eMoviePoster.com

WE RECEIVED THIS QUESTION FOR BRUCE:
"If a style of one sheet is not pictured in a pressbook for a movie, does that indicate that the poster was likely issued as an "international" style one sheet? The reason I ask is because I have a few international one sheets that have U.S. poster exchange stamps on the reverse.
     I assume this means that sometimes U.S. theaters also displayed international style one sheets in place of (or in addition to) the regular "domestic" style one-sheets. I just wondered if you could further enlighten me with you poster distribution knowledge. Thanks."

That is a great question! I HAVE been consigned some "international style" one-sheets that were definitely used in U.S. theaters, so it seems like your guess is correct. We are not sure why that would have been, because almost always, one of the differences between "international style" one-sheets and domestic ones are the lack of ratings (see below), so it seems odd the U.S. theaters would have used posters without ratings, but we know that some did. However, the vast majority of international one-sheets DO come to us from non-U.S. theaters, more so Europe than other countries. If anyone reading this has additional information on this, please let us know, and we will post it here!

Some of you might be thinking, "What are these "international style" one-sheets, anyway? While the studios in the 1920s to the mid-1960s commonly made two different styles of one-sheets for almost every movie, they were both intended for domestic use (most often labeled "Style A" and "Style B", or, in the case of MGM, labeled "Style C" and "Style D"). On a VERY few occasions, there would be a special poster intended to be used ONLY outside the U.S., and those would have a small "foreign" in the bottom border.

However, starting in the mid-1960s, U.S. movies were getting more and more widely released all over the world, and the studios would often create only one domestic style one-sheet, and an often completely different "international" style one-sheet, sometimes with a racier image than the domestic style. Once the MPAA ratings came into being in 1968, those were added to all domestic posters, but were never added to the international ones, because no other country used the U.S. ratings system.

The backs of the posters were stamped with the name of the movie and the NSS numbers (so one could no what they were without opening them, a great time-saver) and the different styles would be stamped there as well, usually "FOREIGN" and "DOMESTIC", but sometimes "FOR" and "DOM".

Some of these "international" style one-sheets are quite rare, and when they have a completely different, superior image, they often sell for FAR more than the regular domestic style. In recent years, as more and more U.S. posters have been discovered in Europe, more and more previously unknown international styles have surfaced!