French acting legend Alain Delon stars in this 1975 film featuring the character of Zorro, originally created by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley in 1919. Zorro has appeared in countless films, TV shows, radio plays, comics and more, and is an enduring favourite across the globe.

This particular film was directed by Italian Duccio Tessari, perhaps most famous as the screenwriter for  ‘A Fistful of Dollars’, which lead to this version being dubbed ‘The Spaghetti Zorro’. Apparently the film was heavily edited for its release outside of France and had around half an hour cut from it, including several explanatory scenes. The uncut DVD is available through Amazon.fr and features English subtitles.

This Japanese poster was for the film’s first release there in 1975. A friend helped me to translate the main text on the poster. At the top it reads:

アラン・ドロン主演50本記念作品 that roughly reads ‘Commemorating Alain Delon’s 50th film’

The other section is:

世界5000万部の超ベストセラーが生んだヒーローに
人気最高ドロンが挑んだ
剣と愛のロマン・スペクタクル巨編

The original book sold 50 million copies
Alain Delon is challenged to act the hero
A film featuring Swordplay and romantic love

Delon was, and still is, a hugely popular actor in Japan.

The bizarrely catchy theme tune from the film can be viewed here.

Norris versus Carradine was always going to be a good match and this is definitely one of Chuck’s better films. His character, a Texas Ranger named J.J. McQuade, was the inspiration behind his successful TV series Walker, Texas Ranger that began 10 years after this film. This US one sheet features great action artwork by C.W. Taylor.

The uncensored trailer can be watched on Youtube.

Someone has made a clip called Lone Wolf McQuade in four minutes, handy if you never intend to watch the film in full. Also, here’s the film’s body count.

Great artwork by Brian Bysouth, from a design by Vic Fair, for this wizard versus dragon fantasy tale, which was co-produced by Disney and Paramount and directed by Matthew Robbins (Batteries Not Included). Apparently the effects for Vermithrax the dragon were given 25% of the film’s budget and were realised by several different teams, including Phil Tippet at ILM (final design and model), Brian Johnson (special effects) and Ken Ralston (flying scenes).

‘Go-motion’, a variant of stop-motion animation using computer-controlled cameras and developed by ILM for The Empire Strikes Back, was used for the scenes showing the dragon flying and walking with the intention of making these scenes feel more realistic.

Whilst Guillermo Del Toro was preparing to film his ultimately doomed version of The Hobbit, he stated:

One of the best and one of the strongest landmarks that almost nobody can overcome is ‘Dragonslayer.’ The design of the Vermithrax Pejorative is perhaps one of the most perfect creature designs ever made.

In 2012 I met and interviewed Brian Bysouth and the resulting article can be read here.

The US one sheet is markedly different but is also something of a classic, with artwork by Jeffrey Catherine Jones.

A Japanese double-bill poster for re-release of ace director Werner Herzog‘s two masterpieces. Made ten years apart, both films star Klaus Kinski, a frequent collaborator, and the stories behind the making of the films are legendary.

Fitzcarraldo tells the true story of  one man’s obsession to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle, a task that sees him having to drag a full-sized steamer boat over a mountain from one river to another. Rather than rely on special effects or clever editing, Herzog and the crew actually did drag a steamer boat over a mountain! The story of the shoot was told in the excellent documentary Burden of Dreams.

Aguirre, Wrath of God was a similarly chaotic and pressured shoot and the story goes that when Kinski decided to leave the set and return home, Herzog pulled a gun on him and threatened to shoot him and then turn the gun on himself.

Herzog once said of Kinski: “People think we had a love-hate relationship. Well, I did not love him, nor did I hate him. We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other’s murder”.

I believe this double-bill poster was for a Japanese release in either 2000 or 2001 and the artwork is by an artist called Suzuki Cohjizukin about whom I know very little. Some of his other works can be found with a google search but if anyone knows anything more about him please get in touch.

Here are the original trailers for Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre.

I’ll admit to not having seen John Frankenheimer’s film about a war between two rival crime gangs and the hitman (the late Richard Harris) who is caught between them. From reading various reviews and articles online it seems like the film is trapped between genres; it was intended as a black comedy but apparently features many scenes of over-the-top violence and the humour often falls flat. This quote from an IMDb review gives you some idea:

The substandard mafia plot sits second tier to the film’s sporadic comedy spoofing and mugging, much of what both fails and succeeds simultaneously at the hands of its dramatic director who must have been at the peek of his well publicized cocaine binge.

