ROME EXPRESS

Original French 47 inch x 63 inch Poster for the 1932 Walter Forde Classic British Comedy Thriller ROME EXPRESS, based on a story by Clifford Grey with a screenplay by Sidney Gilliat and starring Joan Barry, Conrad Veidt, Donald Calthrop, Finlay Currie, Cedric Hardwicke, Gordon Harker, Harold Huth, Eliot Makeham, Esther Ralston, Muriel Aked, Frank Vosper, Hugh Williams and Grethe Hansen.

The film was produced by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios fame.

The action takes place almost entirely on the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits train the Rome Express, travelling between Paris and Rome. A sinister character (Conrad Veidt) boards the train on the trail of a valuable Van Dyke painting, recently stolen from a Paris art gallery. Much to his annoyance he finds the train populated with a motley assortment of passengers. including adulterous lovers, a wealthy philanthropist, a golf fanatic, a French police chief and an American silent-film star – any one of whom could have the painting he desperately seeks…

This was the first film to come from the new Gaumont-British Studios at Shepherds Bush and was described at the time as “the best full length film ever made in this country”.

The poster features Joan Barry as Mrs Maxted and Conrad Veidt as Zurta.

The poster is in good folded condition with slight separation down the lower quarter of the left and centre vertical folds. There is a piece out of the lower right corner border only, a ‘V’ shaped piece at the right end of the centre horizontal fold and other minor faults.