08 April 2015

Cinémagazine-Edition

Cinémagazine-Edition was just a small publishing company located in Paris, France. But the publisher had a good reputation and the quality of its sepia star postcards from the 1920s and early 1930s are still mesmerizing.

Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris. Photo: James Abbe.

Betty Balfour
Betty Balfour. French postcard by Cinémagazine Edition, no. 84. Photo: Maull & Fox.

Régine Dumien
Régine Dumien. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 130.

Raquel Meller
Raquel Meller. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 165. Photo: J. Kruger.

Mistinguett
Mistinguett. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 175. Photo: P. Apers.

Lilian Gish
Lilian Gish. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 236.

Maciste
Maciste. French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 368. Bartolomeo Pagano aka Maciste in Maciste all'inferno (Guido Brignone, 1926).

Reginald Denny
Reginald Denny. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 334.

Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 356.

Harry Langdon
Harry Langdon. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 360. Photo: ...nons, Los Angeles (?).

Sepia brown tone


Cinémagazine-Edition or CE was the publisher of the film magazine of the same name, that was popular all over Europe. It was a weekly magazine that existed between 1921 and 1935. Among the authors were illustrious future directors like Marcel Carné, Jean Dréville and Robert Florey. Cinémagazine brought an attractive mix of attractive films and star iconography on the one side and more in-depth information, reviews, feature articles, on the other.

Like other publishers of film magazines, CE also produced film memorabilia such as hundreds of film star postcards. Cinémagazine-Edition published film postcards of both Hollywood stars and European stars in a sepia brown tone. At the end of the production the postcards also came in a lighter version and sometimes also the colour differed.

Most of the postcards contain studio portraits, but a few series of postcards have stills from popular films, such as the Hollywood spectacle Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo, 1925) and the French war drama Verdun, visions d'histoire (Léon Poirier, 1928)

All the Cinémagazine postcards were in a regular postcard format, and there were no other sizes and also no colorized merchandise.

A good identification is the company symbol, printed on each card on the lower left edge (a capital C containing a capital E). The complete name of the card collection was 'CINEMAGAZINE-EDITION, PARIS'. You can read that on the reverse side of each card, together with 'Made in France'.

The different card numbers were also on the front in the left corner. They counted from 1 (Norma Talmadge) to 1099 (Laurel and Hardy) and then from 2000 (David Newell) till 2113 (Claude Dauphin). In 1934 followed a 'Nouvelle serie' with a postcard of Marcelle Chantal as no. 1. This series contained about one hundred cards.

Most postcards were in a longish format. Some of the partners postcards were produced in a horizontal format. Most of the later postcards have a white frame around the photos.

Ramon Novarro and Frank Currier in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Ramon Novarro in Ben Hur. French postcard by Cinemagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 36. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Publicity still for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo, 1925).

Suzy Vernon
Suzy Vernon. French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 47.

Abel Gance
Abel Gance. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 473. Photo: publicity still for Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927), with Gance himself as Saint Just.

Desdemona Mazza
Desdemona Mazza. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 489. Sent by mail in 1928. Photo: Henry.

Renée Falconetti in La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
Renée Falconetti in La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc. French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 519.

Ivan Petrovich
Ivan Petrovich. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 581.

Olga Baclanova
Olga Baclanova. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 620. Photo: Paramount.

Thomy Bourdelle
Thomy Bourdelle. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 859. Photo: Paramount.

Marie Bell in La nuit est à nous
Marie Bell in La nuit est à nous. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 860.

Jeanne Helbling
Jeanne Helbling. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition (CE), Paris, no. 926.

This was the fourth post in a new series on film star postcard publishers. For earlier posts, see the links at right under the caption 'The Publishers'. Next Wednesday: the Dutch publisher JSA.

Source: Garbo Forever, Gallica and Cinema Players Postal Antiquities.

1 comment:

Werner Mohr said...

Hi,
in an advertisement from 1926 I read about photos in the size of 18x24,
there must have been more than a hundred. Would like to see a sample of
at least one photo.
A pity that only few informations exsist of the publishing companies,
thanksfor all you did in this respect.
Werner Mohr