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Auction History Result 5p0052 BORDERTOWN 1/2sh R1937 Paul Muni, Bette Davis, immortal drama with immortal stars, rare! Date Sold 12/19/2023 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. A 1937 Re-Release Theatrical Paperbacked Style A Half-Sheet Movie Poster (1/2sh; measures 22" x 28" [56 x 71 cm]) (Learn More) Bordertown, the 1935 Archie Mayo (billed as "Archie L. Mayo") romantic love triangle murder crime film noir ("Immortal drama with immortal stars!"; "Now He's a Fugitive from the Inhuman Bondage of a Female Scarface"; about a Hispanic man who goes to work as a bouncer in a cafe in Mexico on the border by California, and he rises up to become the partner of the owner, but the owner's boss likes him in the wrong way, and she wants him to conspire with her and kill the boss so that they can own the casino and be together, but he has different ideas) starring Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Margaret Lindsay, Eugene Pallette, and Robert Barrat. Note that Warner Bros. in 1940 "lifted" a huge chunk of the plot of this movie and reused it as part of "They Drive By Night", and of course, there are also many similarities to the plot of "The Postman Always Rings Twice"! Note that there is something unusual about this movie. When it was first released, Paul Muni was Warner Bros. top star and Bette Davis received secondary billing to him. When she quickly rose to stardom after this movie was released, the movie was given a quick re-release in 1937, where the two stars were now equally billed. This quick re-release likely explains why first release 1935 paper from this movie is incredibly scarce (and also, the 1934 lobby cards and smaller posters were on a flat finish, while the 1937 re-release ones were on a linen-like paper, which is the reverse of how it is for many other classic 1930s Warner Bros. titles). 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 half-sheet, and that was 11 years ago. That poster has now been reconsigned to us, so this is still the only example we have ever auctioned! Note that Warner Bros. re-released many of their classic 1937 to 1941 titles (the posters for which had been printed on a linen-like paper) in 1942 to 1944, and for those re-releases, they used non-linen paper. That is now you can quickly tell the first releases from the re-release. But for Bordertown, the reverse is true! When the movie was released in 1935 (with posters on non-linen paper, because they had not started doing that yet), they did not realize that Paul Muni and Bette Davis would soon become their top stars, and they did not give it a major release. Two years later, in 1937, they gave the movie a major re-release (with the tiny words "RETURN ENGAGEMENT" under the title), and because the company had switched to linen paper during this time, the re-release posters are on linen paper, while the original 1935 posters were not! Note that this poster has been paperbacked. What is paperbacking? This means the poster was backed onto a paper backing (acid-free), that is similar in feel to that of the original poster (except somewhat heavier). It is a similar process to linenbacking, except that most collectors use linenbacking for one-sheets and paperbacking for half-sheets, inserts, window cards, and lobby cards. Note that because this poster was paperbacked onto a thicker paper backing, it CAN'T be sent rolled (someone could conceivably roll it or try to do so, but we think it would have a strong chance of lessening its condition, so we will only send it in a very large flat package, unless the buyer insists, and then they would be responsible for any damage). What IS paperbacking? Learn More Overall Condition and Pre-Restoration Defects with Quality of Restoration: good. The poster had surface paper loss and tiny creases on both folds. It had partial vertical creases down the right side of the image and down the right yellow border area. It had some tears and smudges around the edges, with a 4" semi-circular tear in the left border. Overall, the poster was in fair to good condition prior to restoration. The poster was pretty well backed, but you can clearly see signs of the above defects and the restoration of the above defects. Learn More about condition grades 
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