RICHARD III

Original 1970s Re-Release British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1955 Laurence Olivier Drama RICHARD III based on the play by William Shakespeare and starring Laurence Olivier, Claire Bloom, Ralph Richardson, Cedric Hardwicke, John Gielgud, Pamela Brown, Nicholas Hannen, Russell Thorndike, Andrew Cruickshank, Clive Morton, Norman Wooland, Alec Clunes, Douglas Wilmer, Laurence Naismith, Michael Gough, Helen Haye, Michael Ripper, George Woodbridge, Esmond Knight, John Laurie, Patrick Troughton and Stanley Baker.

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. Most of these posters were printed at the prestigious Westminster Press and Ward & Foxlow.

The poster is in very good unfolded (rolled) condition.