A nice pair

Rabid readers have probably seen these guys before, but I finally got around to framing them and putting them up on the wall in the living room!


These posters are special for me for several reasons. Both are linenbacked and restored by Dario Casadei, whom I wrote about some time ago (here and here). Grodorna is the Swedish 1972 release of AIP's "nature revenge" shocker Frogs (actually, very few frogs are seen), and was one of the first posters I ever bought - found in a pile of trash in a junk shop in Gothenburg in the mid-80s. This pile actually included over 20 posters, Swedish and American, for Hammer films, rock'n'roll, nudist and animal horror films from the 60's and 70's. I negotiated fiercely with the owner (who, like such people always do, claimed the posters were immensely valuable, but that the really great ones had been sent to be photographed and disappeared in the mail!) and finally got the whole kit for about $15.

This pile has followed me along many moves, most of them have been thumb-tacked to walls in one flat or the other, and Grodorna being one of the favorites deteriorated accordingly. But thanks to Dario it is now spiff and looking spankin' new again and has finally found it's dignified place!


I Draculas klor is the Swedish 1970 release of Hammer's classic Dracula. It is also out of a pile, this one found on a Swedish auction site a few years ago. Some of the posters in this batch were completely destroyed (seemed to have been sitting in a barn somewhere) but thankfully Dracula had only minor damages. The artist is Hans Arnold, who is well-known in Sweden for his thousands of delightfully horrific illustrations for magazines and books. He made very few movie posters, and as far as I know, never made any illustrations specifically for the movies - they were all originally published in books, magazines or other places. The ones I know of are Steven Spielberg's debut, Duel; Disney's Escape to Witch Mountain; and most exciting for me, Breaking Point, Bo Arne Vibenius' "follow-up" to Thriller - A Cruel Picture! If anyone in the world can find me the the last one, eternal gratitude and quite a lot of money will be yours...