MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL 1951 T.S. Eliot, Peter Strausfeld UK 20x30 POSTER

Original British 20 inch x 30 inch Double Crown Poster for the 1951 George Hoellering Drama MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL based on the play by T.S. Eliot and starring Father John Grosner as Thomas a Becket, Alexander Gauge as King Henry II, David Ward, George Woodbridge, Mark Dignam, Michael Aldridge, Leo McKern and Paul Rogers.

The poster art is by Peter Strausfeld for which he won a special prize for best production design at the Venice Film Festival in 1951. Strausfeld was interned in the Isle of Man at the Onchan Internment Camp during the War where he met the Austrian producer George Hoellering. In 1947 Hoellering opened the Academy Cinema on Oxford Street and invited Strausfeld to produce some posters for the cinema which he did in wood and lino-cuts till his death in 1980.

The Academy Cinema, built in 1913, was saved from conversion to a shopping arcade in 1928 by Elsie Cohen of the original Film Society, who proceeded to run it as an arthouse which is how it was ran till it's closure in 1986.

The posters became a London landmark, in fact very few were used outside of London, resulting in very small print runs of 3-500.

Poster printed by The Westminster Press, London W.9.

The poster is in fine unfolded (rolled) condition.