Argentine one-sheet poster for the movie, “Address Unknown” (1944)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 43.000 inches (109.22 cm) | Width: 29.000 inches (73.66 cm)
Creator(s)
- Columbia Pictures Corporation (Distributor)
- Address Unknown, Inc. (Production Company)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
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
Argentine one-sheet poster, printed in 1946, for the American feature film “Address Unknown,” originally 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, in small black text, is the studio name. In the upper left corner are several lines of black text in Spanish. A black shadow runs diagonally from the top right corner of the poster to the bottom left. Several different elements overlay the shadow, including the face of a blonde woman, wearing a red hood over her hair, the name of the lead actor in blue, block text, and the name of the film in large, yellow, Spanish text, with the English translation directly below. On the left side of the shadow are a small, red studio logo and a green-toned image of a man’s mustachioed face, his hair disheveled and eyes wide. His face is overlaying a segment of a barbed wire fence and post. In the lower right corner, below the shadow, is an illustration of two men reading a document. In the bottom left corner and center, are the cast and film credits printed in black over a blue background and illustrations of two books. Copyright and printing information is printed in black in the bottom margin. The poster is creased into eight sections, the edges are stained and discolored, and the upper and lower left corners have torn off, leaving jagged edges. There is a tear along the right end of the center crease, pinholes in the margins, and several losses throughout. Depicted: Paul Lukas as Martin Schulz, K.T. Stevens as Griselle Eisenstein, Peter van Eyck as Heinrich Schulz, Morris Carnovsky as Max Eisenstein
back, center, cursive script and handwritten, red colored pencil and pencil : Per 145(?) / Domicilio / Desconocido / No: 827 [Address Unknown]
People
- Stevens, K. T., 1919-1994.
- Carnovsky, Morris.
- Esmond, Carl, 1904-2004.
- Lukas, Paul, 1894-1971.
- Taylor, Kathrine Kressmann.
- Van Eyck, Peter, 1911-1969.
Subjects
- Revenge in motion pictures.
- Immigrants in motion pictures.
- Film adaptations.
- Germany.
- Germans in motion pictures.
- United States.
- National socialism in motion pictures.
- Jewish women in motion pictures.
- Argentina.
- History in motion pictures.
- Antisemitism in motion pictures.
- Political violence in motion pictures.
Genre
- Posters
- Object
- Posters.