JUMPING FOR JOY 1956 Frankie Howerd, Stanley Holloway, A.E. Matthews QUAD POSTER

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1956 John Paddy Carstairs Comedy JUMPING FOR JOY starring Frankie Howerd, Stanley Holloway, A.E. Matthews, Tony Wright, Alfie Bass, Joan Hickson, Lionel Jeffries, Susan Beaumont, Terence Longdon, Richard Wattis, Colin Gordon, Danny Green, Ewen Solon, William Kendall, Reginald Beckwith, Gerald Campion, Bill Fraser and Charles Hawtrey.

Willie Joy (Howerd) buys a greyhound and enters it in a major race, but discovers the dog has one paw in the grave. As our hero nurses the pooch back to health, he also gets mixed up with criminals who want to fix the race by doping dogs.

Poster art by Eric Pulford (1915 - 2005). Having taken life classes at Leeds College of Art for 5 years Pulford was apprenticed as a commercial artist in 1931 to Gilchrist Bros a process house of 24 staff. Leslie Whitchurch, a partner in a Leicester based agency and also a part-time publicity manager for Rank, became aware of Pulford’s work and asked him to do some freelance work for him. Then in 1943 Rank invited Pulford to start a publicity department for them in London resulting in posters for “Henry V”, “Odd Man Out” and “Oliver Twist”. When the head of Downtons advertising agency, Charles Collins, died, Pulford was asked to take over. He became chairman and managing director but still spent most of his time designing posters. He retired in 1986. Pulford is responsible, either through his own artwork or design, for several hundred posters, some for classic films such as the ones already mentioned plus “Edge of the World”, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, “Genevieve”, “Reach for the Sky” and “A Night to Remember”. He is, without doubt, the most important force in British film poster design from the mid-1940s to the early 1980s.

Printed by Charles & Read Ltd., London & Harlow

The poster is in very good folded condition with corner pinholes.