Polish bloc prints

WHEN Poland was absorbed by the Communist bloc after World War II, the country’s private film companies and exhibitors were nationalized into just one distribution chain.

That era, though, became one of the most creative times for the country’s graphic artists, who were enlisted to design posters for foreign films. An exhibition at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum, “Street Art: Classic Polish Film Posters,” features 40 examples of the highly collectible work, designed in the 1950s through ‘70s by such noted artists as Wojciech Zamecznik, Jerzy Treutler, Romuald Socha and Hanna Bodnar. The exhibition comes from the private collections of producers Charles Evans and Gale Anne Hurd.

It was a lack of funds that led Poland’s sole film outlet to call on the country’s graphic artists. The exhibition chain, says curator Chris Horak, needed hard-to-come-by currency to buy films from Western countries. “They would usually buy the films after they were several years old,” he explains. “They wouldn’t buy the publicity materials, so they would make their own because it was cheaper to hire their own people. They had graphic arts studios that they would contract to do work to design posters.”

The posters were the promotional tool for the film imports. “Poland was terribly destroyed by the war,” says Horak. “They had very little media infrastructure. Television was nonexistent until very late in the 1950s. Few people had radio. The only way to advertise the films was to do posters they would put in kiosks throughout the cities.”

Among the highlights of the collection is a poster from Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” in which the devil baby’s fingers are grasping Rosemary’s hand, and one from “Cabaret,” which features star Liza Minnelli’s legs in the shape of a swastika with Joel Grey’s face in the middle.

“What is really striking is how consistent they are,” says Horak. “There are probably more than 30 different designers, but they look so consistent it was almost the same person doing them.”

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‘Street Art: Classic Polish Film Posters’

Where: Hollywood Entertainment Museum, 7021 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays through Tuesdays;

closed today and New Year’s Day.

Ends: March 12

Price: $12 general admission; $10 for seniors; $5 for students with ID; free for children under 5 and museum members.

Contact: (323) 465-7900 or go to www.hollywoodmuseum.com.