Black Friday film poster – Boris Karloff Bela Lugosi – 1940

Poster: Black Friday film poster – 1940

Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi will eternally be remembered for their horror roles as Frankenstein and Dracula. However, the two stars made at least 85 films between them, eight of which together, including The Black Cat, The Raven, Son of Frankenstein,  The Body Snatcher, and the 1940 film this vintage film poster promoted, Black Friday.

Black Friday is a science fiction gangster movie. It was Produced by Burt Kelly and  Directed by Arthur Lubin. The black and white movie moivie stars Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Stanley Ridges. According to Wikipedia Universal initially cast Lugosi as the doctor and Karloff as the professor.

In an interview, Curt Siodmak said of Boris Karloff, “Karloff didn’t want to play the dual role in Black Friday. He was afraid of it. There was too much acting in it. It was too intricate.” Karloff instead demanded – and obtained – Bela Lugosi’s role, a part that had been specially written for him. Karloff’s insistence inexcusably left the Hungarian actor to play a then poorly cast, minor role as an American gangster, instead of being given Karloff’s dual role which instead went to Stanley Ridges.

On Wikipedia there is a paragraph that quotes Diabolik magazine in 2019. It perfectly sums up the drama. “Stanley Ridges plays a part clearly meant for Karloff with Karloff playing a role that should have been played by Lugosi and Lugosi being wasted in a part that could have been played by anyone. Brilliant!

If everyone had played their correct roles the film, maybe it could have been a classic. The film achieves a 6.3 out of 10 rating on the IMDb website. This may be a classic case of the poster being much better than the film. And it is a great poster. An original copy sold for more than $7,000 back in 2018.   

Our posters are carefully and professionally created from vintage originals. Whilst great care is taken in the production of these posters, we also try to maintain a vintage feel, so there may be small imperfections, fold marks, scuffs, tears or marks that were part of the original poster master. If these do appear they should be visible on the larger views of the item on this listing. The originals of many of the posters we offer can cost many thousands of pounds, so whilst these posters look great, especially framed and mounted on a wall, they are intended as a fun, affordable reproductions and not intended fine art prints.

The 50x70cm version has been specially produced to be used in conjunction with Ikea’s 50x70cm Ribba picture frame which currently retails for around £12. So you can bag a bargain of print and poster for just £22.