Posters: The withdrawn Carry On Cleo by Tom Chantrell (1964)
I bought this beauty at a second-hand bookshop at Willesden Green underground station in 1983.
I see from the pencil marking on the back it cost £2. Measuring 39″ x 20″, it turns out it is quite the rarity.
That’s because the design – by noted British film poster artist Tom Chantrell – was withdrawn after legal threats from Twentieth Century Fox on the grounds that it infringed their copyrighted promotional material for the film which COC spoofed, Cleopatra.
//Twentieth Century Fox artwork.//
The ire of Fox, which notoriously lost the farm over the Cleopatra budget, was probably piqued by the fact that the Carry On production occupied the UK set of the Taylor/Burton epic once filming of that project was complete and made free and full use of props which had been left behind.
Before COC was released, the Carry On crew relented and hastily substituted the artwork with a design by Ray Young. All but a very few posters with Chantrell’s original artwork were destroyed.
//Replacement artwork.//
Film & music specialist MEM is selling a 7″ x 9″ advert featuring Chantrell’s design from a movie magazine (which doubtless was unable to delay the print deadline at the time of the kerfuffle with Fox) but told me they had never seen or even heard of a poster like mine.