It certainly sounds like an interesting film (one reviewer describes it as a ‘beautiful mistake’) and I intend to check it out soon because Shout Factory, a US DVD label, are releasing the film in a double-bill with another 1974 film The Nickel Ride this week.

The title is definitely an odd one and is apparently referencing the advertising slogan (at the time) of Ivory Soap, a popular brand of cleaning product that is still available today. Here’s a none-more-1970s advert that features the tagline. The name was obviously simplified at a certain point as it’s now known as ‘Call Harry Crown’ on IMDb.

This US 30×40 poster was designed by the great Bill Gold and features a Roy Lichtenstein-esque pop-art image. I’m not sure who is responsible for the artwork but it’s possible it could be John Van Hamersveld who illustrated the awesome Get Carter pop-art style one sheet. If anyone knows this for sure I’d appreciate the confirmation so leave a comment or send me an email.

This pop-art inspiration also extended to the opening sequence that can be watched here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

The sex-spoof Flesh Gordon was released within a few months of Star Wars in Japan and that probably accounts for the name change to a title so similar there can be no doubting the canny local distributors were hoping to cash in on some of the success of George Lucas’ sci-fi classic. Based on the original Buster Crabbe-starring Flash Gordon film serials of the 1930s, which were themselves based on a comic strip created by Alex Raymond, the film parodies many of the names and situations seen in the originals.

In this version Emperor Wang the Perverted, the leader of the planet Porno, points his mighty ‘Sex Ray’ towards Earth, turning everyone into sex-crazed lunatics. Only one man can save the planet; football player Flesh Gordon. Along with his girlfriend Dale Ardor and the (brilliantly named) mad Professor Flexi-Jerkoff, they set off towards the source of the Sex Ray determined to put a stop to Wang.

Entertaining and unremittingly trashy, the film does an excellent job of being just reverential enough to the original source material whilst adding it’s own brand of madcap humour interspersed with sex scenes. The effects are particularly decent for such a low-budget film and that’s because several of the effects specialists who worked on it were either established experts or men who would later go on to become leading artists in the field, including Mike Minor, Greg Jein, and Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London).

For the large monster seen towards the end of the film the production utilised the talents of Jim Danforth and Dave Allen who are both now recognised as two of the leading figures in the world of stop-motion animation. The monster was given the name ‘Nesuahyrrah’, which is ‘Harryhausen’ spelled backwards, the surname of likely the greatest stop-motion animator of all time, Ray Harryhausen.

The poster artwork is by one of my favourite Japanese artists, Seito, and is unique to this B2. To see the other posters I’ve collected by the artist click here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

The next non-poster addition to the site is this original Japanese program for Disney’s 1979 live-action oddity The Black Hole. The program features some excellent production stills as well as several pages of concept artwork and three rather brilliant cutaway diagrams of the spacecraft Cygnus and the two robots V.I.N.Cent and Maximilian.

To see the other items I’ve collected for The Black Hole, including three Japanese posters, click here.

A rarely seen teaser one sheet for the theatrical release of the pilot of the original Battlestar Galactica TV series. Created by legendary producer Glen A. Larson, who would later go on to work on the likes of The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider, the decision was made by Universal Studios to cut the pilot down from its three hour running time and release it in cinemas to try and recoup some of the high production costs. It was first released in Canada, Australia and several European countries in 1978 and this poster dates from the domestic release in 1979. Universal would later repeat this idea with the Buck Rogers movie, also produced by Larson, in the same year.

Originally named Saga of a Star World, the pilot sets up the backstory of the 1,000 year war between a colony of humans living in a distant cosmos and the robotic race known as Cylons, who wish to wipe out the entire human race. The humans are betrayed by a traitor known as Baltar (John Colicos) who helps the Cylons launch a surprise attack during a supposed armistice between the two sides. The assault almost wipes out all 12 of the human colonies, with only the Galactaca surviving along with a bunch of smaller civilian ships. The fleet sets off on a journey across the galaxy in search of their long-lost sister civilisation, our planet Earth, with the Cylons in hot pursuit.

The original artwork was done by the late, legendary artist Ralph McQuarrie who was responsible for creating concept designs for the TV series. The site Sci-fi-o-Rama has an article that features several of his illustrations, including the image on this poster. It appears to have been redrawn (check the explosions, for example), but I’m going to give the artist credit to McQuarrie.

