Have you ever wondered what the most expensive movie posters are? Well, here’s a list. Study it and mention it at cocktail parties where you can amaze your friends and confound your enemies with your superior knowledge of pop culture. (ha-ha)
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Heritage Galleries in Beverly Hills recently held an auction and the poster from this film was expected to sell for over $700,000. The bids failed to make minimum, so it didn’t sell. The poster is known as Style E. It is all red with Frankenstein’s monster sitting in a chair and bound by chains. The headline of the poster states, “I demand a mate.” The tagline of the poster is “Who Will Be the Bride of Frankenstein? Who Will Dare?” Of course, in the movie, the bride took one look at the monster and screamed. The monster then imploded the castle, killing the bride, him, Dr. Frankenstein and the good doctor’s assistant. Talk about a bad first date. FYI: A movie poster of Frankenstein sold at auction in 1993 for $198,000.
Dracula (1931)
It is not surprising that a poster Dracula, starring none other than Bela Lugosi is not far behind. An original poster sold in 2009 for $310,700. Remember, these two things when it comes to Dracula:
1) Dracula doesn’t drink—wine.
2) As far as I’m concerned, vampires aren’t sexy.
Metropolis (1927)
This silent film was directed by Fritz Lang and is a science fiction classic. It was the most expensive film made of the silent era and there are only four posters from this movie known to exist. One of these posters was auctioned off in 2005 for $690,000. (Psst, I really like this poster. Does anyone know where I can get a reasonably priced version?)
King Kong (1933)
This film’s claim to fame, other than it featured a big ape that fell from the Empire State Building, was its special effects, which were advanced for its time. Well, a poster from this film was sold at auction in 1999 for $244,500. I wonder how many bananas the person who won the auction had to sell to get the poster?
The Mummy (1932)
This film, starring Boris Karloff as the title character, (the poor guy, he was often typecast as the monster) sold in 1997 for $535,000.
Flying Down to Rio (1933)
This is one of the few non-horror movie posters to command big bucks. How big? It was sold in 2008 for $239,000. Yet another FYI: This movie featured the first on screen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers.
The Black Cat (1934)
This movie’s claim to fame was that it starred both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Two posters from this film were sold recently. The Style B poster sold in 2009 for $334,600. The Style D poster sold in 2007 for $288,800.
So, there you have it, a nice list of movie posters that brought in big bucks. Still, despite the high prices that these posters commanded, I will continue recommending that people not purchase movie posters as investment vehicles. I do recommend that people purchase movie posters because they like the poster for whatever reason, be it the design, the genre or the actor/actress featured. You rarely go wrong when you buy something that you like.
To see pictures of the posters mentioned are featured in this article, click here:
Sources:
Just Movie Posters Blog 