• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
UT Shield
Ransom Center Magazine
  • Sections
    • View All Articles
    • Art
    • Authors
    • Books + Manuscripts
    • Conservation
    • Digital Collections
    • Exhibitions + Events
    • Film
    • Literature
    • Photography
    • Research + Teaching
    • Theatre + Performing Arts

January 18, 2018, Filed Under: Film, Research + Teaching

Decades of movie poster history go online

Explore the Harry Ransom Center, search digital collections, or plan your visit.

It is difficult to envision the sheer volume of the Movie Poster Collection at the Harry Ransom Center. The collection encompasses upwards of 10,000 posters and spans decades: from when the film industry was just beginning to compete with vaudeville acts in the 1920s to the rise of the modern megaplex and drive-in theaters in the 1970s. The sizes range from that of a small window card to that of a billboard.

Even with the large volume of posters, the collection contains many images that stay with the viewer, often through bold, bright colors that have not lost their luster. Some are simple designs, like the poster for West Side Story (1961), with its a bright orange-red background over the title with a silhouette of a fire escape with dancers. Others are more complex, like Africa Texas Style! (1967), which features a realistic image of the protagonist on a horse, lassoing a zebra in front of a stampede of wildebeest, elephants, and giraffes all set against the backdrop of a mountain.

Black Angels, Date: 1970, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
Festival Girls, Date: Unknown, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
The 300 Spartans, Date: 1962, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
The She Beast; The Embalmer (double feature), Date: 1966, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
The Cobweb, Date: 1955, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
Africa Texas Style! , Date: 1967, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
The Magnificent Seven Ride, Date: 1972, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
The Black Six, Date: 1974, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
Terror At Midnight, Date: 1956, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection
West Side Story, Date: 1961, size: 27x41 inches, from the Interstate Theater Collection

The movie posters collection is currently part of an ambitious digitization project. Each of the 10,000 posters is first transferred to the photography studio and metadata is gathered from the poster to create a database record. Once the poster is correctly aligned with the camera, the height of the camera is adjusted to fit the poster size, and then a high definition photo of the poster is taken. The photographer checks the image for fidelity to the original for preservation purposes and then derivatives are made for the online collection. Handled carefully, the poster is returned to its folder and the whole process starts again.

That process, in short, is what project librarian Lauren Walker and a team in the photography studio, Pete Smith and Jackie Mann, have been working on since late last year. Though this project is ongoing, the first set of digitized posters is now available for anyone to see online. Thus far, 4,000 posters have been cataloged, photographed, and will incrementally be made accessible online.

Jackie Mann digitizes film posters for the online collection.

These posters come from four collections within the Ransom Center, the largest of these being the Interstate Theatre Circuit collection. This collection originated from Karl Hoblitzelle’s entertainment production company of the same name. The Interstate Circuit was one of the most significant Texas exhibition chains, with over 150 theaters in Texas by the mid-1940s. The company was integral to introducing the theater as a center for family friendly, community activity as opposed to the more adult reputation garnered elsewhere by vaudeville theatres.

The digitization of these posters allows greater access while preserving their condition. Making the pieces available online also allows for remote access, easier exploration of the entire collection and provides greater opportunities for research with these materials. The rest of the Movie Poster Collection is expected to be digitized by the end of 2018 or early 2019.

About Erin Willard

Willard is an undergraduate intern working with public affairs for the 2017-2018 academic year.

Primary Sidebar

Print Edition

Ransom Center Magazine Spring 2025

Search

Recent Posts

  • Winners Announced for 2025 Schuchard Prize
  • Fellowships Awarded to 46 scholars
  • Benjamin Gross Appointed Associate Director of Research Services at the Harry Ransom Center
  • Celebrating Gabriel García Márquez’s Global Journey: Q&A with the Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia
  • De Macondo al Mundo. Una celebración del recorrido global de Gabriel García Márquez
  • Lorne Michaels Lands at the Ransom Center
  • Literature and Change: Flair Symposium 2024
  • Mark Sainsbury on W. S. Merwin
  • Nancy Cunard in the Studio
  • Visualizing the Environment: Ansel Adams and His Legacy
  • Freedom to Write, Freedom to Read: The Story of PEN
  • Milton in Phoenix

Archive

Footer

© Harry Ransom Center 2025
Site Policies
Web Accessibility
Web Privacy

UT Home | Emergency Information | Site Policies | Web Accessibility | Web Privacy | Adobe Reader

© The University of Texas at Austin 2025