Bifold promotional material printed on white paper with a double-page advertisement spanning the center leaves when opened. The front and back pages have collages of black-and-white scene stills from a variety of films. The central advertisement features three, black-and-white, photographic images of the leading characters of three films. On the left is a soldier in a World War I-era field uniform, holding a rifle, with his head and rifle pointed to the right. In the center is an Air Force officer in three-quarter left profile, wearing a dress uniform, saluting, and holding a rectangular object in his left hand. The figure on the right is a young woman, posing in right profile. She is wearing a sailor’s cap, a short-sleeve cropped top with a sailor-style collar, a high-waist, striped mini-skirt with white stars, and pumps. The figures alternate with their respective film titles printed in large, black text. The titles and figures overlay a wavy banner with three stripes in red, white, and blue. Spanning the top of the advertisement is large, block text in red, blue, and dark blue listing three branches of the United States military. Across the bottom are a tagline in large, black block text and the film production company in red. The company logo is printed in black in the bottom right corner. Along the central fold are four pairs of staple holes, the staples now missing, which are stained with rust. Left to Right: Gary Cooper as Alvin C. York, Errol Flynn as Doug Lee, Ann Sheridan as Marge Jordan
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The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles.
The trade advertisement was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur.
Overall: Height: 11.000 inches (27.94 cm) | Width: 17.375 inches (44.133 cm)
Double-page British trade advertisement for Warner Bros. films, including “Sergeant York,” released in July 1941. Movie manufacturers send trade advertisements to exhibitors to increase the distribution of a film to as many theaters as possible. “Sergeant York” was the top grossing film of 1941 and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning two, for Best Film Editing, and Best Actor for Gary Cooper’s portrayal of the title character. The film was based on the life of Alvin York, a veteran of World War I who lived in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee. Initially a pacifist, whose registration as a conscientious objector was denied, York became a war hero during the battle of Argonne in October 1918. The real-life Alvin York won the Medal of Honor for his actions and became an international celebrity after the war. The film opened shortly after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and the theme of shifting from pacifism to active participation in the war mirrored the national interventionist debate in the months leading up to the US entry into World War II. In the years preceding the United States’ entry into the war, York became a well-known interventionist speaker, denouncing Hitler and antisemitism. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.
Trade advertisement for Warner Brothers films, including “Sergeant York” (1941)