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Prices are in Australian dollars
Murayama Tomoyoshi. プロレタリア映画入門 [Puroretaria Eiga Nyumon]. Tokyo, Zen'ei Shobo 1928 (Showa 3), 19x13cm publisher's red wrapper with mounted label (wrapper colour patchy); [8],276pp, loose photo frontispiece, photo illustrations through the text. A nice copy in the original card slipcase. Au$600
First, only contemporary I'm sure, edition of Murayama's introduction to proletarian film - a literal translation of the title. By 1928 Mavo founder Murayama had already had one play banned and soon enough began the first of a series of arrests for troublemaking. Mavo, a determined regrounding of constructivism - which Murayama had brought back from Germany - in the concerns of real life, was both progenitor and, for a while, companion of specifically proletarian branches of the avant-garde: the Proletarian Art Academy and the Proletarian Art Federation, the Proletarian Film League ... . You will find Murayama's name in the histories of them all. He made films of course; infuriated architects by designing buildings; designed, wrote and directed plays; wrote novels, theory and criticism like this; painted and made collage constructions; and like many radical, or just outstanding, artists of his generation, made his living illustrating children's books and magazines.
It may seem trivial but even the title of this book, using the phonetic transcription of 'proletarian' was a modern typographic departure from the usual three character Kanji - musansha. Worldcat finds no copy of this outside Japan.
Shochikuza Theater. Revue des Revues. モンパリ [Mon Paris]. [Osaka], Shochiku-za Theater [1929]. Quarto (27x20cm), 4pp, outer pages in red and black, photo illustrations. sold
A svelte bit of typography and design, no? My first impulse is to want more legs but I decided that, as no doubt the designer did, that would be obvious, cute, camp, maybe even tawdry. The Shochikuza, built in Osaka in 1923, was Japan's first cinema devoted to foreign films and inspired and aspiring young designers did their publicity and newsletters.
This publicity sheet or programme is for the March 1929 debut of the French film, Revue of Revues - renamed Mon Paris in Japan, a panoply of Paris cabaret acts and show girls strung together with a disposable plot by Joe Francis. Long thought lost it has recently been reconstructed from rediscovered fragments and it is occasionally remarkable, not least for its partial colouring. There are three magical moments and two of them are Josephine Baker.
Paired with the Revue is the opening of what I think is Scarlet Seas (眞紅の海), a 1928 thriller starring Richard Barthelmess and Betty Compton.
JENKINS, C. Francis. Animated pictures. An exposition of the historical development of Chronophotography, its present scientific applications and future possibilities, and of the methods and apparatus employed in the entertainment of large audiences by means of projecting lanterns to give the appearance of objects in motion. Washington, C. Francis Jenkins 1898. Octavo publisher's green cloth; [8],xvi,118 and 20 pages of illustrated adverts including a chromolitho plate; photo plates and illustrations through the text. An nice copy. sold
When was the last time you saw a sale advertised in the back of a book? J.B. Colt of New York urges the readers of this book to "speak quick" to secure one of their magic lanterns or stereopticons at greatly reduced rates. I'm off the point I know. Jenkins seems a classic case of passed-over and sour grapes with both film and television. He doesn't even appear in Ceram's 'Archaeology of the Cinema' but historians have made good since then. Here Jenkins is already practicing the aggrieved tone that became more plangent later as he points out that prior to his machine - the Phantoscope - "there was not [another] machine in existence which would give illumination ... on a large screen" and that the machines that have since "sprung up like mushrooms in a night" all owe their existence to him.
Inoue Takeo. 子供活動写真双六 [Kodomo Katsudo Shashin Sugoroku]. Tokyo Shonen/Shoji Tankai 1927 (Taisho 16). Colour broadsheet 53x79cm. Some small holes and repairs to folds, a reasonable copy. On the back is an unusally exciting monochrome game - the bonus games put on the back rarely amount to much - a shadow game of battling monsters illustrated by Nakano Shoji. Au$500
This cinematic new year gift is from both boys' and girls' magazines, Shonen Tankai and Shoji Tankai. In love of movies at least, boys and girls are equal. Also equal in this game are Hollywood and Japanese cinema - given that Shirley is queen of all. But. Come to making your own movie and the girl gets to operate the camera while the boy directs.
Film - lobby card. Guerra Entre Planetas - Battle in Outer Space. n.p. [1959/60]. Colour poster 26x37cm. A small hole, a rather good copy. Au$150
Spanish language lobby card for the Japanese sci-fi thriller Uchu Daisenso released in English as Battle in Outer Space. This was no low budget shocker. This was a high budget, special effects extravaganza shocker with an international cast - at least three or four American nonentities were in it. This is my favourite of the various posters and lobby cards I've seen - the Japanese and American versions tried too hard to make the movie big budget serious.
見えざる手 [Miezaru Te] The Invisible Hand. Tokyo, Shunkodo 1921 (Taisho 10). Octavo publisher's colour colour illustrated wrapper; four photo illustrations on two plates. Stab holes indicating this had been in some outer binding; natural browning of the paper; an outstanding copy. Au$400
A pulpish film edition in Japanese translation of the 1920 Vitagraph serial thriller The Invisible Hand starring the then Latin idol Antonio Moreno. The serial was not, despite what some authorities will tell you, a western. The film itself is lost and from what I can figure out not much more than production credits and a list of chapter headings survives in English. This book is near as lost, I can't find any record of another copy.
By the mid fifties Moreno was a support in Creature from the Black Lagoon and an Indian chief in Saskatchewan.
百万弗の懸賞 $1000000 Reward [Hyakumandoru no Kensho]. Tokyo, Shunkodo 1920 (Taisho 1920). Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper printed in red and black and colour illustrated dustwrapper (the spine of this insect nibbled); two photo plates and illustrated title. Stab holes indicating this had been in some outer binding; natural browning of the paper; an outstanding copy. An owner's seal and brushed inscription inside the front cover and on the back cover suggests this is some kind of file copy. Au$475
A pulpish film edition in Japanese translation of the 1920 serial thriller $1,000,000 Reward starring Lillian Walker. The film itself is lost and from what I can figure out not much more than production credits and a partial list of chapter headings survives in English. This book is near as lost, I can find only one record of another copy - not in a library.
Shochikuza. Shochikuza News. Osaka, Shochiku 1931-32. Nine issues, 22x15cm publisher's colour illustrated wrappers; mostly four pages and covers. Au$500
A small, well chosen group. Shochiku, now part of the megafauna of Japanese entertainment, spread into film from Kabuki in 1920, built Japan's first western theatre in Osaka in 1923, and soon had a chain of cinemas showing foreign movies. This was their weekly news letter. I think the cover was shared but the contents were printed for each theatre. Inspired and aspiring young designers presumably worked on the usual terms: no credit and less money. There is quite a bit of remarkable anonymous graphic art of the twenties and early thirties with the Shochiku-za banner. Not all of it is good but what is can be fabulous. As the thirties progressed the adventurousness evaporated and by the mid-late thirties they looked like film magazines from anywhere.
WEIR, Hugh C. Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective. Boston, Page 1914. Octavo publisher's cloth with mounted colour illustration which is also the colour frontispiece; four photo plates. Slightly damaged owner's label inside the front cover; an excellent, bright copy. Au$300
First edition of this film tie in. Miss Mack, played by Alice Joyce, had already solved at least two cases on film and the four photo plates are of Alice Joyce at work. Miss Mack is of course young, beautiful, and a triumphant model for determined and clever young women who want to make good despite all obstacles.
