Casablanca (1942)

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942), starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, is one of the greatest films in history. The romantic drama is based on the play 'Everybody Comes to Rick's' (1940), written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, from whom Warner Brothers purchased the rights. Although the production was an A-list film with well-known stars and first-rate writers, no one involved expected the film to be a big success. Warner rushed the film into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier. Casablanca became a surprise success and went on to win the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Now, Casablanca is a classic and the lead characters, several quotes, and the theme song 'As Time Goes By' have all become iconic.


French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Éditions Hazan, Paris, 1990, no. 6224. Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942).


German postcard by Pwc-Verlag, München (Munich) from the Prestel-book 'Fashion in Film. Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Henreid and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). Caption: Costumes by Orri-Kelly.


Vintage postcard. Sydney Greenstreet and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942).

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) was based on an unproduced stage play, 'Everybody Comes to Rick's', written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. Burnett, an American Jew, inherited a considerable sum of money from an uncle in 1938 and decided to use it to visit his wife's family in Europe. In the summer of that year, the couple travelled to Antwerp. Once there, the young American was asked to go to Vienna to help his family. After the Anschluss, Viennese Jews were forbidden to take valuable possessions with them if they wanted to leave the country. At the American consulate, he was strongly advised against this since he himself was also Jewish. Burnett was given a pin with the Stars and Stripes and urged not to set foot on the streets of Austria without wearing that symbol visibly. In Vienna, he was horrified to see how the Nazis were discriminating against and humiliating Jews. The Burnetts managed to smuggle a large quantity of valuables out of the country by carrying them on their bodies. Frances, Murray's wife, wore a fur coat in the middle of summer, and Murray wore expensive rings on every finger.

Later, he visited a nightclub in the south of France, where he encountered not only an African-American pianist, but also visitors of various nationalities. He incorporated his experiences into the play. The character Ilsa was then still called Lois Meredith. Lois meets Laszlo after her affair with Rick in Paris. At this point, Rick is not yet a nightclub owner but a lawyer. The script circulated among various studios, and opinions about its quality varied. Film analyst Stephen Karnot of Warner Bros. called it ‘intellectual pretentiousness’. Samuel Marx of MGM offered the writers $5,000, but was overruled by his boss, Louis B. Mayer. Despite Karnot's negative opinion, Warner Bros. bought the rights anyway. Jack Warner was persuaded by Irene Lee of the screenplay department to buy the rights for $20,000 in January 1942. That was the highest amount paid for the rights to a play that had not yet been produced.

Æneas MacKenzie and Wally Kline wrote the first version of the script. After six weeks, they disappeared, and the twins Julius and Philip Epstein took over. They were responsible for fleshing out the character of Renault and Rick's background. To make it plausible that Rick had retreated to Casablanca and had not reported for duty in the American army, they set the events before the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941. They also changed Rick's background. He was no longer a lawyer, but a nightclub owner with a vague past. The reason why Rick cannot return to the US is not made clear in the film. The Epsteins admitted that they could not come up with a reason either, so in the end, they deliberately kept the reason vague. The brothers were also responsible for adding more comical elements. After a while, Howard Koch was brought in as an additional writer. He also wrote the screenplay, but separately from the Epsteins. He added more political and melodramatic elements. Casey Robinson and Lenore J. Coffee were hired for a few weeks to rewrite the different versions. Robinson also assisted in writing a number of scenes between Ilsa and Rick in the nightclub. Robinson and Coffee are not credited in the film, however. One of the things that the screenwriters copied wholesale from the play is the Vichy France transit papers, which play such an important role. In reality, these papers did not exist at all.

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) is set in December 1941 in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, which is controlled by the Vichy government of France. Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) runs a famous nightclub with a casino here: 'Rick's Café Américain'. The nightclub attracts a varied clientele, including Vichy French and German officials, refugees desperate to reach the still-neutral United States, and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, he ran guns to Ethiopia in 1935 and fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. One day, a petty crook, Ugarte (Peter Lorre), enters Rick's with travel documents that allow the bearer to travel freely around German-occupied Europe and to neutral Portugal. He gives the papers, obtained by murdering two German couriers, to Rick for safekeeping. Ugarte is then arrested by police commander Louis Renault (Claude Rains) and dies in his cell. No one now knows that Rick has the valuable documents. Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) then appear in the café. Ilsa sees Rick's friend and house pianist Sam (Dooley Wilson) and asks him to play ‘As Time Goes By’. Rick storms over to him, furious that Sam has ignored his order never to play that song again, and is then stunned to see Ilsa again. Ilsa is Rick's former lover from Paris, and Victor is a Czechoslovak resistance leader on the run. They desperately need these papers to flee to neutral Portugal and then to the United States.

German Major Heinrich Strasser (Conrad Veidt) knows about the plan and comes to the café to prevent the transfer, making clear arrangements with police chief Louis Renault. The latter then closes the popular nightclub for two weeks due to illegal gambling. Rick now finds himself in conflict: he can give Victor and Ilsa the papers so that they can flee, he can seduce Ilsa and persuade her to leave for America with him, or he can sell the papers for a lot of money. Rick must choose between love and duty. When the café is empty, Ilsa demands the papers at gunpoint. Rick denies having them, and Ilsa does not dare to shoot. She then confesses that she is still in love with him. She explains that when they met and fell in love in Paris, she believed her husband had been killed while attempting to escape from a concentration camp. When she learned that Laszlo was alive and in hiding, she left Rick without explanation to nurse her sick husband. Rick sells his nightclub to Signor Ferrari (Sydney Greenstreet), an underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, and withdraws his plan. Victor is then arrested by police commander Renault. However, Rick manages to persuade Renault to release Victor for the time being, so that he can be arrested later for possession of the travel documents. When Victor has the papers, and Renault wants to arrest him again, Rick manages to prevent this by threatening him with a gun. The four of them drive to the airport. When Major Heinrich Strasser appears at the airport, Rick shoots him dead. As Ilsa and Victor's plane departs, Louis shows another side of himself. He suggests to Rick that they leave for Brazzaville together to join the French resistance there. As they walk away into the fog, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."


