Welcome to the world of Finnish movie posters!
If, like me, you enjoy the visual arts and are a bit of a movie-buff as well, collecting movie posters is an ideal way to satisfy both these needs at one and the same time.
In this post I will try to outline some of the important information you should know when it comes to adding Finnish posters to your collection. Lets start with one or two general factoids.
The Basics
Finland is a fairly large country but with a small population. Like most nations, that population is concentrated in its capital and a few other major towns and cities. Finland's own film industry was established as far back as 1907. For the purposes of this article I will be referring mainly to movies made outside of Finland, however.
The country has two official languages - Finnish and Swedish. Most movie posters created in Finland reflect this in their textual content, i.e. titles and information will be present in both Finnish and Swedish. It's not uncommon for Finnish movie posters to display the title of the movie in three languages altogether - Finnish (most prominently), Swedish (less prominent), and in its original language as well (small - you have to search for it usually).
The exception to this will be in cases where the movie title has not been translated at all - Truffaut's 'Farenheit 451', to give an example.
Design Influences
Accommodating 2 or even 3 different languages naturally influences the design element of the poster but is something at which Finland's graphic artists have excelled over the years and helps give Finnish movie posters their unique style. It also explains why Finnish posters usually do not simply replicate the design of, say, the American or British first-release poster. Most Finnish movie posters are, therefore, unique, in respect of the film which they advertise.
Poster Sizes
Most of the Finnish movie posters we sell are in the traditionally favored smaller formats, occasionally the B1 standard and particularly the smaller 16 x 24 inch format. Historically speaking, the larger US-style One Sheets (27" × 40") were inefficient for Finland's smaller cinemas, distribution networks and public transport spaces, so cinemas preferred and used the more practical, space-efficient 16x24 size (which roughly scales to the A2 dimension of 42 × 59.4 cm) for indoor and transit displays. This information is critical in understanding why many vintage Finnish movie posters were not folded.
Tour Posters
In addition to the front-of-house and cinema lobby posters we sell, our stock also includes a number of Finnish "tour posters". Once a new movie had completed its initial theatrical run in Helsinki and the major cities, they were made available for hire by independent cinemas and even smaller organisations in small towns or villages across the country. To accompany these screenings, distributors would commission tour posters - effectively a new edition of the first-release version - usually slightly narrower and provided with wide margins at the top and/or bottom of the sheet with printed headings for completion by hand: "Venue", "Date", "Time", "Ticket Price" etc. These might be displayed outside cinemas, village halls, at bus stops or in shop windows - or even on telegraph poles.
Unlike cinema posters, there was no expectation that these tour posters would be returned to the distributor and most would normally be trashed after use. Overstocking was likely to have been common. Nowadays it is difficult to find a used example in any kind of marketable condition but unused examples do surface - usually in near-pristine condition. It is perhaps a matter of taste but I do feel that they have a particular appeal - either used or not - as pieces of authentic movie memorabilia.
Folded vs Rolled
For many, if not most, movie-poster collectors, the absence of a folding crease in an original, vintage one-sheet or similar, are red flags concerning the item's age, suggesting it is more likely to be a modern reprint or even a reproduction. The same cannot fairly be said of vintage Finnish movie posters.
There are several reasons why a vintage Finnish poster - from as far back as the 1940's in our experience - might be rolled or lacking a folding-crease. In the first place, the smaller-sized formats of these posters lent themselves to efficient packaging and distribution in a flat or rolled condition. In Helsinki, the capital e.g. it is probable that on many occasions posters were actually delivered from the printers to a cinema by hand.
Secondly, many of these different, bespoke printers in Finland were small, local companies. Not all of these would have had or needed folding machines - fairly complex and expensive machinery at the time.
Thirdly, films that did not perform well at the box-office - for whatever reasons - would naturally lead to an overstock. Independent Finnish distributors frequently ordered print overruns from the lithograph or offset presses to ensure they had extras if posters were damaged. Unused, excess stock was kept rolled or flat in company archives. When these small independent distribution companies closed down or went bankrupt in later decades, their pristine, unfolded archival stock routinely found its way into the hands of private collectors and vintage shops.
The absence of a folding crease to a well-preserved, vintage Finnish movie poster, therefore, cannot - or perhaps should not - be an automatic red flag or considered negatively. Indeed, it is a very agreeable attribute.
All that being said, most of our vintage posters probably have folding creases!
Re-Screenings and Reprints
Finnish movie posters are no different from any other when it comes to distinguishing between first theatrical-release versions and those provided for re-screenings years later.
Paper quality is an important marker. Broadly speaking, vintage posters before the 1970's were printed in Finland on thinner, poorer quality paper with a matte finish, and the further you go back in time, the less robust the paper stock becomes. Posters printed from the early to mid-70's onwards use brighter, thicker, or glossier modern paper.
Strangers on a Train - an original Tour Poster from 1953
From the 1984 theatrical re-release
"La Dolce Vita" - the Tour Poster from the 1973 re-release. Often mistakenly identified as the original 1960 first-screening poster, the text actually states, '...one of the greatest movies of the '60's'
Look for stylistic differences in layout and illustration: re-release posters often reflect advances in printing technology as well as artistic approaches to subject-matter. Likewise, check the printed text - there are sometimes obvious clues if you take the time to translate the textual content on the poster.
Finally, check the excellent resources available at the Finnish National Audiovisual Institute for information about which movies have enjoyed re-screenings and new tours in Finland - and when.