eMoviePoster.com

As many of you know, I, Bruce Hershenson, owner of eMoviePoster.com, have collected pressbooks (and related movie paper like studio yearbooks) for over 30 years, and I have the world's foremost collection of such material. I thought I would share one item with you each week, the type of items you almost surely have never seen before, and which might not come up for sale for DECADES!

This week I have the pressbook from The Blue Dahlia, the classic 1946 George Marshall romantic crime murder film noir ("Double Dame Trouble! Double-Barreled Action!"; "Double-dame trouble on his hands...and a murder mob at his throat!"; "One's out to frame him...the other to tame him!"; "Written by Raymond Chandler"; "Produced by John Houseman"; Ladd is a veteran just back from the war who finds his wife having an affair, and she is murdered, and he is naturally the lead suspect; he gets the ex-wife of his wife's new lover, played by Lake, to help him, and together they solve the murder) starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard da Silva, Doris Dowling, Tom Powers, Frank Faylen, Vera Marshe, and Hugh Beaumont. Note that while many of Raymond Chandler's works were adapted to movies, this was the only one that Chandler wrote directly as a movie! Also note that by 1946, Alan Ladd had become a very top star, so on the advertising for this movie, his image dominates the posters, with Veronica Lake in the background, whereas when "This Gun For Hire" was released 4 years earlier, Ladd was pretty unknown, and Lake dominates the advertising for that movie (although Ladd does appear on the posters)!

Here is an image of the covers and two interior pages:

Each week I will showcase a different pressbook (or related item) from my collection (so in just 20,000 weeks or so, I will have shared the entire collection with you!). And remember to check out our previous Cool Items of the Week in our Cool Item of the Week archive (which is now fully searchable!).