THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED

Original British 17 inch x 22 inch Trade Advertisement removed from Kinematograph Weekly December 5th, 1940 for the 1940 Garson Kanin Drama THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Sidney Howard and starring Charles Laughton, Carole Lombard, William Gargan, Harry Carey and Frank Fay.

Laughton is an Italian grape grower who convinces the destitute Lombard to marry him without ever seeing him by sending her a picture of his handsome foreman and pretending it’s him

The Advertisement is in very good condition with one vertical centre fold. There are some photos from the film on the reverse side.

Trade advertisements are colourful posters aimed at cinema managers, which were either slipped in, or part of, the weekly film trade journals which were available to them by subscription but were not sold to the general public. The large size Trade advertisements are about the size of US half sheet posters and have a centre fold which is usually hard to discern when flat. Most were designed to be pulled out, and some were attached by staples. Most have the date in tiny letters in one of the top corners.
The publishers own copies from the 1930’s were destroyed by fire and water damage during the Blitz and Wartime paper drives decimated those held by cinemas making them quite rare.