SO LONG AT THE FAIR 1950 Dirk Bogarde, Jean Simmons, David Tomlinson UK 1-SHEET

Original British 27 inch x 40 inch 1-Sheet Poster for the 1950 Antony Darnborough & Terence Fisher Mystery SO LONG AT THE FAIR, based on the novel by Anthony Thorne and starring Jean Simmons, Dirk Bogarde, David Tomlinson, Marcel Poncin, Honor Blackman, Cathleen Nesbitt, Felix Aylmer, Betty Warren, Austin Trevor, André Morell, Zena Marshall, Eugene Deckers, Natasha Sokolova and Nelly Arno.

Vicky Barton visits Paris with her brother Johnny, only to discover the following morning he has gone missing, and the hotel staff have no recollection of his presence.

Images of the Eiffel Tower and Can-Can dancers

Poster design by Eric Pulford (1915 - 2005). Having taken life classes at Leeds College of Art for 5 years Pulford was apprenticed as a commercial artist in 1931 to Gilchrist Bros a process house of 24 staff. Leslie Whitchurch, a partner in a Leicester based agency and also a part-time publicity manager for Rank, became aware of Pulford’s work and asked him to do some freelance work for him. Then in 1943 Rank invited Pulford to start a publicity department for them in London resulting in posters for “Henry V”, “Odd Man Out” and “Oliver Twist”. Rank producer Betty Box insisted that Eric Pulford should produce the posters for all her films. This resulted in the agency doing all of Rank’s films. When the head of Downtons advertising agency, Charles Collins, died, Pulford was asked to take over. He became chairman and managing director but still spent most of his time designing posters. He retired in 1986. Pulford is responsible, either through his own artwork or design, for several hundred posters, some for classic films such as the ones already mentioned plus “Edge of the World”, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, “Genevieve”, “Reach for the Sky” and “A Night to Remember”. He is, without doubt, the most important force in British film poster design from the mid-1940s to the early 1980s.

Poster printed by W.E. Berry, Ltd., Bradford

The poster is in very good folded condition with a 2 inch tear along one fold.