Lobby Card for the film “A Yank in the R.A.F.” (1941)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 11.000 inches (27.94 cm) | Width: 14.000 inches (35.56 cm)
Creator(s)
- 20th Century Fox (Distributor)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
- 20th Century Fox (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 lobby card 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
Lobby card for the American film, “A Yank in the R.A.F,” released in September 1941 by 20th Century-Fox. Lobby cards are promotional materials placed in theater lobby windows to highlight specific movie scenes, rather than the broader themes often depicted on posters. The film tells the story of a young American pilot who, after ferrying a warplane to Great Britain, runs into his ex-girlfriend, who has joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. To remain close to her, the pilot volunteers for the Royal Air Force (R.A.F.), and is assigned to the squadron of a competing suitor. He is eventually shot down during the Battle of Dunkirk, but manages to survive and return to his love. Not only did the R.A.F. provide the studio with stock footage, but they also helped film the aerial battle scenes. They mounted automatic cameras to gun carriages on some of their planes, enabling them to shoot footage of actual skirmishes. During one of these dogfights, two studio cameramen were killed when their plane was shot down. The film was released prior to the United States entering World War II, and promoted Americans who were already at war. At the beginning of September 1941, prior to the film’s release, producer Darryl F. Zanuck testified before a Senate subcommittee investigating Hollywood’s alleged violations of the Neutrality Act. 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
Lobby card printed on rectangular, off-white paper. The card has a white exterior border on all four sides and features a collage of images. On the right side of the card is a large, canted, blue rectangle. The film tile and credits are printed within the borders in yellow-and-white text. On the left side of the card, overlapping the blue rectangle, is a photograph of a man and woman in military uniforms. They are depicted from the shoulders up, embracing, and smiling at each other. The background in the top half is blue-green and contains illustrations of several warplanes in combat. The lower third of the card contains a collage of photographic images: black-and-white soldiers crossing a beach to a line of rowboats and a purple-toned a civilian and officer depicted from the shoulders up, as well as a man running in a flight suit. Spanning the bottom of the card is a narrow blue bar containing additional film credits in white text, with a few lines of copy in yellow-on-black in the bottom right corner. In the bottom margin, copyright and printing information is printed in small, blue text. On the back of the card is a red handstamp, and faint, smudged ink transfer from another image. The lobby card has slight wear and discoloration along the edges. Left to Right: Tyrone Power as Tim Baker, Betty Grable as Carol Brown, John Sutton as Wing Commander Morley, others unidentified
back, right, stamped, red ink : NATIONAL SCREEN SERVICE CORP. / 1627 BLVD. OF ALLIES / PITTSBURGH 19, PA
People
- Sutton, John, 1908-1963.
- Grable, Betty, 1916-1973.
- Power, Tyrone, 1914-1958.
Corporate Bodies
- Great Britain. Royal Air Force
- Great Britain. Women's Auxiliary Air Force
Subjects
- Women in motion pictures.
- Great Britain.
- Dunkirk, Battle of, Dunkerque, France, 1940--Fiction.
- Americans--Foreign countries--Fiction.
- Armed Forces in motion pictures.
- War films.
- Soldiers in motion pictures.
- International relations in motion pictures.
- United States.
- Action and adventure films.
Genre
- Object
- Posters
- Display cards.