FALSE PRETENSES (1935) Title Card Irene Ware, Sidney Blackmer & Betty Compson

Description

Vintage original 11x14 in. US title lobby card
from the 1930's poverty row comedy/romance,
FALSE PRETENSES
, released in 1935 by the Chesterfield Motion Picture Corporation and
directed by Charles Lamont
. A girl (Irene Ware) who's just lost her job meets a drunk millionaire (Sidney Blackmer) on a bridge who's just lost his money. They go back to his house and eventually come up with a plan to benefit them both: he'll scrounge enough money together to teach her how to be a lady and then introduce her to his rich friends so she can snag a husband, after which she'll pay him a finder's fee.
The image is dominated by a close shot of the film's two leads,
Irene Ware
and
Sidney Blackmer
in the right half which is
complimented
against a dark green background with an Art Deco-inspired design to the right of it along the right border. The popular silent era leading lady
Betty Compson
is depicted in the lower left portion skeptically watching
Russell Hopton
threaten the much larger
Edgar Gargan
with his fist. The film's title is featured at the top in large dark orange lettering which is outlined with yellow and back. The Chesterfield company logo (which features a silhouette of a mid-19th century man wearing a large top hat with two motion picture film reels beneath him on either side) is depicted in the bottom right corner inside a red and yellow patterned design.
This vintage original title lobby card is unrestored in fine+ condition with a light water stain in the top left corner that runs along the left border in a 0.25 in. wide line to almost the bottom of the card; a light horizontal dust shadow beneath the edge of the top border with a 1.75 in. area of wear along the top edge in the right half; and slightly rounded bottom corners.
There are no pinholes, tears, or other flaws.
The beautiful color tints are as fresh and vibrant as when this card was printed in 1935.
Chesterfield Motion Pictures Corporation,
generally shortened
to Chesterfield Pictures,
was an American film production company of the 1920's and 1930's. Its low-budget films were intended as second features which played on the lower-half of a double bill. The company was headed by George R. Batcheller and worked in tandem with its sister studio, Invincible Pictures, which was led by Maury Cohen. The company never owned its own studio and so rented studio space at a variety of other companies, including Universal Pictures and RKO.  It was one of a number of Poverty Row studios taken over by Herbert Yates in 1935 and merged into his newly-formed Republic Pictures in an attempt to create a dominant low-budget producer with enough power to take on the major studios. Republic was generally successful in achieving this over the next twenty years.