They Won't Forget, U.S. Re-release One Sheet
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 41.000 inches (104.14 cm) | Width: 27.000 inches (68.58 cm)
Creator(s)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
- Warner Bros. Pictures (Production Company)
- Dominant Pictures Corporation (Distributor)
Biographical History
The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles.
Archival History
The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur
Scope and Content
One-sheet, re-release poster for the American feature film, “They Won’t Forget,” originally released in the United States in 1937, and re-released in 1957. Lena Turner only appeared briefly on screen, but when the film was re-released 20 years later, she had become a big enough star that she was given top billing and featured on the marketing materials. “They Won’t Forget” was adapted from the 1936 novel, “Death in the Deep South,” which author Ward Greene based on the 1913 trial of Leo Frank. Frank was a Jewish man wrongly convicted of murdering a 13-year-old girl who worked at the factory he managed. Frank was sentenced to death, but after being commuted to a life sentence by Georgia’s governor in 1915, he was lynched by an angry mob. Rather than directly referencing the only Jewish lynching victim in American history, the creators of “They Won’t Forget” changed the defendant to a professor from the North who works in a small Southern town that is resentful of Northerners and proud of its Confederate history. While both Frank and his fictional counterparts were framed as a result of discrimination, it remains unknown who actually committed the murders. The re-release of the film was set against worsening racial tensions and the Civil Rights movement. In the South, the conflict over integration spawned increased violence towards Jews. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Restrictions on use. Copyright status is unknown.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Poster printed on a rectangular sheet of lightweight, off-white paper, featuring a large, sepia-toned photographic image of a woman. In the upper three-quarters of the poster is a rectangular frame, formed by four, thick, disconnected black lines. The line on the left side overlays the image of the woman, who is shown from the shoulders up, and has curled, light colored hair and large earrings. Her mouth is slightly open and her eyes are wide-open as she looks down and to the right at a scene depicting a lynching. Above the image of the woman is a line of large, red advertising copy with several lines of additional black advertising copy below and to the right of the image. Spanning the width of the rectangle and overlaying the bottom of the woman’s image is a red, diagonal banner with brushed ends. Within is the film title in large, white block text. Beneath the banner, in the bottom left corner of the rectangle, are the names of two cast members in black. In the bottom right corner of the rectangle is a black sketch of a crowd of people in a semicircle around a long-branched tree, watching another person being lynched. Light black shading extends from the sketch, beneath the bottom line of the rectangle, almost to the bottom edge of the poster. In the bottom left corner of the poster is the printing information in tiny black text. The poster has a long, vertical crease and three evenly spaced horizontal creases, as well as small tears along the edges. There is a large tear at the bottom center Depicted: Lana Turner as Mary Clay
back, lower right, cursive and handwritten, black ink and colored pencil : They won’t forget / 6/443
People
- Briggs, Donald, 1911-1986.
- Hines, Wilmer, 1912-1960.
- Rains, Claude, 1889-1967.
- Sullivan, Elliott, 1907-1974.
- Norris, Edward, 1911-2002.
- Bardette, Trevor, 1902-1977.
- Turner, Lana, 1921-1995.
Corporate Bodies
- Warner Bros. Pictures (1923-1967)
Subjects
- Film adaptations.
- Actors and actresses.
- Black and white films.
- Murder in motion pictures.
- Discrimination in motion pictures.
- United States.
Genre
- Posters.
- Posters
- Object