New Postage Stamps Feature Silent Film Stars

[Sherri]

A newly released set of six postage stamps, created for the Isle of Man Post Office in honor of celebrated British novelist Hall Caine, features Barbara La Marr, Pola Negri, Anny Ondra, Richard Dix, Conrad Nagel, and Norman Kerry---silent film stars who appeared in adaptations of Caine's esteemed works!

Barbara La Marr's stamp commemorates her starring role in The Eternal City (1923), a film based upon Caine's bestselling 1901 novel of the same name. As the author of Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood, I was honored to have been asked to provide photos for Barbara's stamp, one of which (a portrait, not an image from the film) was chosen.

View and learn more about this exquisite collection of stamps here: http://www.glazierdesign.com/portfolio/hallcaine/ and https://www.iompost.com/stamps-coins/pr ... ay-cover-/.

[bigshot]

I remember when real attention was taken with the design of stamps. They looked like stamps, not stickers and they attempted to live up to the subject matter they were honoring. Those days seem to be past. Those are some of the laziest looking designs I've ever seen.

[Harold Aherne]

I think the stamps are quite attractive, more consistently so than the Al Hirschfeld caricatures issued in the US around 1994. I thought some of the caricatures were nicely done, but the Chaney stamp of course didn't represent how he actually looked and the Lloyd caricature was quite nondescript.

--HA

[silentfilm]

Here is my sheet of the Hirschfeld stamps...

[Big Silent Fan]

I think the stamps are quite attractive
--HA

Agreed. Can't speak for the other images, but Anny Ondra looks pretty much the same as she did when appearing in those two Hitchcock films. Interesting too that the stamp is available in The Isle of Man.

[missdupont]

I think they're great, and I believe they are taken from vintage portraits, so if you hate those, then you hate these. That Norman Kerry one I believe is by Freulich, and you know, he was such a terrible photographer.

[Thad Komorowski]

Other than the awful "chrome" effect on the Isle of Man header, they're nice. But it's hard to question anything about Hirschfeld, though.