Stamps In The Movies!

"Night Mail" 1936

(yes people actually talked like this once)




Watch the movie here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WO7JxYlhOM

Okay so how did it get posted through the post office without a French stamp?

Btw.. that is cool that they used counterparts of real stamps.

Scouter,
Brewster mailed the postcard to the Lawyers handling his uncles estate & trust. When they turned it over and saw the rare Inverted Jenny stamp postmarked their eyes got very wide. As a young stamp collector I still knew it was such a waste of a stamp when the movie came out in the early 1980's. I love that movie.

What about a related theme - Il Postino - The Postman...
-Not that I ever saw it...:I]

Norman McLaren did some work for the GPO Film Unit, which had been set up to produce these promotional documentaries (including "Night Mail") for the UK General Post Office. The head of that unit, John Grierson, was later the founder of the National Film Board of Canada. He invited McLaren to found the animation department of the NFB, which remains one of the top animation studios in the world. McLaren was honored on a Canadian stamp in 1996 for his role in Canadian cinema.

Here's one of the pieces McLaren did for the GPO. As was the case with "Hen Hop", the film featured on the stamp, this GPO film uses animation with the images drawn directly on film stock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1qD3gfk4QI

Ryan

Because it's a movie, a work of fiction. I believe it's called 'Creative License' though it's not uncommon for this to happen. I have covers with examples of non-stamps used on the mail. If you search, I think a couple of them are posted, here, in the US Covers forum.

Thanks, 22crows, for answering a question I posed 2-1/2 years ago!

stampvirgin, the gold had been converted to the stamp rarities. Hepburn had given the stamps/envelope to a boy who took them/it to the outdoor stamp market in Paris and traded them to a sharp dealer for some packets of common material.

I've just checked TCM (Turner Classic Movies), and while they do run Charade from time-to-time, it isn't currently scheduled.

Two other movies where stamps played a role in addition to "Charade" (1963) where rare stamps are used to hide money.

It was re-made in 2002 under the name "The Truth About Charlie." IMHO not as good as the original, but gave Hollywood another chance to put Mark Whalberg in front of us.

And, the 2006 Czech film "I Served The King Of England" also saw rare stamps used as cash.

Brilliant! thanks for sharing that Ryan.

Slightly off topic, but ties into the Night Mail documentary. There was a poem by W.H. Auden about the night train.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8_jmtbvzmY

and then I found this on the last ride of the mail train just 7 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlG4dLxHjCY

Kind of sad though.

modern.. yes, I remember the plot now, you are of course correct.
you can still find the movie on NetFlix

XNBER.. Charlie was a terrible movie compared to the original

2 great clips..thanks Donna.

Poster of the movie "Snijeg" (snow). A story during the war in Bosnia in the 1990, produced by Aida Begic, the first women to do so in Bosnia. Europa stamp 2003.

Poster of the Fellini's movie "Dolce Vita" by czech artist Karel Vaca. Europa stamp 2003.