Category Archives: Wanda/Loden

Yesterday, I found out that BFI has finally come to their senses and has begun to offer for sale prints of the wood/lino cuts made for Academy Cinema by Peter Strausfeld. According to this shyster (he sells backissues of Sight and Sound, the same ones that can regularly be found on ebay for only a few dollars, for as much as £35.00 a piece and he occasionally lists his magazines on ebay without a picture for equally absurd prices), Strausford (b. 1910) designed posters for Academy from some time after the second World War until his death in 1980.

A few years ago, I bought an original Strausford Academy print on ebay as a gift for a friend who I owed a major favor to. This print, listed on ebay as a poster, cost me something like $300, which, because of the vaguely-worded item description, I thought was a major rip off until the item (eventually) arrived in the mail. As I opened the shipping tube, I smelled the printer’s ink and realized that this wasn’t just some old poster that I had sunk far too much money in to. I seriously considered keeping this thing for myself but surprisingly I did the right thing and gave it to the person who I bought it for. The print, for Barbara Loden’s Wanda (see below), that I bought was originally one of one hundred but now is one of the first of thirty that BFI is offering on items ranging from a virtual index card to a jig saw puzzle.

Here are some of the other Strausfeld prints that BFI is offering. Obviously the site branded them with the BFI logo to prevent folks like me from reproducing them. Ignore that.

I recently obtained this French card promoting Barbara Loden’s 1970 film Wanda. I have no idea what the exact purpose of cards like these are, but it is seemingly some sort of promotional thing. I’ve seen dozens of cards like this one (for other movies) on ebay over the years. They are often listed as post cards but this is larger than a conventional post card and is loaded with writing on the back. I always assumed that these things were vintage but this one makes mention of Loden’s death in 1980 and also of the year 2003! (I speak no French so as to what exactly occurred in 2003 and how the by-then-dead Marguerite Duras figures into it can only be ascertained by a Frenchman I suppose). Anyway, here it is:

Also, Don DeLillo for some reason wrote a little piece about Wanda a few weeks back for the Guardian. Check it out here.

UPDATE: The DeLillo article has been removed. No fear. I have a copy of it printed somewhere and I will post it as soon as I find it.