Published by HEMO

Immediately after the Second World War, cinema attendance reached unprecedented heights in the Netherlands. In total, almost ninety million tickets were sold in 1946 – a record that has never been (and will never be) equalled. During that post-war period, film star cards were also very popular, and various postcard publishers produced film series. Well-known Dutch publishers were Fotoarchief Film en Toneel in Utrecht and J.S.A., which was an abbreviation of J. Sleding in Amsterdam. Less known is HEMO, which published hundreds of topographical postcards during the 1940s and 1950s. HEMO was an abbreviation for Van Hemert, a publishing house in Oosterhout. In the late 1940s, HEMO published a series of film star postcards which focused on stars active for Eagle-Lion Films. Eagle-Lion Films was created in 1944 by British film magnate J. Arthur Rank. It was an American distribution company which handled his British films and later also American Eagle-Lion productions. There must have been dozens of HEMO postcards with Eagle-Lion stars, but for today, we selected our 15 favourites.


Dutch postcard by HEMO.

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) was an indomitable American stage and film actress, known as a spirited performer with a touch of eccentricity. She introduced a strength of character previously considered undesirable in Hollywood leading ladies into her roles. As an actress, she was noted for her brisk upper-class New England accent and tomboyish beauty.


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Well-coiffed and well-dressed American actress Barbara Britton (1920-1980) co-starred opposite some of Hollywood's most durable leading men, including Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Gene Autry, Jeff Chandler and John Hodiak. Later, she became known as TV's Revlon Girl.


Dutch postcard by Hemo. Photo: Eagle Lion. Vivien Leigh in Caesar and Cleopatra (Gabriel Pascal, 1945).

Stunning British actress Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) won two Academy Awards for playing ‘Southern belles’: Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). On stage, she starred – often with her husband, Laurence Olivier - in parts that ranged from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to Shakespearean characters like Ophelia, Juliet, and Lady Macbeth.


Dutch postcard by Hemo. Photo: Eagle Lion. Vivien Leigh in Caesar and Cleopatra (Gabriel Pascal, 1945).


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Eagle Lion.

Glamorous Norwegian dancer and actress Greta Gynt (1916-2000) is remembered for her starring roles in the classic British films The Dark Eyes of London (1939), Dear Murderer (1947) and The Ringer (1952). She played lead roles in minor British films in the 1930s and early 1940s, and by the late 1940s, she appeared in major films. Rank tried to market her as the British Jean Harlow. She also attempted a career in the US, starring in MGM's Soldiers Three (1951) before returning to Britain.


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Universal / M.P.E.A.

Canadian-born Deanna Durbin (1921-2013) achieved success as the ideal teenage daughter in a series of musicals for Universal in the 1930s and early 1940s. When Three Smart Girls (1936), the first of her 21 starring vehicles, was released, it was an immediate sensation. The follow-up, One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), was also a huge hit. These two films, directed by Henry Koster and produced by Joe Pasternak, saved Universal from bankruptcy.


Dutch postcard by Hemo. Photo: Eagle Lion.

Elegant, redheaded Valerie Hobson (1917-1998) was a great beauty who became an impressive actress. The British actress landed some very choice roles in the late 1940s and was at her best in those films in which she could exercise her comedy talent.


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Eagle Lion.

Jean Kent (1921-2013) was a strawberry-blonde British actress who played spiteful hussies or femmes fatales in British films of the 1940s and 1950s.


Dutch postcard by Hemo. Photo: Eagle Lion.

George Formby (1904–1961) was Britain's most popular film comedian between 1934 and 1945, and one of the highest-paid stars. He appeared in 21 hit films, cut over 230 records, and entertained an estimated three million Allied Servicemen during World War II. His trademark was the ukulele - along with his buck-toothed grin.


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Eagle Lion. Françoise Rosay in Johnny Frenchman (Charles Frend, 1945).

Françoise Rosay (1891-1974) was the grand old lady of French cinema. Her most famous parts were in La kermesse heroïque (1935) and Pension Mimosas (1936), both by her husband Jacques Feyder.


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Eagle Lion. Claude Rains in Caesar and Cleopatra (Gabriel Pascal, 1945).

The career of English stage and film actor Claude Rains (1889-1967) spanned 47 years. In Hollywood, he was a supporting actor who achieved A-list stardom. With his smooth, distinguished voice, he could portray a wide variety of roles, ranging from villains to sympathetic gentlemen. He is best known as the title figure in The Invisible Man (1933), as wicked Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), as a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and, of course, as Captain Renault in Casablanca (1942).


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Eagle Lion.

British Academy Award-winning actor David Niven (1910-1983) impersonated the archetypal English gentleman, witty, naturally charming, and immaculate in dress and behaviour, but he also had a dash of light-hearted sexual roguishness. He is probably best known for his role as the punctuality-obsessed adventurer Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days (1956).


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Eagle Lion.

As a young boy in Lancashire, England, Reginald Carey Harrison changed his name to Rex, knowing it was the Latin word for King. No one could do better than Rex Harrison (1908-1990) did: acting the quizzical, elegant, sexually predatory man-about-town.


Dutch postcard by HEMO.

American actress Marguerite Chapman (1918-1999) began her career as a model. In 1940, she moved to Hollywood and appeared in film and television till 1977.


Dutch postcard by Hemo. Photo: Eagle Lion.

British entertainer Googie Withers (1917-2011) was a well-known actress during the war and post-war years. During the 1930s, Withers was in constant demand for lead roles in minor films and supporting roles in more prestigious productions. Her best-known work of the period was as one of Margaret Lockwood's friends in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). Among her successes of the 1940s, and a departure from her previous roles, was the Powell and Pressburger film One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), a World War II drama in which she played a Dutch resistance fighter who helps British airmen return to safety from behind enemy lines. In 1948, British exhibitors voted her the 8th most popular British star in the country. She is also remembered for her role as the devious Helen Nosseross in the classic Film Noir Night and the City (1950). 

Source: Wikipedia. For more postcards, check out our Published by HEMO album on Flickr.