Rare ‘The Mummy’ poster could fetch a record
BY HALLOWEEN, “The Mummy” could set the record for the world’s most expensive movie poster.
A 1932 lithographic poster promoting the Boris Karloff classic went up for online auction on Thursday, and if sold, might potentially fetch more than US$ 1 million when the gavel drops Oct 31, says Sotheby’s New York.
The poster, advertising the influential Universal Pictures horror hit by Oscar-winning fi lmmaker Karl Freund, is believed to be one of only three remaining copies, according to Sotheby’s.
The “Mummy” poster, designed by Universal advertising director Karoly Grosz, set a record two decades ago, selling for US$ 453,500, before relinquishing the record in 2014.
Last year brought the highest auction bid ever for a movie poster: US$ 525,800 for 1931 “Dracula” art — another release from the so- called Golden Age of Horror. ( The cinematographer on that “Dracula” fi lm, coincidentally, was Freund.)
Grosz created the brightly tinted “Mummy” artwork exclusively for theatrical advertising, so it was never sold to the public, Sotheby’s says.
The “Mummy” poster spotlights “Karloff the Uncanny” as the entombed Egyptian monster, as well as the crimsonrobed Zita Johann as his love interest, and blares with the tag line: “It comes to life!” The type also trumpets Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle. — WPBloomberg