Poster for 1935's "One Frightened Night"

This is the delightful poster for the 1935 thriller/mystery/comedy One Frightened Night. The film's "monster" is shown in the middle of the poster, underneath the text. That's about right, because it's not in any way a monster movie, nor is the purported monster terribly scary. I've been on a kick of watching "old dark house" movies circa mid-1920s to mid-1940s this summer, and have some more queued up heading into the autumn. Stuff like this and 1933's The Secret of the Blue Room. 

Old dark house movies have, as you might assume, creaky old houses filled with suspicious characters. They take place at night and, usually and preferably, during a howling thunderbumper. There are candles, secrets to discover, hidden passages, roaring fires, banging shutters and, if it's a good one, plenty of snappy dialogue. They're great comfort-blanket films. The king of them is the one that named the subgenre, James Whale's The Old Dark House from 1932.

This poster comes from CineMaterial, a wonderful archive for movie posters and a great website to browse. Check out 1909's A Trap for Santa Claus and so many others, onward through the decades of film history. There's also a dandy subsection of Polish movie posters for international films, featuring some incredible designs.