POSTER: MICHAIL DLUGACH (1893-1983) [THE VICTORY OF BROWNSVILLE.] 1925. 42x27 inches.

MICHAIL DLUGACH (1893-1983) [THE VICTORY OF BROWNSVILLE.] 1925.
42x27 3/4 inches.
Condition A-: faint stain in left image; creases in image. Framed.
Mikhail Dlugach was one of the giants of avant-garde Soviet film poster design in the 1920s and 1930s. At Reklam Film, the state-run film poster design department, Dlugach worked along side such renowned designers as the Stenberg Brothers, Nikolai Prusakov and Grigori Borisov and designed over 500 posters himself. Here he is promoting the Russian release of Thomas H. Ince's 1919 movie "The Busher." The movie is about a small town boy (the actor Charles Ray) whose skill as a baseball prodigy lands him in the big leagues (the St. Paul Pink Sox!). His fame goes to his head and he resolutely and rudely turns his back on his past. By the end of the film he has fallen from grace as a sports superstar and returns, humbly to Brownsville, with the hope that his former friends will accept him back. Using America's favorite past-time on a Soviet movie poster would probably have been ideologically unacceptable during the Cold War, but in the 1920s, managed to pass the censors.