French postcard in the Collection Cinema by Editions Art & Scene, Paris, 1994, no. CA 86. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942).


Chinese postcard. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942).


American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 136-32. Photo: The Ludlow Collection. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942).


American postcard by Ludlow Sales, New York, NY, no. FC-91. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Here's looking at you, kid

Woody Allen paid tribute to Casablanca in Play It Again, Sam (Herbert Ross, 1972) which he also wrote, based on his own 1969 Broadway play of the same name. Allen played a recently divorced film critic, Allan Felix, who identifies with the film Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) and the character Rick Blaine. ’Play it again, Sam' became the most famous quote from the film. However, these words are never said in the film. Ilsa says to pianist Sam: "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake". Rick later says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me. Play it!" But nowhere does anyone say, "Play it again, Sam". Six quotes from the film were added to the American Film Institute's top 100 film quotes. This is the highest number of quotes from a single film. The quotes are: "Here's looking at you, kid", "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship", "I stick my neck out for nobody", "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine", "Round up the usual suspects" and "We'll always have Paris". The line "Here's looking at you, kid", said four times in the film, comes from Bogart himself. He had used it before in films. Rumour has it that he often said the phrase to Ingrid Bergman as she played poker with her English coach and hairdresser between takes. The music was written by Max Steiner, but the song 'As Time Goes By' by Herman Hupfeld had been part of the story from the original play. The song enjoyed a resurgence after the release of Casablanca, spending 21 weeks on the hit parade.

Humphrey Bogart was producer Hal B. Wallis' logical choice for the role of Rick. Earlier, Jack Warner had offered the role to George Raft, but he had declined. When Wallis chose Bogart, Raft became interested in the role after all and tried to persuade Jack Warner to choose him. However, Warner stood by his producer, and the role went to Bogart. There were no other candidates. Joan Alison, one of the writers of 'Everybody Comes to Rick's', disagreed with the choice of Bogart, whom she considered a drunkard. She would have preferred Clark Gable. Ingrid Bergman was also the first choice for the role of Ilsa from the outset. Unlike Bogart, she did have competition. Actresses Edwige Feuillère, Michèle Morgan and Tamara Toumanova were also in the running for the role. Bergman was under contract with producer David O. Selznick, who was preparing her for the lead role in For Whom the Bell Tolls (Sam Wood, 1943), which was to be released in 1943. Hal B. Wallis sent the Epstein brothers to Selznick to persuade him to loan Bergman. Selznick agreed when he was given an explanation of the script. What probably helped was that Warner Bros. loaned Olivia de Havilland to Selznick.

Many of the extras and actors who played Germans in the film were German Jews who had fled Germany or Germans who opposed the Nazi regime. Conrad Veidt, who played Major Heinrich Strasser, was also anti-Nazi. He had to flee Germany in the 1930s because the SS wanted to kill him. For his role in the film, he was paid £25,000 for five weeks of filming. This made him the highest-paid actor in Casablanca. Ferrari and Ugarte were played by Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, a duo who would later become known as ‘Little Pete-Big Syd’. Lorre had previously worked with Bogart and Greenstreet, and Koch had great confidence in his acting skills. He regretted that Lorre's role was so small. The role of pianist Sam was played by drummer Dooley Wilson. Wilson could not play the piano, so he imitated the hand movements of pianist Elliot Carpenter. Since the music was recorded at the same time as the film was shot, Carpenter was hidden behind a curtain, but in such a way that Wilson could see him. Incidentally, it was a close call whether the role of Sam would have been played by a woman. Producer Wallis considered hiring Hazel Scott, Lena Horne or Ella Fitzgerald.

Almost all of the scenes were shot at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where Rick's café was recreated. The set designers based the décor on the real Hotel El Minzah in Tangier. This was the only set that was built especially for the film. All other sets, such as the streets of Casablanca and Paris, were existing sets for the film The Desert Song (Robert Florey, 1943) that were adapted. For the train station in Paris, a set from the film Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942) was used. The reason for the reuse was a construction freeze imposed by the government in connection with the war. Some stock footage was used for the scenes set in Paris. The final scene of the film, where Rick, Ilsa and Laszlo board the plane, is famous for the fog, which gives the scene the right atmosphere. However, the fog was a trick to conceal the fact that the plane, a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior, was actually a smaller cardboard replica. Lilliputians were used to give the illusion that the plane was larger than it actually was. The only scene shot outside the studio was Major Strasser's arrival at the airport. This was done at what was then called Metropolitan Airport, now known as Van Nuys Airport, near Los Angeles. When filming had ended and post-production was underway, American troops landed in North Africa. On 8 November 1942, Casablanca was captured. The film itself would not premiere until the spring of 1943. There was a brief attempt to mention the invasion in the film, but the studio bosses did not think this was a good idea. A preview screening showed that the film was so well put together that no changes were necessary.

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) received good reviews and was a substantial, but not spectacular, box-office success. In the decades since its release, the film has grown in reputation. Casablanca has remained popular ever since and ranks high in IMDb's top 250. Film critics praise the charismatic acting of Bogart and Bergman, who work exceptionally well together, the deep characterisation, the skilful direction, the witty dialogue and the emotional impact of the work as a whole. The film was nominated for eight Oscars in 1943, winning three: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay based on a novel. The film poster was created by American graphic designer Bill Gold in 1942, when he was still working for Warner Bros. in New York. The poster was initially rejected because it was not provocative enough, so he depicted the main character with a gun in his hand. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress selected the film as one of the first for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Roger Ebert: "Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it. The black-and-white cinematography has not aged as color would. The dialogue is so spare and cynical that it has not grown old-fashioned. Much of the emotional effect of Casablanca is achieved by indirection; as we leave the theater, we are absolutely convinced that the only thing keeping the world from going crazy is that the problems of three little people do after all amount to more than a hill of beans."


