OPERATION AMSTERDAM 1958 Peter Finch Eva Bartok ERIC PULFORD TRADE ADVERT

Original British 11 inch x 8 1/2 inch Trade Advertisement from Kinematograph Weekly for the 1958 Michael McCarthy War Film OPERATION AMSTERDAM, based on a true story as described in the book “Adventure in Diamonds” by David E Walker and starring Peter Finch, Eva Bartok, Tony Britton, Alexander Knox, Malcolm Keen, Christopher Rhodes, Alfred Burke, Carl Jaffe, John Horsley, Melvin Hayes, Oscar Quitak, George Pravda and John le Mesurier.

Stark WWII adventure dramatising a real Whitehall-backed operation to smuggle industrial diamonds out of Amsterdam before the advancing Nazis overrun the city.

Poster design 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.

The Advertisement is in very good condition.