Polish Posters | Those Wonderful Movie Cranks | Andrzej Krajewski

Those Wonderful Movie Cranks (Czech: Báječní muži s klikoui. Polish: Mezczyzni z Korbka) is a 1978 Czech comedy film directed by Jiří Menzel. Plot: At the beginning of the 20th century, a film projectionist tours through Bohemian villages and dreams of opening a cinema in Prague. He allies himself with a young cameraman (played by Jiří Menzel), who in turn has a dream: He longs for true-to-life films that deal with the reality of people. Menzel’s Those Wonderful Movie Cranks is one of the most beautiful tributes to the pioneers of the silent era, and the film is also a melancholic reflection on necessary concessions. The film was selected as the Czech entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 52nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. The film has also been referred to by the title Magicians of the Silver Screen. The poster artist Andre Krajewski (1933-2018) was a Polish expatriate who resided in the USA. His career spanned more than half a century, creating paintings and posters in his art-deco and pop art style. Krajewski was best known in Poland for his movie posters, a career he began in 1965, sometimes designing up to a dozen movie posters every year up until 1980. In 2005, he made a comeback with the Polish theater poster for Valentine’s Day. He wrote a novel in the late 2000s, Skyliner, titled after a Charlie Barnet hit, about trying to escape from the Iron Curtain in the early 1950s. In the USA, he was the official artist for the 1997 Panasonic Jazz Festival and created the New York Film Academy painting which could be seen on countless Academy posters and ads around the nation.