“Summertime” (恋情), Original Japanese First-Release Movie Poster 1955, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) ZA134

This is an original Japanese B2 poster printed for the first Japanese release of Summertime (恋情), David Lean’s luminous Venice-set romance starring Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Isa Miranda, and Darren McGavin. Based on Arthur Laurents’s play The Time of the Cuckoo, the film is one of Lean’s most elegant non-epic works and remains especially admired for Hepburn’s deeply vulnerable performance and its evocative location photography in Venice.

Film background
Released in 1955, Summertime follows Jane Hudson, an American secretary on holiday in Venice whose long-awaited trip turns into a bittersweet romantic awakening. The film was directed by David Lean from a screenplay developed from Laurents’s play, and it earned Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Actress. Over time it has become recognised as one of the great romantic dramas of the 1950s, and Lean himself later described it as the film into which he had put more of himself than any other.

Poster design
This is a superb and highly elegant Japanese first-release design. The composition is split dramatically between a large monochrome close-up of Hepburn at right and a clean white panel at left carrying the bold red Japanese title, smaller colour inset scenes, and the English Summertime artwork. The result is unusually refined and modern, with far more graphic restraint than many contemporary romance posters. That balance between Hepburn’s emotional intensity and the clean, spacious design gives the sheet a distinctive sophistication and makes it an exceptionally attractive display piece for collectors of classic Hollywood and vintage Japanese poster art.

Condition
Very Good / Excellent. Please review the photos—they show the exact poster for sale. 

It is almost 70 years old!

It is not a reproduction or a reprint.

Certificate of Authenticity included.