PUT THAT ON MY BILL

Pictured above is the one-sheet for a mid 1960s underwater adventure film entitled AROUND THE WORLD UNDER THE SEA. The film stars Lloyd Bridges, Brian Kelly, Keenan Wynn, Marshall Thompson and Gary Merrill. But the standouts in the cast were David McCallum, fresh from his co-starring stint as Illya Kuryakin  on television's MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. series and Shirley Eaton, who was the doomed, gold plated "Bond Girl" Jill Masterson in GOLDFINGER. If you haven't seen the movie, you're not missing much. It's a fairly routine adventure film with some nice underwater photography. The poster is really the best thing about the movie and it's definitely selling the sizzle, not the steak. 

I own this one-sheet. It's an original, nicely framed and matted and it hangs on a wall in my man-cave. How I got this treasure is an interesting story.

A few years ago, Judy and I, along with my sister and her husband, dined at a seafood restaurant in a strip shopping center in Spring, Texas. The decor was an interesting assortment of movie one-sheets, all of which had a nautical theme and one of them was AROUND THE WORLD UNDER THE SEA. I saw a young waiter remove the poster from the wall and replace it with another one.

"Excuse me, but what are you going to do with that poster? " I asked.

"I don't know, my boss just told me to take it down," he replied. "We'll probably put it in storage."

"Would your boss be willing to sell it? If so, I'd be willing to buy it. Ask him what he wants for it."

The waiter returned a few minutes later. "Seventy dollars," he said.

"I'll take it," I said. "Just put it on my bill."

He did and I paid for our meal and my one-sheet and walked out of the restaurant one happy camper. It was one of the most expensive seafood dinners I've ever had but it was well worth it. Just goes to show you, you never know what you can get if you just ask.