The Cinema is back. The box office
is booming with the biggest audiences for more than thirty years, attracted by
a succession of blockbusters. But admissions are never going to regain the
dizzy heights of the 1930s when the silver screen reigned supreme. So let's
turn back the clock to 1935 when some of the greatest stars of all time were
pulling in crowds of fifty million or more a week at palatial Odeons and
Gaumonts round the country, the year when our set of the month for August, 48
colour pictures of Stars of Screen and Stage, were released by Gallaher with
“Park Drive Cigarettes”.
We see Gary Cooper (educated in England, and a newspaper cartoonist
before taking up acting), George Robey (music hall's Prime Minister of Mirth),
Ronald Colman (born in Richmond, Surrey, and a seaside pierrot before films),
Beatrice Lilley with her unique gift of humour and mimicry, Florence Desmond
(no stranger to collectors because of the Carreras Film Stars series bearing
her name), the Houston Sisters (Renee was in radio's “The Petticoat
Line” until the late 1980s), Jack Hulbert whose name is inseparably
associated with his equally popular wife Cicely Courtneidge, Bebe Daniels who,
like Ginger Rogers (also in this set) made her name in “42 Street”
and is remembered with affection for her role in radio's “Life With the
Lyons” with husband Ben Lyon, Edith Evans (the marvellous Lady
Windermere), the great comic partnership Laurel & Hardy and many more. Pure
nostalgia.
This set of Gallaher's
48 Stars of Screen and Stage (green back) 1935 in very good condition is
catalogued at £30.
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