Italian Billboard (192" x 80") ;
Very Fine Folded; Artwork by Ercole Brini
Paramount, 1954

This spectacular Italian billboard from director Michael Curtiz's beloved holiday musical romance was printed on six sheets in a horizontal format which mimick's the film's "VistaVision" widescreen process. This example is folded and displays very mild fold wear with sporadic separation and toning and light edge wear on various sheets. The upper left panel displays separation along one complete fold. It will make for a magnificent display with almost life-size images that literally burst from the screen!

What is VistaVision? In the early 1950s, as television became more popular, cinema attendance began to dip. However, everything changed with the groundbreaking 1952 film, "This Is Cinerama," which dazzled audiences with its incredible visuals, achieved using three synchronized projectors. This inspiring success motivated studios to rethink how they showcased films. Twentieth Century Fox took the lead with CinemaScope, introducing an anamorphic lens that beautifully stretched images. Other studios soon followed this trend, but Paramount Pictures decided to take a unique route. Their talented engineers innovated a technique that involved running film through a horizontal camera, effectively capturing images across two frames. This remarkable approach yielded a larger negative, resulting in stunning high definition and immersive stereo sound, all while using standard film stock. Paramount proudly named this system VistaVision, making its debut with the beloved film "White Christmas" on October 14, 1954. This festive classic became the highest-grossing film of that year, raking in an impressive $12 million domestically and establishing itself as a cherished musical.