7 September: Peter Cushing
Vintage card by Gerimp Corp. Int.-Collection, no. FN 199. Peter Cushing in Twins of Evil (John Hough, 1971).
Of all film star postcards, cards of Spaghetti Western and espcially Horror stars are hard to find. So we're proud to present gentle and gentlemanly British actor Peter Cushing (1913-1994). He became a legend in Hammer's remakes of the 1930s Universal Horror classics. He played Dr. Frankenstein in Frankenstein (1957), Dr. Van Helsing in Dracula (1958), and Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959). But maybe he is even better known as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).
8 September: Written by Victorien Sardou
French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 98. Photo: Paul Nadar. Victorien Sardou.
The blog's name is European Film Star Postcards, but we like to go beyond the boundaries of our theme. These are often the most popular posts on our blog as well. Victorien Sardou (1831-1908) was an immensely popular French playwright of some 70 plays. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play. His plays, such as 'Madame Tallien', 'Madame Sans-Gêne', 'Tosca' and 'Théodora', have been performed by many famous actresses. He owed his initial successes to the actress Virginie Déjazet, for whom he wrote several plays. Others, he wrote especially for Sarah Bernhardt and Gabrielle Réjane. Sardou's plays have been adapted to some popular 19th-century operas and to countless films.
9 September: Demi Moore
American postcard by Fotofolio, no. Z1133. Photo: Annie Leibovitz. Caption: Demi Moore, pregnant with Scout LaRue Willis, Smashbox Studios, Culver City, California, 1991.
We continue our series on the Brat Pack with posts on such versatile actors as Kevin Bacon, Robert Downey Junior, and Demi Moore (1962), who had her breakthrough with the Brat Pack film St. Elmo's Fire (1985). Ten years later, Moore was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood thanks to such blockbusters as Ghost (1990), A Few Good Men (1992) and Indecent Proposal (1993). At the turn of the century, Moore underwent several other setbacks. The American actress and film producer made a glorious comeback when she won a Golden Globe for The Substance (2024). And we love this daring, groundbreaking and much imitated portrait of Moore by Annie Leibovitz, who is on our to-do list.
15 September: Published by F. A. Christensen
French postcard by FA, no. 57. Photo: Félix. Caption: Paul Mounet, Comédie-Française. Paul Mounet.
One week later, EFSP will post on an old French publishing company with the mark 'FA'. There are hundreds of FA cards of actors and other subjects before the First World War. We were curious and did some research about the company. FA referred to F.A. Christensen in Rueil. The owner was the Danish-born printer Alfred Johannès Christensen (1877-1935). Jean Ritsema of Ross Postcards and David Schofield are preparing a new section about FA on the Vintage Thematic Postcard (VTP) site, which will include our postcards. Jean is one of our dear postcard friends.
18 September: Directed by Paul von Woringen
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2168. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film. Lotte Neumann in Die Ehe der Charlotte von Brakel / The Marriage of Charlotte von Brakel (Paul von Woringen, 1918).
Another theme is film directors. We already have many posts on well-known directors, and for the coming months we are preparing posts on Marshall Neilan, Robert Wiene and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Less famous is Dutch-born, German film director Paul von Woringen (1859-1928). He was the screenwriter, producer and director of the Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph (DMB). Von Woringen made the Autorenfilm Die Landstrasse (1913), but also directed several films with Lotte Neumann in her own series of melodramas for DMB.
22 September: Photo by Atelier Oertel
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1007/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Oertel, Berlin. Asta Nielsen in Die freudlose gasse / The Joyless Street (G.W. Pabst, 1925).
We are keen to reveal the forgotten photographers behind the portraits on the thousands of sepia postcards by Verleih Hermann Leiser and Ross Verlag. German photographer Eduard Oertel (1854-1933) is famous for his 19th-century photographs of Berlin, but Atelier Oertel is a forgotten name. Eduard's three children founded the Oertel studio in 1910: Curt (1890-1960), Franz (1891-1978), and Margarethe (1893-1967). Their Berlin photo 'atelier' portrayed many German film stars during the 1910s and 1920s.
23 September: La Collectionneuse: Claudia Cardinale
German postcard by Rüdel Verlag, no. 3561. Photo: PALLAS / Vogelmann. Claudia Cardinale in Cartouche (Philippe de Broca, 1962). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
Marlene Pilaete has been writing about female film stars for EFSP since 2013. Her postcard collection is remarkable. In September 2020, the French website l’Encinémathèque stopped, and since then, EFSP has hosted her wonderful blog, La Collectionneuse. On 23 September, Marlene will reflect on the death of Claudia Cardinale, which occurred one year ago.
28 September: La Petite Illustration
Cover of French magazine La Petite Illustration Cinématographique, no. 1, 4 April 1925. Raquel Meller La Terre promise (Henry Roussel, 1925).
This post does not include postcards but covers and pictures of the film issues of La Petite Illustration. This magazine started in 1913 as a weekly literary journal that published news about new novels and stage plays, as a supplement to the newspaper L'Illustration. In 1925, La Petite Illustration Cinématographique was introduced. These magazines were special issues of La Petite Illustration on individual upcoming French silent art films.
2 October: Sharon Tate
Italian postcard. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Publicity still for Eye of the Devil (J. Lee Thompson, 1966).
After nearly 20 years, EFSP has become a kind of database for classic film actors, but many names are still missing. Sharon Tate (1943–1969), the beautiful wife of film director Roman Polanski, stood on our priority list. On 9 August 1969, the pregnant Tate was murdered by members of the Charles Manson Family in Los Angeles. But she was much more than the tragic victim that history made her. Critics received her performances in comedies and dramas positively, and Sharon Tate was regarded as one of Hollywood’s most promising actresses.
3 October: Mary Astor
Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5205. Photo: United Artists. Mary Astor and Douglas Fairbanks in Don Q Son of Zorro (Donald Crisp, 1925).
On 3 October, the world’s leading international silent-film festival, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, starts. Ivo Blom will attend the festival, and EFSP will make daily unofficial festival posts. The 45th edition opens with a classic Swashbuckler, Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925), directed by Donald Crisp and starring Douglas Fairbanks. His leading lady is the young Mary Astor (1906–1987). In an acting career that started in the silent era, she made over 100 films. She became famous for her part as femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941), opposite Humphrey Bogart. That same year, she also won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for The Great Lie (1941).
4 October: Ancient Greece in early cinema
French postcard by Ed. WS or SW, no. 0469. Photo: Leopold Reutlinger, Paris. Mailed in France in 1906. Comédie-Française actress Gabrielle Robinne.
Ivo Blom will be in Pordenone for the Museum of Dreamworlds project. At the Giornate del Cinema Muto, he and his Dreamworlds colleagues will present two programmes with unique prints from the BFI National Archive. Both programmes include early films set either in Ancient Rome and Pompeii, or in Ancient Greece and Greek mythology. For the 'Greek programme', early Italian and French films by Aquila, Gaumont and Itala are selected, but also the rare British film Pygmalion and Galatea (1912) with Ivy Close. For this occasion, EFSP presents a series of postcards with photos by Reutlinger of well-known as well as little-known French stage actresses and singers who are dressed up in ancient Greek attire.
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