Here we have it: the ur-text of Swedish exploitation, the most internationally successful Swedish film of all time (at least until Lena Nyman showed it all in I Am Curious Yellow), our greatest director's most popular work: I give you Ingmar Bergman's Sommaren Med Monika (Summer with Monika), re-titled, re-cut, and re-imagined by exploitation master Kroger Babb as Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl!
Barcelona is not only notable for its great Gaudi architecture and proximity to the Sitges Film Festival, it also has one of the best movie poster shops in Europe! Groucho y Yo have a nice storefront in an accessible part of the city, and also sell on eBay under the name fantomas38000. They have a nice variety of items from all over the world, but are particularly noteworthy for a well-organized selection of European and Mexican trash along with regular horror from Hammer and others. Here are some pics from a visit a few years ago...
I was even allowed to take a peek in the warehouse where thousands upon thousands of posters, lobbycards, pressbooks and other items are neatly stored!
The Internet has all but destroyed the market for "brick-and-mortar" poster shops, but there are still a few left across the world, and nothing can beat the feeling of looking though hundreds of great posters in piles and on the walls of a really great shop. In Tokyo, the best deals can be had at Nakano Broadway, the "collector's supermall" a few stops outside the JR Yamanote line, or in second-hand shops at Jimbocho, the bookshop district. But for a high-class shopping experience, go no further than the Akasaka Cinematheque! A venerable store run by several generations of poster lovers, it has a great ambiance and is worth a visit, even though the stock does not seem to be changing a lot lately. But if you have time to sit down with their catalogs and you are bound to find a few gems, both Japanese and international. Beware that it is very hard to find as there is no sign of the shop outside the building - unless you read Japanese!
Here are some snaps from my New York holiday last year. We stumbled on an enormous warehouse/shop in Tribeca, with an absolutely incredible collection of linenbacked posters - movies, advertising, theatre and so on. I can't recall the name of the place, and they did not have any prices easily available (probably out of my league anyway) but it was a really cool place to visit, a poster collector's dream... check it out!
