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Auction History Result 6h0292 M linen teaser German 38x56 1931 Fritz Lang, great c/u art of the title on hand, ultra rare! Date Sold 4/14/2024 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Linenbacked Teaser German Movie Poster (measures 37 1/4" x 56" [95 x 142 cm]) (Learn More) M (released in England in 1932 and in the U.S. in 1933), the classic 1931 Fritz Lang German psychotic-serial-child-murderer serial killer crime film noir thriller (about a killer of children who is hunted by the police AND by "regular" criminals, who want him stopped because he is bad for their business, and when they catch him ahead of the police, they put him "on trial"; surely one of the handful of greatest movies ever made!) starring Peter Lorre (as Hans Beckert), Gustaf Grundgens, Otto Wernicke (as Inspector Karl Lohmann), Theo Lingen, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, and Theodor Loos (as Inspector Groeber) NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that we have only previously auctioned one example of this incredibly rare German poster, which is a "country of origin" poster for this German movie, and that was 7 years ago, when it sold for $17,500 (and that earlier example we auctioned had been displayed, and the red of the "M" had faded considerably, whereas THIS example does not have that fading, which makes it much more desirable)! This poster has a wonderful "provenance". It was in the collection of Steve Schapiro, famed celebrity photographer, who was one of the very first movie poster collectors, and who assembled one of the greatest poster collections there has ever been! In the 1980s, he sold the majority of his collection, but he kept THIS wonderful poster on his wall, and it remained there until his passing in January 2022, where it had hung for over 40 years! Now it has been consigned to eMoviePoster.com by his family, and we very much hope that the new owners of this poster will display it, and possibly publicly, because it, more so than almost any other movie poster, is a true "museum piece", not only for the rarity, but also for the importance of the movie and how striking the image is! Also note that when this movie was first released in Germany, there was a three-sheet-like German poster that measured 37" x 83", and which had a green and black arm against a green and white background, with a red "M" on the hand (the reason this image was used is because it is from perhaps the most memorable scene in the movie, where the blind beggar transfers a chalk "M" to Peter Lorre's back, thus marking him as the child murderer), and there was also this poster, which measures 37 1/4" x 56", and which instead has solely a giant hand, and against a black background with the red "M" on it. It was created in two versions, one with credits, and one without (similar to what was done with Metropolis a few years earlier). Both styles of this poster are incredibly rare! It might be many years before this poster is again offered at auction! Note that we were contacted by an advanced collector who said this may be an export poster because of the lack of text. This IS a possibility, but there is an equally good case for it being a teaser poster. He said that this is not a negative (and we agree)! What IS linenbacking? Learn More Overall Condition and Pre-Restoration Defects with Quality of Restoration: good to very good. The poster had tiny paper loss at the crossfolds. It had creases, tiny tears, and tiny bits of paper loss on parts of the folds. Someone long ago folded back each of the four borders by between 2" and 1 1/2", and there is some wear on those folds. There was small paper loss at the left end of the bottom horizontal fold, in the black background by the hand, and also small paper loss in the right of the top border, extending slightly into the solid black and small paper loss in the top left corner in the black area. There was a 4" diagonal tear at top center in the solid black area, and a semi-circular tear in the lower right solid black area. There were pinholes and smudges around the edges and some smudges and scuffs scattered in the black background areas. Overall, the poster was in good to very good condition prior to linenbacking. Over 40 years ago, Steve Schapiro (see above) had this poster linenbacked onto a thin linen with no excess, and he had it done in a "minimalist" fashion, with only slight restoration. As noted above, the other example of this poster we auctioned in 2017 had fading in the "M", whereas this one does not, and that surely is a giant positive! Because the poster is on a thin linen, it has some rippling scattered in it, and also some light creases scattered through it (both in the poster and the linen). But none of the above defects are very noticeable or distracting, and this wonderful poster can be displayed as it is, although the new owner may choose to have restoration performed, either with or without re-backing it. In any event, the new owner will own one of the most desirable movie posters there is! Learn More about condition grades 
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