American postcard by Ludlow Sales, New York, NY, no. FC-128-50. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942).


French postcard by Sonis, no. B. 15. Photo: Warner Bros Pictures. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942).


American A poster by Warner Bros for Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). Design: Bill Gold.


Dutch poster postcard by Eye Filmmuseum for the Dutch re-release of Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). French poster by Warner Bros.

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.

Rod Cameron

Rod Cameron (1910-1983) was a Canadian-born film and television actor whose career extended from the 1930s to the 1970s. He appeared in Horror, War, Action and Science Fiction films, but is best remembered for his many Westerns.


Vintage postcard, no. 216. Photo: Republic Pictures.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 692. Photo: Universal-International.


French postcard in the Entr'acte series by Éditions Asphodèle, Mâcon, no. 001/16. Rod Cameron and Yvonne de Carlo on the set of Frontier Gal (Charles Lamont, 1945). Caption: Rod Cameron and Yvonne de Carlo are besieged by autograph hunters as they film on location.

Star status in action serials for Republic Pictures

Rod Cameron was born Nathan Roderick Cox in Calgary, Canada, in 1910. He grew up in New Jersey. He played on his high school basketball team and on a semi-professional football team. Despite those activities and others such as swimming and playing ice hockey, he couldn't join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police because he failed the physical examination. He decided to seek fame and fortune as an actor in New York and initially grabbed some work as a labourer on the Holland Tunnel project in Manhattan. When no progress was made acting-wise, Cameron moved to Hollywood.

He made his "debut" in an unbilled bit in one of Bette Davis' scenes in The Old Maid (Edmund Goulding, 1939). Upon release, however, he discovered his bit in the scene had been deleted. He worked as a stuntman and bit player for Paramount Pictures as well as a stand-in for such stars as Fred MacMurray. His early films include Heritage of the Desert (Lesley Selander, 1939) with Donald Woods, Rangers of Fortune (Sam Wood, 1940) with Fred MacMurray, North West Mounted Police (Cecil B. DeMille, 1940) starring Gary Cooper, and Henry Aldrich for President (Hugh Bennett, 1941) with Jimmy Lydon.

He also played bit roles at Universal Pictures, including in If I Had My Way (David Butler, 1940), starring Bing Crosby and Gloria Jean. He appeared in a Horror film, The Monster and the Girl (Stuart Heisler, 1941) and played Jesse James in The Remarkable Andrew (Stuart Heisler, 1941) for Paramount. In 1943, Cameron gained star status in action serials for Republic Pictures.

As crime-busting secret agent Rex Bennett, Cameron battled enemy terrorists in 15 weekly episodes of G-Men vs the Black Dragon (Spencer Gordon Bennet, William Witney, William J O'Sullivan, 1943). He was already working on another serial when the audience reaction to Black Dragon made him a hit. Cameron was sufficiently popular for the studio to turn the new production into another Rex Bennett adventure, Secret Service in Darkest Africa (Spencer Gordon Bennet, 1943).

This time, clench-jawed Bennet faces the Nazis rather than the Japanese. As with the earlier instalment, Bennet is supported by characters from some of the allied nations in World War II. When cowboy star Johnny Mack Brown left Universal Pictures for Monogram Pictures, Cameron replaced him as Universal's Western series star with Fuzzy Knight as his comic sidekick. Tall and rugged, Cameron looked good in the saddle and was very popular.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Editore, no. 2385. Photo: Universal International.


Belgian postcard by Nieuwe Merksemsche Chocolaterie S.P.R.L Photo: Republic Pictures.

A long string of outdoor action pictures

During World War II, Rod Cameron played in Commandos Strike at Dawn (John Farrow, 1942) starring Paul Muni, and played a US Marine in Wake Island (John Farrow, 1942) and Gung Ho! (Ray Enright, 1943), starring Randolph Scott. Universal also gave him roles in Salome, Where She Danced (Charles Lamont, 1945), Frontier Gal (Charles Lamont, 1945) and River Lady (George Sherman, 1948), all co-starring fellow Canadian Yvonne DeCarlo.

Universal reorganised as Universal-International and downsized its activities in 1947, leaving Cameron and other contract players unemployed. He was hired by Monogram Pictures for a long string of outdoor action pictures. In 1948, he starred in Panhandle (Lesley Selander, 1948), co-written by Blake Edwards, for Allied Artists, and with Bonita Granville in the comedy film Strike It Rich (Lesley Selander, 1949).

He then appeared in many Westerns and other films for Republic Pictures, including Santa Fe Passage (William Witney, 1955) with John Payne, and later The Gun Hawk (Edward Ludwig, 1963), Requiem for a Gunfighter (Spencer Gordon Bennet, 1965) and The Bounty Killer (Spencer Gordon Bennet, 1965) starring Dan Duryea.

Cameron travelled to Europe in 1964 to play the lead in Spaghetti Westerns such as Le pistole non discutono / Bullets Don't Argue (Mario Caiano, 1964) with Horst Frank, and Il piombo e la carne / Bullet in the Flesh (Marino Girolami, 1965).

In Germany, he made Winnetou und sein Freund Old Firehand / Winnetou and Old Firehand (Alfred Vohrer, 1966), starring Pierre Brice. He later appeared in such films as The Last Movie (Dennis Hopper, 1971), Evel Knievel (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1971) with George Hamilton, and the Horror film Psychic Killer (Ray Danton, 1975).


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès "Carboplane", no. 696. Photo: Republic Pictures.


Belgian postcard by Nieuwe Merksemsche Chocolaterie S.P.R.L Photo: Republic Pictures.

A colourful private life

Rod Cameron starred in three syndicated television series: City Detective (1953–1955), State Trooper (1956–1959), and Coronado 9 (1960–1961). In City Detective, Cameron appeared as the tough New York City police Lieutenant Bart Grant. In State Trooper, a 1950s-style Western-themed crime drama, Cameron starred as Lieutenant Rod Blake of the Nevada State Police. In Coronado 9, set in the San Diego area, Cameron appeared as Dan Adams, a private detective.

