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El Automóvil Gris
Mexico films its own true crime while the revolution is still warm, and puts the getaway car on the poster.
What
The 1919 Mexican poster for El automóvil gris, Enrique Rosas's twelve-episode serial reconstructing a real Mexico City robbery gang of 1915.
Why
It is the foundational work of Mexican narrative cinema and an early instance of docudrama anywhere — Rosas used actual locations, a surviving detective as consultant, and documentary footage of the executions. Nothing in world cinema of 1919 is quite like it.
Notice
The automobile itself is the emblem, not a face; the motor car was the modern threat and the film's whole brand.
“A country turning its own recent violence into its first movie.”
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
Provenance
- Film
- El automóvil gris (1919), dir. Enrique Rosas
- Country / studio
- Mexico
- Format
- One-sheet (27 × 41 in.)
- Poster published
- Mexican film poster, 1919
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons
Conservation note
Print produced from an AI-enhanced upscale (≈1.6×) of the surviving archival scan (original 826×1056px). The upscale raises resolution only — the design is unaltered, and the paper’s folds and age are the artifact’s own.
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (poster published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the poster’s own publication year, never the film’s. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
From The World Screen
The Double Bill
Two one-sheets, hung as a pair — a double feature for your wall, at a pairing price of $270.00 for the two. Build one from any two one-sheets in the gallery.
Pair it in the gallery →A house of the Provenance family