Your collection - Saul Bass collection

Unlike the other posts in this forum, I don't have 100s or 1,000s of posters. I just have two small collections that I've been building slowly over the past 25 years.

My first collection is of Saul Bass movie posters, principally the movies of Alfred Hitchcock and Otto Preminger. I collect American one sheets, half sheets, inserts and 30x40s. I try to hang all my posters in my house, so I don't collect lobby cards (too small and too many) or 3-sheets, 6-sheets, 24-sheets and 40x60s (too big). I'll get a window card as a placeholder for a one sheet because the artwork is usually the same. I don't collect foreign versions or reproductions.

Here are pictures of most of the posters in this first collection:




Here they are again as seen on this web site:

Vertigo (Hitchcock) 30x40


The Man With the Golden Arm (Preminger) 1-sheet


Love in the Afternoon (Preminger) 1-sheet


Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger) 1-sheet


West Side Story (Robbins/Wise) window card


Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick) window card
(not Bass but similar in style)


Bunny Lake Is Missing (Preminger) window card
(I now have the 1-sheet but it's in storage)


Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger) half sheet


Advise and Consent (Preminger) half sheet


Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger) insert
(signed by George C. Scott and Kathryn Grant)


Advise and Consent (Preminger) 1-sheet
(not photographed, in storage)


My Holy Grail is the 30x40 for Anatomy of a Murder, which has basically the same artwork as the half sheet but a much more beautiful color scheme.

I'll photograph my second collection when I have another block of free time to pull them down off the wall and line them up in some good lighting ...

Wow man, that's great. That must cost toooo much... But it's great for sure. Beautiful and with a real historical value.

And some people like me that would be happy with some other "cheap" posters from now... I envy you

Actually, the collection cost me hardly anything, just lots of time and hard work.

The first poster I bought (and it's still my sentimental favorite) was the Vertigo 30x40. I bought it way back in 1982 when I was just a teenager. Back then, nobody was collecting movie posters, so I got it for CA$200, which at the time I thought was a lot of money. The same place was also selling the half sheet for Some Like It Hot and the 1-sheet for The Wizard of Oz, both for about the same price. I couldn't afford them back then and now I wish that I'd taken out a loan.

The CA$200 that I spent on the Vertigo poster was the most that I spent on any poster in my collection. I've found all the posters by rummaging through old movie storehouses, bins at the back of used book stores, or antique auctions where the attendees were more interested in bidding on the furniture and porcelain than on the paper ephemera.

I love Saul Bass.

I've got the one sheet of Such Good Friends myself.