State Trooper, in particular, was known for its surprise endings and guest stars despite not being affiliated with a network. Hal Erickson, in his book, 'Syndicated Television: The First Forty Years, 1947-1987', cited Cameron's business sense in confining his work in TV series to syndication: "A canny businessman, Cameron knew that his City Detective residuals wouldn't have been as fat had a major television network been claiming a percentage of the action, and as a result the actor vowed to remain in syndication for the rest of his TV career.

By 1960, Cameron was drawing over $200,000 per annum in residuals [from his three syndicated programs]..." Cameron himself guest-starred in many TV Westerns, including six appearances on Laramie (1959), with John Smith and Robert Fuller, Bonanza (1959), and The Virginian (1962). Cameron also guest-starred in such dramatic series as Crossroads and Perry Mason, with Raymond Burr.

Cameron continued to work in motion pictures and television into the 1970s. He appeared in the very first Alias Smith and Jones (1971) episode that co-starred Roger Davis alongside series star Ben Murphy. Davis replaced Pete Duel after the actor committed suicide by gun on New Year's Eve 1971. He appeared in season 2 of James Garner's detective series, The Rockford Files.

Cameron's private life was colourful. In 1954, he divorced his second wife, Angela Alves-Lico (1950-1954) and later married her mother, actress Dorothy Alves-Lico Eveleigh (1960-1983), who was a few years older than him. They kept the marriage a secret until 1961. Hence, his former director, William Witney, publicly acclaimed Cameron the bravest man that he had ever seen. In his later years, Cameron lived on Lake Lanier in northern Georgia. In the 1970s, he was active in the Alcoholism Council of San Fernando Valley in Van Nuys, California, and he spoke to groups about problems related to alcoholism. An extended battle with cancer finally claimed the 73-year-old actor in 1983 at a Gainesville, Georgia, hospital. He had a daughter, Catherine Stanford Cox, with Doris Stanford, and a son, Anthony Roderick Cox Cameron, with Angela Alves-Lico. He was posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


Dutch postcard, no. KF 42. Photo: Republic Pictures.


Belgian postcard by Nieuwe Merksemsche Chocolaterie S.P.R.I., Merksem (Anvers), no. C 24. Photo: Universal. Yvonne De Carlo, Rod Cameron and Beverly Sue Simmons in Frontier Gal (Charles Lamont, 1945).


British postcard in the Celebrity Autograph Series by Celebrity Publishers LTD., London, no. 181. Photo: Republic. Rod Cameron in Hell's Outpost (Joseph Kane, 1954).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Jack Palance

Jack Palance (1919-2006) was an American actor and singer who portrayed some of the most intensely despised villains witnessed in Westerns and melodramas of the 1950s. In the late 1950s, he became an international star, who often played in Spaghetti Westerns and in the Nouvelle Vague classic Le Mépris / Contempt (1963) with Brigitte Bardot. He was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, winning an Oscar for his grizzled, eccentric role in City Slickers (1991).


Spanish postcard by Postalcolor, Hospitalet (Barcelona), no. 107. Photo: Warner Bros.


French postcard, no. 5979. French poster for Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) starring Brigitte Bardot. Poster design: G. Allard.


Small West German collector card. Jack Palance in City Slickers (Ron Underwood, 1991).

Alan Ladd's biggest nightmare

Jack Palance was born Vladimir Ivanovich Palahniuk in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, in 1919. He was one of the six children of Ukrainian immigrants, Anna (née Gramiak) and Ivan Palahniuk, an anthracite coal miner. After his father had died of black lung disease, the sensitive, artistic lad worked in coal mines before becoming a professional boxer in the late 1930s. Fighting under the name Jack Brazzo, Palance reportedly compiled a record of 15 consecutive victories with 12 knockouts before losing a close decision to future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi in a Pier-6 brawl. With the outbreak of World War II, Palance's athletic career ended, and his military career began as a member of the United States Air Force. He was honourably discharged from the United States Army Air Forces in 1944.

After the war, he attended Stanford University, leaving one credit shy of graduating to pursue a career in the theatre. During his university years, he worked as a short-order cook, waiter, soda jerk, lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park, and a photographer's model. His new last name, Palance, was a derivative of his original name. No one could pronounce his last name, and it was suggested that he be called Palanski. From that, he decided just to use Palance instead. In 1947, Palance made his Broadway debut in 'The Big', playing a Russian soldier, directed by Robert Montgomery.

His acting break came as Marlon Brando's understudy in 'A Streetcar Named Desire', and he eventually replaced Brando on stage as Stanley Kowalski. He debuted on television in 1949 and made his screen debut as a gangster in the Film Noir Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan, 1950). As a plague-carrying fugitive, he stood out among a powerhouse cast including Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas. The same year, he made fine use of his former boxing skills and war experience for the film Halls of Montezuma (Lewis Milestone, 1951) about the United States Marines in World War II. He returned to Broadway for 'Darkness at Noon' (1951), by Sidney Kingsley, which was a minor hit.

Palance was second billed in just his third film, playing opposite Joan Crawford in the thriller Sudden Fear (David Miller, 1952). According to Gary Brumburg at IMDb, Palance found “the right menace and intensity to pretty much steal the proceedings”, and he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He was nominated in the same category the following year as well, for his role as the hired gunfighter Jack Wilson in Shane (George Stevens, 1953). Brumburgh again: “arguably his finest villain of the decade, that of creepy, sadistic gunslinger Jack Wilson, who becomes Alan Ladd's biggest nightmare (not to mention others) in the classic Western Shane (1953). Their climactic showdown alone is textbook.“ Shane was a huge hit, and Palance was now established as a film name. He played another villain in Second Chance (Rudolph Maté, 1953) opposite Robert Mitchum and was an Indian in Arrowhead (Charles Marquis Warren, 1953), opposite Charlton Heston.

