In today’s world of fulls of feeds, streams, aggregators, etc. etc. etc. the attention given to single thumbnail images has never been so high, and yet so brief. For this reason it’s nice to see a small group of classic filmmakers memorialized with small little images that still retain some kind of feeling of permanence and weight that will last longer than there few dozen tumblr reblogs… on stamps!
For any hybrid nerds out there whose venn diagram of geekery includes two overlapping circles labeled “movies” and “stamp collecting,” you can now purchase a set of four stamps that immortalize the mugs of Frank Capra, John Ford, Billy Wilder, and John Huston, along with a small glimpse into one of each of their classic films. They’re “forever” stamps, so if you have a special letter of package to send to a fellow film nerd, they might even be useful as actual postage (that will always be good for a first-class letter, regardless of what price stamps one day reach).
If you’d like to read more, I’ve included the USPS blurb about the stamps below, from the page where you can buy a set, right here.
These Great Film Directors (Forever®) stamps honor four great filmmakers who captured the many varieties of the American experience. Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, and Billy Wilder created some of the most iconic scenes in American cinema. They gave audiences an unforgettable (and in some cases, deeply personal) vision of life.
These four filmmakers received multiple Academy Award nominations, 15 Oscars, and numerous other honors during their lifetimes. But their greatest accomplishment lies in the vitality and artistry of the stories they told through film. The stamp art combines a portrait of each man with a scene from one of his most iconic works.
The background art for the stamp honoring Frank Capra shows a scene from It Happened One Night, a comedy in which a runaway heiress (played by Claudette Colbert) and a reporter (Clark Gable) compare their hitchhiking skills.
For the John Ford stamp, the background recalls a scene from The Searchers, an influential Western starring John Wayne and making Ford’s characteristic use of the American landscape.
The Maltese Falcon inspired the background art for the John Huston stamp. In this classic mystery, gumshoe Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) goes up against various unscrupulous characters (among them Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet).
And for Billy Wilder, the background artwork was inspired by Some Like It Hot, a farce about two male musicians (Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis) who seek refuge from gangsters by posing as members of an all-girl band featuring luscious singer Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe).
Art Director Derry Noyes designed these stamps using art by award-winning illustrator Gary Kelley, who created the images using pastels on paper.
The Great Film Directors stamps are being issued as Forever stamps in self-adhesive sheets of 20 (5 of each design). Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate.
Made in the USA.
Issue Date: May 23, 2012
via /Film