This is an American half-sheet (28"x 20") poster for the 1911 Italian silent film L'Odissea, released in English-speaking markets as Homer's Odyssey. The film was produced by Milano Films and distributed in North America in 1912 by the Monopol Film Company. This is the only know copy of this poster to exist.

L'Odissea is a 1911 Italian silent film, the third known adaptation from Homer's Odyssey. The film was made in the context of the world's fair of Turin International in 1911, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the unification of Italy, where it launched a film competition for films artistic, scientific and with educational purposes. Released in 1912 in the United States it was welcomed, in the trade journal The Moving Picture World, the film was proclaimed as marking "a new epoch in the history of the motion picture as a factory of education".

When we look for the earliest examples of true theatrical posters prominently featuring a specific monster to advertise a film, we enter the era of early European cinema and German Expressionism. This poster for Milano Films' L'Odissea (released in the US by Monopol Film Company around 1911-1912) places it right between the two eras . It predates the German Expressionist posters for Der Golem and Nosferatu by roughly a decade. Because it features the mythical Cyclops , this poster bridges the gap between the supernatural demons of the 1890s such as Georges Méliès 1896 The House of the Devil and the dedicated horror creatures of the 1920s. Since this is a true theatrical poster meant for public display, it stands as one of the absolute earliest surviving examples of a movie poster using a massive, biological, physical creature to sell tickets. This could very well be the very first "creature feature" film poster!

Chronology of Known Early "Monster" Film Posters/Ephemera
• Film: 1896 Le Manoir du Diable - Monster Depicted: Mephistopheles & Ghosts (demonic) - Status: Surviving Lithograph (Earliest "horror" poster?)

• Film: 1910 Frankenstein (Edison Film) - Monster Depicted: The Creature (biological) - Status: No Theatrical Poster Known (only catalog)

• Film: 1911 L'Inferno (Milano) - Monster Depicted: Lucifer (demonic) - Status: Surviving Lithograph

• Film: 1911 L'Odissea (Milano-Homers Odyssey US) - Monster Depicted: Polyphemus (biological) - Status: Surviving Lithograph

More about this unheralded, epic silent film production the excellent London City Nights website hereStone litho, linen backed, restored poster edges.