Palance played the lead in Man in the Attic (Hugo Freegonese, 1953), a remake of The Lodger (1927), the classic silent film by Alfred Hitchcock. Palance was Attila the Hun in Sign of the Pagan (Douglas Sirk, 1954) with Jeff Chandler, and Simon Magus in the Ancient World epic The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville, 1954) with Paul Newman. He had the star part in I Died a Thousand Times (Stuart Heisler, 1955), a remake of High Sierra and was cast by Robert Aldrich in two star parts: as a Hollywood star in the Film Noir The Big Knife (1955) based on the play by Clifford Odets; and as a tough WW II soldier in Attack (1956). He was in a Western, The Lonely Man (Henry Levin, 1957), playing the father of Anthony Perkins, and played a double role in House of Numbers (Russell Rouse, 1957). In 1957, Palance won an Emmy Award for best actor for his portrayal of Mountain McClintock in the Playhouse 90 production of Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight.


German postcard by Netter's Verlag, Berlin.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 399. Photo: Paramount.


French postcard by Korès 'Carboplane', no. 328.

The meanest guy that ever lived

In the following years, Jack Palance became an international star. He was hired by British Warwick Films to play the hero in The Man Inside (John Gilling, 1958). He was reunited with Robert Aldrich and Jeff Chandler on Ten Seconds to Hell (1959), playing a bomb disposal expert, filmed in Germany. He made the drama Flor de Mayo / Beyond All Limits (Roberto Gavaldón, 1959), with Maria Felix, in Mexico, and Austerlitz (Abel Gance, 1960) in France. Then he did a series of adventure films in Italy: Revak the Rebel / The Barbarians (Rudolph Maté, 1961) with Milly Vitale, Rosmunda e Alboino / Sword of the Conqueror (Carlo Campogalliani, 1961) with Eleonora Rossi-Drago, and I mongoli / The Mongols (Andre DeToth, Leopoldo Savona, 1961) opposite Anita Ekberg.

Next, he appeared in the Commedia all'italiana Il giudizio universale / The Last Judgment (Vittorio De Sica, 1961) with Alberto Sordi, and the religious epic Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961), starring Anthony Quinn. Jean-Luc Godard persuaded Palance to take on the role of Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch in the Nouvelle Vague classic Le Mépris / Contempt (1963) with Brigitte Bardot. Although the main dialogue was in French, Palance spoke mostly English. Palance returned to the US to star in the TV series The Greatest Show on Earth (1963–1964). He played a gangster in Once a Thief (Ralph Thomas, 1965) with Alain Delon.

Palance had a featured role opposite Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster in the Western The Professionals (Richard Brooks, 1966). He guest-starred on The Man from UNCLE and the episodes were released as a film, The Spy in the Green Hat (1967). Palance went to England to do Torture Garden (Freddie Francis, 1967) and did Kill a Dragon (Michael D. Moore, 1968) in Hong Kong. In 1969, Palance recorded a country music album in Nashville, released on Warner Bros. Records. It featured Palance's self-penned song ‘The Meanest Guy That Ever Lived’. His films continued to be international co-productions: They Came to Rob Las Vegas (Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi, 1968), the Zapata Western Il mercenario / The Mercenary (Sergio Corbucci, 1968) with Franco Nero, The Desperados (Henry Levin, 1969), and Justine ovvero le disavventure della virtù / Marquis de Sade: Justine (Jésus Franco, 1969), starring Klaus Kinski.

Palance had an excellent part in the Hollywood blockbuster Che! (Richard Fleischer, 1969) playing Fidel Castro opposite Omar Sharif in the title role, but the film flopped. Palance went back to action films and Westerns like the Macaroni-War film La legione dei dannati / Battle of the Commandos (Umberto Lenzi, 1970), with Curd Jürgens, and the Zapata Western Companeros (Sergio Corbucci, 1970) with Franco Nero and Tomás Milián. He had another good role in Monte Walsh (William A. Fraker, 1970), from the author of Shane, opposite Lee Marvin, but the film was a box office disappointment. So too was The Horsemen (John Frankenheimer, 1971) with Omar Sharif.

Palance supported Bud Spencer in Si può fare... amigo / It Can Be Done Amigo (Maurizio Lucidi, 1972) and Charles Bronson in Chato's Land (Michael Winner, 1972) and had the lead in the Spaghetti Western Tedeum / Sting of the West (Enzo G. Castellari, 1972). He returned to Hollywood for Oklahoma Crude (Stanley Kramer, 1973) with Faye Dunaway, and then went to England to star in Craze (Freddie Francis, 1974) opposite Diana Dors. In the late 1970s, Palance was mostly based in Italy. He supported Ursula Andress and Giuliano Gemma in Africa Express (Michele Lupo, 1976), Lee Van Cleef in Diamante Lobo / God's Gun (Gianfranco Parolini, 1976), and Thomas Milian in Squadra antiscippo / The Cop in Blue Jeans (Bruno Corbucci, 1976). Palance was in the exploitation film Eva Nera / Black Cobra Woman (Joe D’Amato, 1976) with Laura Gemser. He travelled to Canada to make the virtual reality film Welcome to Blood City (Peter Sasdy, 1977) and the US for the slasher film Alone in the Dark (Jack Sholder, 1982).


French postcard by P.I., no. 596, 1955. Photo: Paramount.


Spanish postcard by ANMAVI, no. 29.


Belgian postcard by Bromophoto, Bruxelles. Photo: Columbia CEIAD.

Billy Crystal... I crap bigger than him

In 1982, Jack Palance began hosting a television revival of Ripley's Believe It or Not!. The weekly series ran from 1982 to 1986 on the American ABC network. Palance had never been out of work since his career began. But his success on Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the international box-office hit of the German film Bagdad Cafe (Percy Adlon, 1987) resulted in a demand for his services in big-budget Hollywood films. He made memorable appearances as villains in Young Guns (Christopher Cain, 1988), Tango & Cash (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1989) and Batman (Tim Burton, 1989), starring Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne / Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker.

