YOU CAN’T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN

Original British 40 inch x 60 inch 2-Sheet Poster for the 1939 George Marshall & Edward F. Cline Comedy YOU CAN’T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN starring W.C. Fields, Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd, Constance Moore, Mary Forbes, Thurston Hall, Princess Baba (as herself), John Arledge, Charles Coleman, Edward Brophy, Arthur Hohl, Blacaman and Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson.

The owner of a debt-ridden circus contends with pursuant bill collectors and sheriffs and his beloved daughter’s relationships with one of his performers and a stuffy but wealthy young man.

Poster art after Jacques Kapralik (1906 – 1960).
Kapralik was a commercial artist and caricaturist whose art was used in the promotion of motion pictures throughout Hollywood’s Golden Era of the 1930s-1950s. Born in Romania in 1906, Kapralik first worked for various European newspapers, drawing cartoons and caricatures of famous Europeans and important events. In 1936, Kapralik immigrated to the United States. He first provided celebrity caricatures for various newspaper columns focusing on Hollywood gossip and events.

Kapralik was fortunate to work during a time considered the Golden Age of Hollywood and a zenith for celebrity caricatures. Movie studios were putting increased focus and publicity on their stars, attempting to make them household names. Kapralik’s output of celebrity caricatures increased as he left the newspaper world and began working for movie studios such as RKO, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and MGM, creating likenesses of Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, and Lucille Ball, among many others. He developed a distinctive and highly recognizable style for his studio publicity work, much of which was shown primarily in press kits and trade magazines such MGM’s Lion’s Roar Magazine, as well as the weekly Pictorial Review newspaper insert.

The poster is in very good condition with one horizontal and 3 vertical folds. The poster, printed by W.E. Berry of Bradford, was unused and the reverse was later used by Taylors Printers of Wombwell, Yorkshire for a Robinson Crusoe pantomime poster. This is the top two thirds of a 3-Sheet poster. The lower third would have been the title and credits.