Photoplay Editions & Movie Tie-Ins
The Golden Years [1912-1969] ... Foreign Language Films

Foreign Language film edition books are NOT INCLUDED in the database listings or search features.

Foreign language movie tie-ins are plentiful, and in many cases more attractive than their English language counterparts.  The majority of known foreign titles are paperback editions, often digest size or sometimes smaller than average.  An important film such as Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (1943) is not available as a contemporary English language film edition but one can find a nice Spanish edition.  These ‘foreign language only’ film editions are not uncommon and in particular, some important horror films are only found in European editions.  The image banners on this webpage will demonstrate the quality of foreign publications available with a primary focus on horror and science fiction titles not seen in English language editions.

It is difficult to determine if France, Germany, or Spain had the most active book publishers for film editions.  Some German books from the 1920s promoted films of great importance to film history.  Spain and France in particular had film series from the 20s-40s that ran several hundred issues.  Film editions from many other countries are also out there, so ‘seek and find’ those specials titles that satisfy your interests.  Nice editions have been published in Argentina, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Sweden, to name a few.  The focus on this webpage will be the early film publishing from France, Germany, and Spain.  

Let us begin with a Jewish legend where the rabbi of 16th century Prague brought a huge clay Golem to life, to protect the Jews from persecution.  The 1915 German film Der Golem aka The Golem with Paul Wegener has a special place in the history of horror films and is rarely seen as a German digest-sized paperback with stills.  Bringing life to something inanimate via sorcery or science has been the plot of many a film with ‘life created’ consequences providing the action and drama.

It is important to note the German publisher August Scherl in Berlin, where Metropolis was first printed in 1926.  The German science fiction classic was novelized by Thea von Harbou, the wife of the film’s director Fritz Lang.  This writing/filming/publishing team collaborated further in 1928 with Frau im Mond aka Woman in the Moon/Rocket to the Moon and Spione aka Spies.  All these books are first editions with movie dust jackets and interior stills.

Emil Petaja is remembered as an author of science fiction.  He was also the first to compile a list of photoplay editions back in 1975 and published as Photoplay Edition by his firm Sisu Publishing (San Francisco).  Emil noted a German edition for the film Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924), a fantasy film with dragons, also a product of Lang and Harbou but from a play by Richard Wagner.

The most prolific French publisher appears to be Jules Tallandier in Paris.  Their line of digest paperbacks under the byline of “Cinema Bibliotheque” issued 100s of titles from 1913 through the 1950s including many European films and American titles appearing only in the French language.  Their distinctive reddish borders and numerous interior stills are hallmarks of a foreign series worthy of mention.  In general, this series printed using 4-5 times the average eight stills seen in American publishing.  Sweeney Todd (1928 aka Le Vampire) and The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge (1925) are French language-only editions.  There is also a rare edition of London After Midnight (1927) that has a different novelization than the English language editions.  There is also a large series of weekly 16-page film novelizations titled Le Film Complet in newsprint with many additional horror titles.

The equivalent publisher in Barcelona, Spain appears to be the ‘Biblioteca Films’ series of varying-sized paperbacks.  Entre Locos anda el Juego aka The Monster with Lon Chaney is a small booklet of newsprint quality and is number 110 in their series.  In contrast, the edition for Murders in the Rue Morgue is number 462 in 1932.  That is considerable film territory in seven years.

Another Spanish publisher with a long film series is called ‘Ediciones Biblioteca Films’ has The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) noted as number 192 and interestingly has stamped on the back cover the word “Propaganda”.  In this same series, there are Spanish paperbacks for Frankenstein (1931), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), King Kong (1933), Island of Lost Souls (1932), The Mummy (1932), and Werewolf of London (1935).  Contemporary film books for classic horror films of this stature will always have collector interest regardless of the language being printed.  There may be a Mexican edition for Dracula (1931) out there somewhere, feel free to provide an image.

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Last Revision:  June 18, 2021 12:42 PM