The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Original lobby card for Twentieth Century Fox’s 1951 motion picture, The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel. Henry Hathaway directed this biographical drama about the life of the infamous World War II German general, Erwin Rommel. James Mason, Cedric Hardwicke, and Jessica Tandy star in this film. The card depicts three men watching Rommel shave in a hospital bed.

Lobby cards were once a popular form of advertisement for motion pictures. The publicity departments of Hollywood studios created cards featuring striking images of their latest films and delivered sets to theatres across the country. Lobby cards were created to entice future audiences and increase ticket sales.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1951
• Object Name: Movie Stills
• Object Name: card
• Object Name: lobby card
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Physical Description: ink (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 11 in x 14 in; 27.94 cm x 35.56 cm
• Subject: Movie
• ID Number: 2009.0017.59.04
• accession number: 2009.0017
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.