One of the staple films of my 1980s childhood, D.A.R.Y.L. (Data-Analysing Robot Youth Lifeform) tells the story of a young boy (Barret Oliver) who is found wandering alone by an elderly couple and taken to an orphanage. After being adopted by foster parents Andy Richardson (Michael McKean) and Joyce (Mary Beth Hurt) it becomes clear that Daryl is no ordinary boy as he starts to display a series of uncanny skills, including a perfect talent for baseball and the ability to manipulate funds via ATMs.

It turns out that he’s actually a cyborg with the brain of a supercomputer having been implanted into the body of a 10-year-old boy. Daryl was able to escape from a top secret facility with the help of a scientist but the military are in hot pursuit having decided that the ‘project’ should be terminated. The film was directed by Australian Simon Wincer who would later achieve great success with the family film Free Willy.

This UK quad features artwork by the American artist David Jarvis, who is perhaps best known for his illustration on the US one sheet for Walter Hill’s The Warriors. Having completed a degree in illustration at the Los Angeles Art Center College of Design, Jarvis went on to work as a freelance illustrator producing over thirty designs for film posters, as well as record sleeves, magazine covers and more. He also worked as an artist for Disney studios on the films Mulan and Tarzan. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

Note the hidden words in amongst the data display on the right hand side. The SR-71 Blackbird stealth plane in the bottom right of the poster plays a prominent role in an action sequence towards the end of the film.

A stunning piece of artwork on this Japanese B1 poster for Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, which was the 18th film in the series featuring the King of Monsters. The film was the third release in the second generation of Godzilla films, which were part of the Heisei era of Japanese monster movies (daikaiju eiga). The monster movie eras are named after the Japanese emperor at the time, so the first generation of Godzilla films were part of the Shōwa era.

The story sees the legendary monster facing off against one of his greatest foes, the three-headed dragon monster King Ghidorah. The origin of the monster has changed over the years and this film is no exception; in this story Ghidorah is the result of the irradiated fusing of three genetically-engineered bat-like creatures called ‘Dorats’. The monster is then unleashed on Japan by the villains in the film, time-travellers from the 23rd century called the Futurians. By the end of the film Godzilla has to battle Mecha-King Ghidorah, a resurrected cyborg version that is brought to Tokyo from the future – typically brilliantly bonkers story-telling!

The artwork on the poster is by Noriyoshi Ohrai who is something of an enigma, even in his native Japan. I’ve been unable to find much about him beyond a few pages like this one on the Star Wars Wookiepedia. He’s responsible for a number of Star Wars posters, including this lovely 1982 B2 to celebrate the release of the Japanese dubbed version of the original film and the brilliant design for The Empire Strikes Back.

Ohrai painted a poster for each of the Heisei era of Godzilla films, which were always accompanied by a photographic-style poster. I will be adding more of the Ohrai Godzilla posters over the coming weeks.

The other Ohrai posters I’ve added to the site so far can be seen by clicking here.

The enigmatic artist Seito is responsible for the artwork on this Japanese B1 poster for the original release of the sci-fi classic Star Wars in Japan. The design has clear echoes of the American one sheet artwork by Tom Jung but features several additions and the unusual choice of having the Death Star upside down (the weapon crater at least). Both designs depict an overly muscled Luke Skywalker and a tight-clothed, voluptuous Princess Leia, which, if you’ve seen the film (who hasn’t!), you’ll know doesn’t quite match up with the actual characters.

This is one of three posters printed for the original release of Star Wars in Japan, which included a simple advance and this photo montage style.

Seito is one of my favourite Japanese artists and is responsible for some wonderful illustrated posters, although little is known about him even in his native Japan. To see the other posters I’ve collected by him click here.

This is the rarely seen alternative style UK quad for the release of ace director John Carpenter‘s first film, Dark Star. This sci-fi comedy was made over a period of several years whilst Carpenter was a student at the famous USC School of Cinematic Arts in California, which counts hundreds of well known directors, producers and screenwriters amongst its alumni. Made in collaboration with his friend and fellow student Dan O’Bannon, the shoestring budget (reportedly just $60,000) meant that the pair were multitasking throughout the shoot, with Carpenter co-writing the screenplay, directing, producing and writing the score, whilst O’Bannon shared the screenwriting duties as well as acting and working on the special effects.

The film follows the exploits of the spaceship Dark Star, an exploratory vessel traveling through space looking for unstable planets to blow up with giant bombs, clearing the way for space colonisation. The small crew has to deal with malfunctioning equipment (including the fact that their last supply of toilet paper was destroyed), a mischievous mascot alien, and a sentient bomb that must be persuaded not to destroy the ship by giving it a rudimentary lesson in phenomenology. As depicted on this poster the crew are also keeping the dead body of their captain in freezer storage and are able to speak directly with his conscious. The film is often credited as the first sci-fi to explore the mundanity of working in space.

