Valance And Circus Herald Terminology Rarely Used.

HONDO

Zombies Of The Stratosphere ( 1952 ). I looked at images of the original U.S. pressbook  for this Republic Pictures serial and noticed a couple of things that, to my knowledge, I had ever noticed anywhere before. The banner pictured above was advertised as a valance and the herald was called a circus herald.

I then proceeded to contact Matt at eMovieposter.com, where the pressbook came from. After conferring with Bruce Matt kindly sent me the following information as follows - ''I talked to Bruce about these and he says that Universal and Republic both produced ''circus heralds''. We're not certain where the name came from, but we are guessing circuses created heralds in that size and the studios stuck with the name when they tried them. Valances were created out of silk, satin and of course ''gorgeous rayon silkolene''. The name came from '' a short ornamental piece of drapery placed across the top of a window or bed frame'' ( I had to look that up!). We're no certain what the film industry considers a ''valance'' as apposed to a normal banner. In our records, I can only find one other mention and that was a banner for the 1936 film Golden Arrow.That one was 40'' tall ( deep' ) but no length given. Zombies was 3' x 9''.  I am thankful for the information that Matt and Bruce provided and for allowing me to reproduce it here. 

           

The Golden Arrow ( 1936). The title Matt mentioned above is A Warner Brothers film and in this case is also mentioned as being silkolene but it doesn't appear with a curtain looking feature.

CSM_2_Point_0

"gorgeous rayon silkolene"

Bruce

I think what we (and all other oldtimers) call "silk banners" are really "silkolene banners". They obviously were not made of real silk, and the material has a very distinctive feel to it.

Most of them are incredibly rare. We have only auctioned around 40 of them over the years. Many of those were from one incredible find, which we auctioned on 12/6/15. See them here: http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/search/silk%20banner/archive.html

Eisenhower

CSM_2_Point_0 said:

"gorgeous rayon silkolene"

Costanza....one of my tv favorites!!! 

Wil

Bruce said:

I think what we (and all other oldtimers) call "silk banners" are really "silkolene banners". They obviously were not made of real silk, and the material has a very distinctive feel to it.

Most of them are incredibly rare. We have only auctioned around 40 of them over the years. Many of those were from one incredible find, which we auctioned on 12/6/15. See them here: http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/search/silk%20banner/archive.html

 Nice to see Star Wars topping the list