U.S. one-sheet poster for the movie, “Address Unknown” (1944)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 41.000 inches (104.14 cm) | Width: 27.000 inches (68.58 cm)
Creator(s)
- Columbia Pictures Corporation (Distributor)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
- Address Unknown, Inc. (Production Company)
Biographical History
The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles.
Archival History
The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur
Scope and Content
One-sheet poster for the American feature film “Address Unknown,” released in the United States on June 1, 1944. The film was based on the 1938 novella of the same name in “Story” magazine by Kressmann Taylor (penname for Katherine Taylor), and it was nominated for the Academy Awards for Art Direction and Music in 1944. The film tells the story of two German business partners in the United States, whose friendship and families are destroyed when one of them returns to Germany, and succumbs to the Nazi regime and its propaganda. When the businessman in Germany turns his back on the woman who is both his Jewish partner’s daughter and his own son’s fiancée, leading to her death, he begins receiving a series of incriminating letters from the U.S. The original novella became so popular that a shortened version of it was reprinted in “Reader’s Digest” in 1939, printed in hardcover in 1940, and was reissued in the late 20th century as an international bestseller. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Restrictions on use. Copyright status is unknown.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
One-sheet poster with a blue background printed on rectangular, off-white paper with a narrow white margin on all four sides. At the top of the poster, printed in large black-and-white text, are four lines of advertising copy. To the right of the white text, is a small image of a man in a suit sitting at a table. In addition, four white, rectangular envelopes are situated in a diagonal line down to the left, towards a green-toned image of the face of another man with a mustache. His hair is disheveled, eyes are wide, and his face is overlaying a segment of a barbed wire fence and post. To the right of the envelopes is the face of a blonde woman, wearing a red hood over her hair. Directly below the woman, on the right side of the poster, is the name of the lead actor in white block text, and the name of the film in large, yellow font, with a blank envelope layered over the first letter. At the bottom of the poster is a light blue band, with the cast names and film credits printed in white. Copyright and printing information is printed in black in the bottom margin. The poster is creased into eight parts, with tears and holes along the creases, especially along the left end of the center crease. The lower right edge of the poster is torn and discolored. There is a large tear at the center left edge, which has been repaired with clear tape on the back. Depicted: Morris Carnovsky as Max Eisenstein, K.T. Stevens as Griselle Eisenstein, Paul Lukas as Martin Schulz
back, center, handwritten, pencil and black colored pencil : ADDRESS UNKNOWN / 1944 / 89
People
- Carnovsky, Morris.
- Esmond, Carl, 1904-2004.
- Stevens, K. T., 1919-1994.
- Lukas, Paul, 1894-1971.
- Van Eyck, Peter, 1911-1969.
- Taylor, Kathrine Kressmann.
Subjects
- Germany.
- History in motion pictures.
- Germans in motion pictures.
- Political violence in motion pictures.
- Jewish women in motion pictures.
- Film adaptations.
- National socialism in motion pictures.
- Argentina.
- United States.
- Antisemitism in motion pictures.
- Revenge in motion pictures.
- Immigrants in motion pictures.
Genre
- Object
- Posters.
- Posters