In 1992, four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as cowboy Curly Washburn in the comedy City Slickers (Ron Underwood, 1991). Stepping onstage to accept the award, the 6' 4" (1.93 m) actor looked down at 5' 7" (1.70 m) Oscar host Billy Crystal (also his co-star in the film), and joked, mimicking one of his lines from the film, "Billy Crystal... I crap bigger than him." He then dropped to the floor and demonstrated his ability, at age 73, to perform one-handed push-ups.

In 1993, during the opening of the Oscars, a spoof of that Oscar highlight featured Palance appearing to drag in an enormous Academy Award statuette with Crystal again hosting, riding on the rear end of it. Halfway across the stage, Palance dropped to the ground as if exhausted, but then performed several one-armed push-ups before regaining his feet and dragging the giant Oscar the rest of the way across the stage. His later films include Cyborg 2 (Michael Schroeder, 1993) with Angelina Jolie, Cops & Robbersons (Michael Ritchie, 1994) with Chevy Chase, and City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (Paul Weiland, 1994).

In 2003, he narrated the documentary Between Hitler and Stalin: Ukraine in World War II (Slavko Nowytski, 2003). In 2004, Palance, at the time chairman of the Hollywood Trident Foundation, walked out of a Russian Film Festival in Hollywood. After being introduced, Palance said, "I feel like I walked into the wrong room by mistake. I think that Russian film is interesting, but I have nothing to do with Russia or Russian film. My parents were born in Ukraine: I'm Ukrainian. I'm not Russian. So, excuse me, but I don't belong here." Palance was awarded the title of ‘People's Artist’ by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, but Palance refused the title. His final performance was in the TV film Back When We Were Grownups (Ron Underwood, 2004), opposite Blythe Danner.

Jack Palance was married to his first wife, Virginia Baker, from 1949 to 1968. They had three children: Holly (1950), Brooke (1952), and Cody (1955–1998). On New Year's Day 2003, Baker was struck and killed by a car in Los Angeles. Palance's daughter, Brooke, married Michael Wilding, son of Michael Wilding Sr. and Elizabeth Taylor; they have three children. Cody Palance, an actor himself, appeared alongside his father in the film Young Guns. In 1987, Palance married his second wife, Elaine Rogers. In 2006, Jack Palance died of a sudden stroke at his daughter Holly's home in Montecito, California. He was 87.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3484. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Publicity still for House of Numbers (Russell Rouse, 1957).


Vintage card. Jack Palance in Il mercenario / The Mercenary (Sergio Corbucci, 1968).


Spanish postcard by Soberanas / Sobe, no. 198.


French postcard by BS, no. 31, 2005. French poster for Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) starring Brigitte Bardot. Poster design: Pierre Okley, 1963.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Stars, Screens and Art Deco

In the 1920s, screens or room dividers changed the look of the film star studio portraits. The white and dark backgrounds, the heavy shadows, the grand gestures and melodrama disappeared after the 'Great War'. It was the era of modernity, flappers, and jazz, and this was expressed by the new art style, Art Deco. Art Deco left a powerful mark on theatre and cinema, transforming the way audiences experienced performance and film. The style emphasised modernity, glamour, and spectacle, expressed in booming movie palaces and open-top cars, flappers dressed with feathers and furs, big curvy club chairs and exotic wallpapers, and screens with stripes and circles and parallel lines. This was reflected in the design of the screens on the Ross Verlag postcards of the late 1920s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 363/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Frieda Riess.

Grit Hegesa (1891–1972) was a German dancer and silent film actress. She appeared in seventeen films, including Ewald André Dupont's crime film Whitechapel (1920).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 2991/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Ruth Taylor (1905-1984) was an American silent film and early talkie actress of the late 1920s. The vivacious blond Mack Sennett comedienne nabbed the most sought-after role in 1928, Lorelei Lee, in the silent film version of Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Her son was the writer, comic, and actor Buck Henry.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4944/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Defina / First National.

American actress Colleen Moore (1899-1988) was a star of the silent screen who appeared in about 100 films beginning in 1917. During the 1920s, she put her stamp on American social history, creating in dozens of films the image of the wide-eyed, insouciant flapper with her bobbed hair and short skirts.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4978/3, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

Red-haired, cupid-bow-mouthed Nancy Carroll (1903-1965) became a very popular Hollywood star upon the advent of sound film, thanks to her singing and dancing. She was reported to have received more fan mail than any of her Hollywood peers of the same era. As she expanded her acting range from a flaming flapper to a ditzy comedienne to a sensitive heroine, she was nominated for an Oscar for The Devil's Holiday (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5339/1, 1930-1931. Photo: George Hurrell / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Norma Shearer in Let Us Be Gay (Robert Z. Leonard, 1930). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

American actress Norma Shearer (1902-1983) was the 'First Lady of MGM'. She often played spunky, sexually liberated ingenues and was the first person to be nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting. Shearer won the Best Actress Oscar for The Divorcee (1930).

A modern design movement for a mass audience

In 1925, Art Deco (an abbreviation of arts décoratifs) made its debut on the world stage at the L’exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industiels modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts)s, which was held in Paris from April to October. This exposition highlighted the new style of art, architecture, and design that was emerging throughout the world. The event only exhibited new, modern design. No historical revival styles were permitted. 15,000 exhibitors from 20 countries were present. More than 16 million visitors flocked to see new styles of architecture, sculpture, fashion, and decoration that consciously eschewed 19th-century influences.

