This is the Japanese B2 poster for the release of the little-seen 1969 biker film ‘Run, Angel, Run!‘ It’s one of a slew of films based around the same theme that involved the actor and director Jack Starrett, who is best known for playing the antagonistic deputy in First Blood, and as the director of Cleopatra Jones and Race With the Devil. Starrett starred in films like Hells Angels on Wheels and Angels from Hell before being offered the chance to helm this as his directorial debut.
The film stars the prolific American actor William Smith as Angel, the leader of a biker gang. The plot is described thusly on IMDb:
Angel, a member of a tough motorcycle gang roaming the Southwest, gets on offer from a major news magazine. In exchange for giving the magazine a big scoop by exposing the inner workings of his gang, the magazine will pay him $10,000. Angel takes the offer, although it means he and his girlfriend must now go on the run from cyclists looking for revenge. Along the way, they hide out with a sheep farmer, earning their keep by taking care of the farm and building a new life together.
The film appears to be fairly scarce going by the lack of reviews online and the fact that the DVD is almost $40 on Amazon.com at the time of writing.
The trailer is available to view on YouTube.
Scorpio is a 1973 spy thriller directed by the late Michael Winner. It was one of the first films that Winner worked on for American producers and reunited him with Burt Lancaster. The actor had starred in Winner’s American directorial debut, Lawman, three years earlier. French-Swiss superstar Alain Delon also stars and the film was one of several attempts the actor made to break into Hollywood. Lancaster plays Cross, an aging CIA agent and assassin, who is tasked with training Delon’s younger Jean ‘Scorpio’ Laurier in order to be his replacement. The plot is described on IMDb:
Cross is an old hand at the CIA, in charge of assassinating high-ranking foreign personalities who are an obstacle to the policies of the USA. He often teams up with Frenchman Jean Laurier, alias “Scorpio”, a gifted free-lance operative. One day, the CIA orders Scorpio to eliminate Cross — and leaves him no choice but to obey. Scorpio is cold-blooded and very systematic; however, as a veteran agent, Cross knows many tricks. He can also rely upon a network of unusual personal contacts, some dating back to the troubled years preceding WWII. A lethal game of hide-and-seek is programmed, but what are the true motives of every single player?
By all accounts the film was only a moderate success at the box-office and is largely forgotten today.
This Japanese B2 features a unique design but note the stylised logo that also features on some of the items used for the American campaign.
This poster was created by Peter Strausfeld who worked as the poster designer for the (now defunct) Academy Cinema One on Oxford Street, London. He created hundreds of posters during his career and was working on them up until his death in 1980. Peter was one of the few remaining poster designers to use the wood and linocut methods of printing, which meant all of his designs were unique and were created especially for the Academy One screening of the film. His posters are much loved by film fans and poster collectors for their striking, bold look.
Some more information on Peter here:
University of Brighton – faculty of arts (Peter was also a teacher at two Brighton colleges)
I’ve been able to identify the year of this poster as 1975 with thanks to Steve Moore, a friend and fellow collector, and a man called Pete Lawley who is currently (as of June 2018) writing a book about the Academy Cinema. Steve reached out to Pete and asked for help confirming the year and the author has identified several instances of the film being released at the cinemas, as follows:
18th February – 28th April 1955 – Pete has not seen a poster for this first UK release but assumes that the same, or similar artwork, was used.
13th May – 22nd December 1971 – This re-release was shown in Academy Three (effectively the third screen of the cinema) and no posters were apparently produced for this screen.
20th December 1973 – 20th February 1974 – This was shown in Academy Two and has the same artwork as this poster but has the text ‘First British Screen Presentation’ in place of the ‘For three weeks only…’ text, which is in relation to it being ‘The Complete Version’.
3rd July – 23rd July 1975 – Academy One – this poster.
31st January – 3rd March 1976 – Academy Two – Pete is unsure what poster was used for this but thinks it unlikely that they created another variant for it. More likely a snipe was used or they reused the one from 1974.
Skyjacked was just one of multiple plane-hijacking films that followed the release of 1970’s Airport and starred Charlton Heston as the pilot of a Boeing 707 hijacked by a crazed Vietnam vet (James Brolin). The hijacker forces the plane to be diverted to Anchorage, Alaska and then onto Russia where he hopes to defect to the Soviets, but he doesn’t count on the determination of the pilot.
The simplified, symbolic image of the airplane on this 30×40 US poster has the feeling of a Saul Bass design but I don’t believe it to be the work of the legendary graphic designer. If you have any ideas of who is responsible for it please get in touch.
The original trailer is on YouTube (in poor quality).
The last film from Jack Hill, the director of several exploitation films such as Foxy Brown and The Swinging Cheerleaders, Sorceress was one of several fantasy films released in the wake of Conan the Barbarian. It currently sits on a meagre IMDb score of 3.7 out of 10 and sounds like something of a clunker:
Sorceress is bad. Astronomically bad. Not the kind of bad that we’re used to. No, not mediocre Hollywood bad. It’s so bad, it’s almost a religious experience.
To be fair, with a poster like this it’s not like the audience were expecting much, as another reviewer points out:
Tremendously fun if you approach it in the correct frame of mind (and probably even better when one is drunk). Oh, did I happen to mention the beautiful boobies on display in this?
This is the international one sheet featuring artwork by American artist Robert Tanenbaum. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.
The US one sheet looks like this and the original trailer is on YouTube (contains bewbs).
