CINEMA CONNECTION

Julie Peakman’s article in the November issue about the cinema industry during the Second World War caught my attention, because I have been researching the history of a family firm that played a key role in film advertising at this time.

The Allardyce Palmer Advertising Agency was formed in 1933 by my grandfather, Charles Bailey, and his friend Harry Palmer. They set up offices in Central London in the same office block as Bateman Artists, a firm of commercial artists founded by Bill Bateman around 1928. Close links quickly developed between the two firms, and Bateman Artists soon supplied many of the drawings for advertisements commissioned by clients of Allardyce Palmer.

In 1936, the film studios of Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox became clients of Allardyce Palmer. They were to design all of the posters seen outside cinemas as well as those for hoardings, and were responsible for placing advertisements in local and national newspapers. Posters designed for the USA releases of films could not be used in the UK because the format was different – portrait and landscape respectively – so new designs were required for British releases. The link-up between Bateman, which premiered in the new Odeon Leicester Square in 1939. The article included what appears to be the British poster for the Warner Brothers film , which would have been a product of this collaboration.