There were two philosophical camps at the 1925 Paris Exposition. Decorative artists such as Lalique, Cartier and Ruhlmann whose work required wealthy patrons. Their work used expensive, exotic and rare materials employing traditional craftsmanship, but expressed in entirely new ways and forms. Their work represented luxury, glamour, and exuberance. The other camp was the modernists, who instead preferred machine-made objects without ornaments. These included the architects LeCorbusier, Melnikov, and others of the Bauhaus School. They believed that buildings should be 'machines for living' and that the objects in them should be available to everyone. Relations between the two camps were not cordial. Walter Gropius later blasted the ‘imitators who prostituted our fundamental precepts into modish trivialities’. Nikolaus Pevsner lamented the influence of the 1925 Paris Exposition’s ‘inexhaustible source of sham splendour’, with its ‘freakish angular details’, ‘sickening decoration’ and ‘infections of pseudo-cubism’.

The Art Deco style had first appeared in France just before the First World War, but saw its full expression after 1925. Like any design style, Art Deco fits in the continuum of art history, with antecedents and successors that it helped inform. The Arts and Crafts Movement, Cubism, and the Vienna Secession all influenced its beginnings. From the outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bright colours of Fauvism and the Ballets Russes, and the exoticised styles of art from China, Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt, and the Maya. In its time, Art Deco was tagged with other names such as style moderne, Moderne, modernistic, or style contemporain, and it was not recognised as a distinct and homogeneous style. Art Deco was a way to translate the ideas of the modern movement for a mass audience and came to epitomise the spirit of the Jazz Age. Since ordinary people were not generally to be found on transatlantic cruise ships or hanging out in the lobbies of grand hotels, their principal exposure to the aesthetic was the cinema.

During the exposition, a silent film was lauded for its modern design: the French Sci-Fi drama L’inhumaine (Marcel L’Herbier, 1924). Director Marcel L'Herbier drew the various applied and fine arts together and created a visual feast of modern art. Paul Poiret designed the costumes, Fernand Léger created the laboratory set, René Lalique supplied artwork for the interiors and architect Robert Mallet-Stevens designed the sets. All of L’Herbier’s collaborators figured prominently at the 1925 Paris Exposition as they were important artistic contributors of their era. L’Herbier also cast other artistic luminaries of the period in a 2,000-person mob scene. Reportedly, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Erik Satie, Man Ray and Ezra Pound are in the crowd. The film premiered at the Madeleine Theatre in Paris in November 1924, six months before the Exposition.

After 1925, Art Deco flourished as a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design internationally. Compared to the Bauhaus style, Art Deco was more commercial rather than conceptual. Form followed fashion as much as function. During its heyday till the early 1930s, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress. The movement featured rare and expensive materials such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. It also introduced new materials such as chrome plating, stainless steel, and plastic. In New York, the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and other buildings from the 1920s and 1930s are monuments to the style. The largest concentration of Art Deco architecture in the world is in Miami Beach, Florida. Art Deco has influenced skyscrapers, bridges, ocean liners, trains, cars, trucks, buses, but also furniture, fashion and everyday objects, including radios and vacuum cleaners. On the silver screen, it influenced the geometric glamour of set designs for musicals and screwball comedies, but crucially, it surrounded the screen as well, in the form and decoration of the movie palaces.


German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 363/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Frieda Riess. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Grit Hegesa (1891-1972) was a German dancer and silent film actress. She appeared in seventeen films, including Ewald André Dupont's crime film Whitechapel (1920).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3807/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount. Louise Brooks holding two stuffed toys from the period – Dismal Desmond and Bonzo. Collection: Jean Ritsema / Ross Verlag Movie Star Postcards.

Legendary American dancer and actress Louise Brooks (1906-1985) set the trend of the bobbed haircut and personified the flapper, the rebellious young woman of the 1920s. She played the lead in three European silent film classics: Die Büchse der Pandora / Pandora's Box (1929), Tagebuch einer Verlorenen / Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), and Prix de Beauté / Miss Europe (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3813/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount.

Projected as wholesome but fun-loving, Maine-born leading lady Esther Ralston (1902-1994) enjoyed a prime silent age career. She appeared in close to 100 films over a nearly 30-year period. At her peak, she was packaged and publicised as 'The American Venus' by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. after appearing as a dazzling beauty queen in the film The American Venus (1926). A decade later, the blonde beauty's career, however, had tapered off.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3859/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Collection: Didier Hanson.

At 17, Austrian actress Eva von Berne (1910-2010) was spotted in Vienna by MGM's second in command, Irving Thalberg and introduced in Hollywood as 'the next Garbo'. However, she was not. After playing the ingénue in the apparently lost silent drama The Masks of the Devil (1928), directed by Victor Sjöström, she returned to Europe. Here she made a few more films. At 20, Eva von Berne was dead for Hollywood, but she lived happily for 80 more years.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3780/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

American actress Norma Shearer (1902-1983) was the 'First Lady of MGM'. She often played spunky, sexually liberated ingenues and was the first person to be nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting. Shearer won the Best Actress Oscar for The Divorcee (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3802/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Ruth Taylor (1905-1984) was an American silent film and early talkie actress of the late 1920s. The vivacious blond Mack Sennett comedienne nabbed the most sought-after role in 1928, Lorelei Lee, in the silent film version of Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Her son was the writer, comic, and actor Buck Henry.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4002/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

American actor Richard Arlen (1899-1976) was a handsome Hollywood star of the late 1920s and early 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4128/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

Russian actress Olga Baclanova (1896-1974) achieved prominence during the silent film era and was billed as the ‘Russian Tigress’. The statuesque blonde is best known now as the trapeze artist Cleopatra in the horror classic Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932), which also features a cast of actual carnival sideshow performers.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4327/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

Lupe Velez (1908-1944) was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood. Her nicknames were 'The Mexican Spitfire' and 'Hot Pepper'. She was the leading lady in such silent films as The Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928), and Wolf Song (1929). During the 1930s, her well-known explosive screen persona was exploited in a series of successful films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934). In the 1940s, Vélez's popularity peaked after appearing in the Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalise on Vélez's well-documented fiery personality. She had several highly publicised romances and a stormy marriage. In 1944, Vélez died of an intentional overdose of the barbiturate drug Seconal. Her death and the circumstances surrounding it have been the subject of speculation and controversy.

