eMoviePoster.com

What are the objects in the corners of some images? Learn More

Confessions of a Vice Baron, the 1943 S. Roy Luby and William A. O'Connor crime thriller ("See the Queens of Burlesque in their sexsational strip tease dance"; "Exposed! Bold! Bare! Facts! Shattered hopes! Tangled lives!"; "Hired Guns - Sex Slaves - Easy Money!"; "The Inside Story of Organized Crime"; "For adults only"; about a kingpin of vice who is about to be executed in Sing Sing, and tells his story to the warden's secretary, so it can be published as a warning to young people; the film included footage from many other movies including The Pace That Kills, Smashing the Vice Trust, The Wages of Sin, Race Suicide & Mad Youth) starring Willy Castello, Lloyd Ingraham, Veola Vonn, Lester Dorr, and Clara Kimball Young. Note that this movie was based on the life of famed Mafioso Lucky Luciano (he is renamed Lucky Lombardo for the movie), and he is pursued by a Thomas Dewey-like prosecutor, and the movie shows his rise from gigolo to abortionist, to running the rackets, and at the end as he is about to be electrocuted, he stares into the camera and says "Let my fate be a warning to you that crime does not pay"! Note too that this movie sounds exactly like a story from the Lev Gleason comic book, "Crime Does Not Pay", which started publication the year before, and every story ended with a similar warning to children!
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 never before auctioned this one-sheet! It is a special poster, because some distributor of these kinds of movies (almost surely in the 1940s) made one-sheets with this basic design (with the "Exposed!" and the sexy girl art at top, but with different movie titles in the circular area, although the taglines are the same). So we think these are 1940s roadshow re-releases (although, of course, the posters that look like "first release", could also be from roadshow releases). We are also currently auctioning two different style one-sheets from this movie in two separate auctions.

Note that this poster does not have a company name at the bottom, but it is similar to posters printed by "Leader Press" or "the other company". A constant headache for theaters (especially those showing burlesque) was being sure of having movie posters for their current releases. Often, the posters would travel with the actual film prints, and sometimes the theater before them might have forgotten to include the poster, it might have been defaced or torn, etc. If a theater didn't have posters, it was very frustrating! Several companies began in the 1930s (Leader Press, the "other company", Woolever Press, etc) that made posters of their own for new releases, and they would provide a back up for theaters in case they didn't get a studio issued poster. Often the posters from these companies (with the exception of the "other company") were silk-screen posters, but they were often quite attractive, and virtually always had a completely different design from the regular studio issued poster. It is an absolute fact that posters from these companies are far more rare than the regular studio issued posters. It is also a certainty that these posters were issued when the movies were first released. In fact, they were created PRIOR to the movie's release, so that they could serve as teaser or advance posters (theaters rarely got the studio issued posters before receiving the actual movie). We have located an extremely rare original advertisement for Leader Press posters which clearly states that they were available to theaters a full two weeks prior to each movie's release. Finally, note that this one-sheet measures 28 1/2" x 41" [72 x 104 cm].

What IS linenbacking? Learn More

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775