Anderson and starring James Cagney, Shirley Jones, Roger Smith, Cara Williams, Nehemiah Persoff, Royal Dano and Anthony Caruso.

A singing, dancing Irish racketeer (James Cagney) steals a lawyer’s (Roger Smith) wife (Shirley Jones) to control New York’s waterfront.

On the reverse is the 1959 Douglas Sirk Racial Drama IMITATION OF LIFE, based on the novel by Fannie Hurst and starring Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Dan O’Herlihy, Susan Kohner, Robert Alda, Juanita Moore, Mahalia Jackson and Than Wyenn.

Sirk’s final Hollywood feature is a remake of John Stahl’s film of Fannie Hurst’s novel about two single mothers, one white, one black, striving together in a man’s world. It focuses, with typically sharp irony and intelligence, on issues of racial prejudice and inequality. The rags-to-riches dynamic is brilliantly undercut in the film’s later scenes.

The Trade Advert is in very good condition with a soft vertical crease.