China Town

China Town movie poster for sale.

Featured here is an original vintage Bollywood poster of the 1962 black and white Hindi romantic comedy produced and directed by Shakti Samanta that starred the Elvis Presley of India, Shammi Kapoor in a double role opposite actress Shakila.

China Town (1962) also starred Helen, Madan Puri, S.N. Banerjee, Kanu Roy, Mridula Rani, Rashid Khan, Jeevan Kala, M.B. Shetty, Keshav Rana, Tun Tun, Gautam Mukherjee, Samson, Keshto Mukherjee and Polson in supporting roles.

Printed and circulated during a subsequent release run of the film in north Indian theaters (somewhere in the 1960s), this vintage Chinatown movie poster was made for publicity of the film but never ended up being used.

This old Bollywood poster was originally designed in hand painted oil on canvas format by an art studio in Delhi. A quirky side profile of actor Shammi Kapoor is seen on the top, while a large illustrated close up of actress Shakila is seen below. The actor’s hand is seen holding her face, which looks disproportionate given the scale and size of the two individually drawn portraits.

Supporting actress Helen wearing a Chinese collared dress appears hand painted at the bottom of this illustrated China Town movie poster. She is depicted seated at a table with a flower vase in front of her. The background behind her is bright yellow, which cuts across the blue on the top diagonally.

Typography used in this original Bollywood poster is primarily in English, with a translation of the title appearing in Devanagari Hindi as well as Urdu.

The soundtrack album of China Town (1962) was composed by Ravi, while lyrics were written by Majrooh Sultanpuri. One of the songs from the film, “Baar Baar Dekho” sung by Mohammed Rafi became a blockbuster upon it’s release and is regarded as a timeless classic that is fondly played till today.