Uptight! [Up Tight!] (Archive of ephemera from the 1968 Blaxploitation neo-noir film, including original scenario artwork)

Hollywood: Paramount Pictures, 1968. An extraordinary archive of ephemera from the 1968 neo-noir film, the centerpiece of which is a large piece of original artwork by production designer Alexander Trauner. Also included are one US one sheet poster, one US half sheet poster, one US insert poster, one US pressbook, one Australian daybill poster (with the alternate title "Up Tight"), and one German A1 poster (with the alternate title "Black Power").

An overlooked and exceedingly important African American neo-noir film, the first to portray contemporary Black revolutionaries who rose in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., (truncated) and a predecessor to the explosion of Blaxploitation films in the late 1960s and 1970s. Loosely based on the 1935 John Ford film "The Informer," in turn based on the 1925 proletarian novel by Liam O'Flaherty.

Shot on location in Cleveland, "Uptight" was the first American production for director Jules Dassin (who had left the US at the height of the McCarthy hearings) in nearly two decades.

The scenario drawing depicts a meeting of Black revolutionaries at their headquarters in an abandoned Cleveland bowling alley, following a gun heist and murder. Signed in the lower right corner with the designer's Hungarian birth surname, "Trau." Executed in gouache, ink, watercolor, pen, and pencil.

Seen by very few upon its release, the film was restored and released on blu-ray in 2014 by the curated label Olive Films. A copy of the disc is included with the items on offer.

All pieces about Near Fine or better, with the artwork showing a small watercolor tide mark at one corner.

Artwork 17 x 24 inches.
US one sheet 27 x 41 inches.
US half sheet 22 x 28 inches.
US insert poster 14 x 36 inches.
US pressbook 15 x 12 inches.
Australian daybill 13 x 30 inches, folded as issued.
German A1 poster 23 x 33 inches, folded as issued.

Letter with full provenance regarding the Trauner artwork is included.

Grant US. Parrish and Hill 226. (Inventory #: 137465)