Original Autant-Lara, Claude Movie Posters

Claude Autant-Lara movie posters document the French studio-era director whose literary adaptations defined postwar popular cinema — a filmmaker whose polished literary adaptations and social comedies defined quality French cinema of the 1950s before the Cahiers du Cinéma critics mounted their challenge to the established tradition he represented.

Autant-Lara's work at the peak of his powers produced films of considerable sophistication and wit. Le Diable au corps (1947), adapted from Raymond Radiguet's autobiographical novel about a wartime love affair between a schoolboy and a soldier's wife, was one of the most controversial French films of the immediate postwar period — its ambivalent treatment of infidelity and its frank sensuality generating the censorship debates that surrounded French cinema's most adult work.

Le Blé en herbe (1954), another Colette adaptation, and La Traversée de Paris (1956), a darkly comic look at the Occupation, demonstrate the range within his literary period. French theatrical materials from his peak years — grandes affiches, panneaux, lobby materials — are documents of French studio graphic design at its most accomplished. The New Wave filmmakers who attacked his 'tradition of quality' were reacting against a real achievement, however flawed they found its premises.

Find original French theatrical prints from this studio-era French master.

Browse alongside nouvelle vague film posters and Paris film posters. All Film/Art Gallery movie posters and items are authenticated originals.