Film Posters of the 30s: The Essential Movies of the Decade

Nourmand, who owns London's Reel Poster Gallery, and Marsh, a designer and art director, have compiled a lovely array of posters from movies of the 1930s. Among the book's treasures are full-page reproductions of the poster for the French Wizard of Oz, with a gallant Dorothy strutting toward the Emerald City with her cartoonish sidekicks behind her; the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, done in an abstract wash of color, with Groucho's signature cigar clearly visible; and It Happened One Night, which shows Clark Gable gazing longingly at the stunning Claudette Colbert. An introductory essay serves as the book's only text; after that, Nourmand and Marsh organize the posters loosely by genre: romance, adventure, comedy, war. Although the book lacks a table of contents, a rear index lists the 110 films alphabetically.