Our dancing daughters

In 1925, hundreds of American architects, designers, department store buyers, artists and patrons of the arts came to the Paris Exposition. One of the many visitors enraptured by the striking line work, stark colours, and complex geometric designs of Art Deco was Cedric Gibbons. In 1928, the up-and-coming film designer brought Art Deco to American cinemas with his work on the film Our Dancing Daughters (Harry Beaumont, 1928), starring Joan Crawford, Dorothy Sebastian and Anita Page. The look of the film would proliferate through both cinema and society from there. Today, everybody still knows his work. Gibbons was, for example, the designer of the Oscar statuette. Our Dancing Daughters was only one of more than 15 films he’s credited on as art director in 1928 alone. Gibbons would amass more than 1,500 credits over his nearly four-decade career. His work illustrates the dizzying pace of industrial film production during Hollywood’s golden age.

Beyond being Art Deco’s American film debut, Our Dancing Daughters (1928) was also the breakout role for Joan Crawford as the most notable dancing daughter. The film does not feature spoken dialogue but does have a synchronised soundtrack, making it an early novelty of the burgeoning sound era. The music makes the characters’ partying lifestyle much more vivid and immediate. The film was formative in the image of the flapper. Our Dancing Daughters was a hit, and other studios scrambled to capture the new look of Art Deco. Soon, reality would race to reflect art. Gibbons’s rich clients asked for exact duplications of the settings he had created for the screen. He received requests from newlyweds and engaged couples for blueprints of the dream houses seen at their local movie palace. Movie stars used set designers as interior decorators for their own mansions. Ramon Novarro had Gibbons furnish his Lloyd Wright-designed house in black fur and silver.

From 1920 to 1940, 1 million people moved to Los Angeles. These people needed a place to live, work, shop, and go to the cinema. Architects could hardly keep up. Art Deco buildings began to appear in LA in the late 1920s during a period of considerable business expansion caused by population growth. The earliest buildings were mostly 'zigzag' in style, but soon the stock market crash and the lingering depression caused this exuberant version of the style to give way to the more restrained 'Streamline' and 'WPA Moderne'. After the war, the architectural profession was looking in a completely new direction, and the period of Art Deco was over. Art Deco became more subdued during the Great Depression. A sleeker form of the style appeared in the 1930s called 'Streamline Moderne', featuring curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces.

Art Deco fizzled out after the outbreak of the Second World War. In the 1950s, it lost its dominance to the functional and unadorned styles of modern architecture and the International Style. For years, it was definitely out of vogue. The swinging sixties saw a revival of Art Deco and gave the style its name. Since it encompasses architecture, fashion, interior design, transportation, advertising and more, and since it infiltrated even the most mundane of home appliances such as the toaster and the coffeemaker, it's hard to nail Art Deco down. But it is unmistakable when you see it and easy to recognise once you have seen a few examples. Art Deco left a powerful mark on cinema. The style transformed the way audiences experienced film. It emphasised modernity, glamour, and spectacle, which aligned perfectly with the cultural spirit of the 1920s and the booming movie palaces.

Art Deco cinemas are probably the most enduring type of the old Art Deco buildings. Characterised by bold geometric patterns, lavish ornamentation, dramatic lighting, and the use of luxurious materials such as marble, brass, and glass, Art Deco theatres created an atmosphere of sophistication and escapism. Those movie palaces could be built because film was the most popular form of entertainment during these decades. In New York, the Roxy theatre was built in 1927 to accommodate 6,200 film-goers. It was the greatest cinema in the world until the Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932. In Amsterdam, the Royal Theatre Tuschinski opened in 1921. The cinema, designed by H.L. De Jong in an elaborate Art Deco style, is now a listed building. Inside, the lobby has been beautifully preserved. The decoration was designed by J. Gidding and features colourful ceiling and wall paintings, carpeting with a peacock motif, and wood carvings and decorative ironwork. All over the world, there are still these old cinemas to remind us of the age of the silent film and the first sound films. These cinemas were not just places to watch films. They were immersive environments that elevated entertainment into an event. They symbolised the optimism, luxury, and modernity of the Art Deco age.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4673/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

Mary Brian (1906-2002) was an American actress and film star with dark brown curls and blue/grey eyes who made the transition from silent films to sound films. She was dubbed 'The Sweetest Girl in Pictures.'


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4708/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Beautiful Anita Page (1910–2008) was one of the most popular leading ladies of Hollywood during the last years of the silent screen and the first years of the sound era. According to MGM, she received the most fan mail at the time, and her nickname was "the girl with the most beautiful face in Hollywood".


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4734/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Defina / First National.

American actress Colleen Moore (1899-1988) was a star of the silent screen who appeared in about 100 films beginning in 1917. During the 1920s, she put her stamp on American social history, creating in dozens of films the image of the wide-eyed, insouciant flapper with her bobbed hair and short skirts.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4904/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Ruth Harriet Louise / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Josephine Dunn (1906-1983) was an American film actress of the 1920s and 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag Berlin, no. 5393/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Paramount.

American actress Clara Bow (1905-1965) rose to stardom as an uninhibited flapper in silent films during the 1920s. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It (1927) brought her global fame and the nickname 'The It Girl'. Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5395/2, 1930-1931, distributed in Italy by Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (125). Photo: Paramount.

Red-haired, cupid-bow-mouthed Nancy Carroll (1903-1965) became a very popular Hollywood star upon the advent of sound film, thanks to her singing and dancing. She was reported to have received more fan mail than any of her Hollywood peers of the same era. As she expanded her acting range from a flaming flapper to a ditzy comedienne to a sensitive heroine, she was nominated for an Oscar for The Devil's Holiday (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5621/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Dorothy Jordan (1906-1988) was an American film actress who emerged as an actress at the start of the talkies.

Sources: Dan Schindel (Hyperallergic), Stephen Patience (Apollo), Art Deco Society of Los Angeles, Decolish.com, Decorative Cities, Wikipedia and IMDb.