GRAPHIC DETAIL
THE BEST POSTERS OF 1918
HIS MAGAZINE IS FULL OF 2018 LISTS, SO I THOUGHT I’D GO back in time and consider the posters of 1918. The abiding impression one gets from looking is one of the more stylized of the era. The majority of posters were as star-centric as they are today, with names above (and usually larger than) the title, and in 1918 Theda Bara and Douglas Fairbanks were among Hollywood’s brightest stars. Considering that, as MoMA curator Dave Kehr notes, “the late 1910s are probably the worst-preserved period in American film history,” a remarkable number of posters have survived where the films have not (, , and John Ford’s are all lost films). The six-sheet poster (nearly seven feet high) for the special-effects sensation is an extraordinary piece for a film that reportedly ran only 18 minutes.
