"Casablanca" Posters Star in Heritage Auctions' $2-million Vintage Movie Posters Event
DALLAS — A pair of posters from the iconic 1942 film Casablanca headlined Heritage Auctions’ Vintage Movie Posters Auction Nov. 19-20 in Dallas, which realized a total of $1,918,571. Both posters more than quadrupled their pre-auction estimates: A Casablanca (Warner Brothers, R-1953) Italian 2-Fogli poster went on the block with an estimated price of $50,000, to sell for $203,150, while a Casablanca (Warner Brothers, 1942) Half Sheet Style B, which went into the auction with an estimated return of $40,000, sold for $167,300.
“This was an exceptional auction that brought together some of the most coveted movie images from Hollywood,” Heritage director of vintage posters Grey Smith said. “The collection included some lots that had been in high demand for some time to our most avid collectors.”
A poster from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (PEA, 1966), an Italian premier 24 Sheet, with artwork by Franco Fiorenzi and Michelangelo Pappuza, (similar to the two and four fogli with its reflective silver background) sold for $77,675.
Collectors seeking a poster from the 1932 box office bomb and exploitation film Freaks (MGM, 1932) got their wish in the auction, when a rare Pre-War Belgian Poster for the film sold for $28,680.
Considered one of the defining classics in film noir, a poster from Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past (RKO, 1947) sold for $22,705.
A poster of The Maltese Falcon (Warner Brothers, 1941) One Sheet realized more than twice its pre-auction estimate of $8,000 when it brought in $21,510, and a depiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous novel, a poster of The Hound of the Baskervilles (20th Century Fox, 1939) One Sheet realized a sale price of $19,120.
A lobby card measuring 11 inches by 14 inches from Dracula (Universal, 1931), one of the most famous horror films of all time, nearly quadrupled its pre-auction estimate of $4,000 when it sold for $15,535.
Collectors searching for an exceedingly rare poster from Captain Blood (Warner Brothers, 1935) One Sheet got their chance in this auction; the lot was another that exceeded its pre-auction estimate when it sold for $14,340.
A surprise lot that crashed the sale’s top 10 lots was a ceramic Dracula/Lugosi Statuette (circa Late 1940s, which also drew $14,340. It is believed that the figure, which stands eight inches tall, actually may have been sculpted by actor Bela Lugosi and given as a gift to friends. Rumors suggest that only about 25 were made, and only a fraction of those remain in existence.
