Raunchy poster for first ever X-rated film to fetch $2.5K at auction

By Ashley Pemberton via SWNS

A raunchy poster for the first ever X-rated film is expected to fetch $2,530 when it goes under the hammer this week.

"The Girl on a Motorcycle" - later released in the US as Naked Under Leather - saw a married woman leave her husband and zoom off on her motorcycle to see her lover.

The erotic romantic drama, starring Marianne Faithfull and Alain Delon, remains a cultural phenomenon due to its notoriety when it was first screened in 1968.

Released just after the Motion Picture Association of America began rating films, it was judged to be suitable only for adults due to its sexual content.

A poster for the film - which feature's Faithfull's leather suit, unzipped to the waist, with her skin on display and a small 'X' logo - will go under the hammer on Friday.

It is part of auctioneers Ewbank's Vintage Posters sale, which will also see a poster for Dr No, expected to fetch a whopping £18,000.

And artwork from the 1963 film From Russia With Love is listed for sale with the same estimate.

Meanwhile, a poster for 1964's Goldfinger, with artwork by Robert Brownjohn, is expected to sell for £2,000-4,000 at the auction.

A linen-backed British Quad for the 1967 film Frankenstein Created Woman, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Peter Cushing, should sell for £2,500-3,500.

A Ewbank's spokesman said: "Such is the popularity of Vintage posters – and especially those of the classic James Bond 007 films of the 1960s – that hammer prices at auction regularly reach five figures now."