The Girl in Room 20 follows an aspiring singer from Texas who travels to New York City where she is manipulated by a sleazy nightclub owner. This poster captures one of the film’s most intense scenes in which the club owner attempts to assault the singer before he is fought off by her boyfriend. While the film was originally filmed and released in 1946, it was not widely distributed until three years later after it was submitted to the New York State censors. By that time, public perceptions around the Great Migration had evolved, both within and outside the Black community. Poster design had also developed in that three-year period; by 1949, most studios preferred to pay for illustrated advertisements rather than compositions featuring photographs of actors from the film as this allowed them to get away with more graphic, violent, and sensual imagery. This poster, based on a photo still from the film, was, therefore, slightly unusual for the time.