I thought I was done with buying movie posters, but this one I just could not resist.
This is a French ‘moyenne’ (ie ‘medium size’) poster for the 1961 Hammer film The Curse of the Werewolf. I have already blogged about my Belgian poster for the same film here, which has now been supplanted as my favourite werewolf poster by this new one. I had been tracking this rare poster for awhile as I think its a fantastic illustration with a great vivid use of color. I also like the format, which is much easier to display than the huge French ‘grande’ posters.
This is the second Hammer ‘moyenne’ poster I have bought (after Dracula 73), and this now hangs in my office. I bought it online from a dealer here in France and it came linen backed, so displays very nicely even though the paper stock is old and somewhat discoloured, which rather adds to the vintage effect when framed on linen.
I prefer both this French poster (of which this was the better IMHO of two quite different designs) and the Belgian poster over both the UK quad and US one sheet designs for this film, but as a group they represent some of the very best (and most collectible) posters for any of the Hammer horror films. In my other blog post for this film, I included the cover of the House of Hammer magazine which featured The Curse of the Werewolf in comic-strip form. Below is the comic artist’s interpretation of a very similar pose as this poster.If this ends up being the last movie poster I ever buy then it would be a great way to close the door on my collecting hobby, I think. I am definitely now favouring quality over quantity and In due course I plan to sell off some of the posters I do not have room to store or display.