Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez R1966 French Moyenne Film Poster, Clement Hurel

Really fun and colourful design by Clement Hurel features on this country-of-original French Moyenne for Jean Girault's comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez (The Troops of St. Tropez). The first film in the classic Gendarme series.

▼France has a long and rich history in poster design

One of the most influential figures in the development of vintage posters was the French poster artist Jules Chéret. Around 1866, Chéret is credited with producing the first colour lithograph posters, using a technique he refined from the black and white process first invented by German actor and playwright Alois Senefelder in 1798. Cheret's three stone lithographic process allowed artists to achieve every colour in the rainbow using just three stones - usually red, yellow and blue - printed in careful registration.

The Parisian artists, headed by Cheret and including masters Steinlen, Willette, Grasset, Bonnard, Forain and, last but certainly not least, Toulouse-Lautrec's vibrant and eye-catching designs influenced, in part, by Japanese Woodcuts brought a new level of visual appeal to the streets of Paris and, in turn, established the poster as an art form.

This original vintage movie poster has been professionally