Dwight Cleveland Collection of Argentine Film Posters

The Dwight Cleveland Collection of Argentine Film Posters includes 1,290 1-sheet movie posters representing international films from Spain, Italy, France, England, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Mexico, the U.S. and Argentina. According to Cleveland,these are the posters that were used for half a century to advertise films to cinema patrons starting in the 1930's through the 1980's.

The vast majority of the posters came from a single purchase made in the 1990s from a dealer in Buenos Aires; Cleveland bought 10 boxes “sight unseen.” As such, the posters provide a record of which films were distributed in Argentina during the 20th Century.

The posters are arranged alphabetically by title, though the titles are in a variety of languages including Spanish, English, Italian, French, German, and more. A note from the donor on the labeling: “The labeling was quite confusing [...] these are Argentinean posters from films originating in France, Greece, Italy, Sweden and the U.S. (among others). The conundrum was, do we label them by the Spanish title, the U.S. title or the indigenous country-of-origin title? In many cases the title on the poster didn't match the Spanish one we found in our research. Often times, lesser studio film titles were changed at the last minute when released in a foreign country and even with big studio films, copyright meant almost nothing. Also, sometimes the "translation" of the title onto the poster was inconsistent. The Spanish title might be assigned by an auteur and other times the title was translated by an inexperienced English/Spanish speaker.”

Although many of the posters are in excellent condition, most are printed on acidic paper and, as such, have tattered edges, rips and tears. Researchers should excercise caution when handling these oversize materials. The approximate dimension of each poster is 27”x41”.

Please click the following link to access a.pdf that includes thumbnail images of the collection access a .pdf that includes thumbnail images of the collection