Star Wars

Artist: Thomas William Chantrell
Format: UK Quad (30"x 40")
Condition: Excellent
Year: 1977

Description
A key item for serious "Star Wars" collectors, this is the non-Oscar version of the film poster. Once premiered (normally in London), films would gradually be rolled out across the country. Sometimes a limited West End run followed the premiere & generally only the largest metropolitan cinemas showed blockbusters such as "Star Wars" in the very early weeks of release. In the case of "Star Wars", the film was released in the UK ahead of the Oscar Awards but as soon as these were announced, posters were printed with added Ocars text for obvious marketing purposes. The early non-Oscar version of the poster was printed in only limited numbers & this poster is significantly rarer than the Oscars version. As Sim Branaghan has documented in his book "British Film Posters" (2006), Gary Kurtz initially commissioned the American Hildebrandt team to design a poster & indeed their design was printed in small numbers. However, Kurtz wanted the key characters in the film to feature more prominently & thus, Tom Chantrell received a second commission. Chantrell was influenced by the Frank McCarthy design for the Poster of "The Dirty Dozen" & he photographed his wife Shirley to act as an aide-memoire for his illustration of Carrie Fisher as "Princess Leia". This poster has been cleaned, de-acidified & linen-backed.