After playing successfully in a series of short film festivals, the film was seen by the producer Jack H. Harris who was known for launching the careers of fledgling filmmakers, including John Landis whose first feature Schlock was shepherded onto the screen by the producer. Carpenter and O’Bannon were given budget to expand the short into a feature, and several new sequences were added before its eventual release in 1974. The film opened on a significant number of screens considering its origins but left audiences confused, particularly since it came out of nowhere with a brief marketing campaign that made the film seem like a dark and serious sci-fi. Despite being a box-office flop, the film would later gain a great cult following once it was released onto VHS in the 1980s.

Dan O’Bannon went on to work on the special effects for George Lucas’ Star Wars, as well as further exploring the idea of ‘workers in space’ in his script for Ridley Scott’s Alien. Carpenter would next direct the taught thriller Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), which saw international success and firmly established him as a director, paving the way for his milestone horror film, Halloween (1978).

The film was not actually released in the UK until 1978 and, for reasons unknown, it was given two quad designs; the more common ship version (what I’m calling style A) and this ‘freezer’ version (style B). As anyone who has seen Dark Star will know the situation depicted on this poster is slightly different in the film; the crew member speaking to the captain without wearing a spacesuit. Both quads were designed and illustrated by the late, great British artist Tom Chantrell whose dynamic and colourful designs featured on hundreds of posters over a forty year period. His official website features a great biography written by Sim Branaghan, author of the must-own British Film Posters.

This poster features in the book and Sim notes that this design was done by Chantrell on a freelance basis for the marketing agency Mike Wheeler Publicity, with the eponymous owner likely having had a certain amount of design input into it. The book features plenty of detail on the agency and its history. The fact that this was released in 1978 explains the reason it sports a press-quote that mentions the sci-fi classic Star Wars, released a year earlier, and with a poster also painted by Chantrell (arguably his most famous illustration).

Juggernaut was directed by Richard Lester, perhaps best known for his work with The Beatles on two of their early films (A Hard Days Night and Help!), and features an all-star cast in the style of other 1970s disaster movies such as Earthquake and The Towering Inferno (both released in the same year). The story sees a luxury cruise-liner targeted by the titular terrorist who has covertly planted barrels of high-explosive onboard and is making his ransom demands from a secret location on the mainland. Omar Sharif plays the captain of the ship who, along with the ship’s entertainer Roy Kinnear, attempt to keep the hundreds of passengers calm as a bomb squad led by Commander Fallon (Richard Harris) parachutes in to try and defuse the devices. Back on dry land Anthony Hopkins‘ police superintendent, whose wife and children are onboard the ship, leads the hunt for Juggernaut before the time runs out.

The production hired an actual cruise ship, the SS Hamburg, which had recently been sold by its German owners to the Soviet Union and renamed the SS Maxim Gorkiy. The livery on the side of the ship was temporarily painted over and the ship renamed as the Britannica. Hundreds of extras were then hired with the promise of a cruise around the North Sea, although they were warned that the ship was likely to head into high seas to increase the drama of the film’s external shots!

The artwork on this 30×40 is by the late American artist Robert McCall who is perhaps best known for his work as a conceptual artist for the likes of NASA and several Hollywood productions, including Tora, Tora, Tora and Star Trek. Born in 1919 in Columbus, Ohio McCall graduated from the city’s School of Fine Arts before heading off to join the Airforce at the outbreak of World War II. Upon his return from service McCall carved out a successful career as a cover artist for publications such as Life Magazine, and before long he was painting for the U.S. Air Force. Around this time the artist also began a successful cooperation with NASA, which lasted for decades and saw him painting giant murals in buildings such as the National Air and Space Museum. In the 1960s McCall also began working with the entertainment industry as a concept artist. He sadly passed away, aged 90, in 2010.

Arguably his most famous film poster work is the set of illustrations he painted for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some of his NASA paintings can be seen on this website and many of his other sci-fi artworks can be viewed via this Tumblr link.

The third film in the much-loved original trilogy of Star Wars films was written by Lawrence Kasdan and, in a recently produced documentary, he claims to have suggested that the initially planned title of ‘Return of the Jedi’ was too weak and that ‘Revenge’ would be a better option. A teaser trailer for the film featured the Revenge title and legendary poster artist Drew Struzan, who had worked on the style D one sheet for the first film, was hired to paint this teaser poster.

Lucas eventually decided that revenge was not a Jedi concept so the film was changed back to the original ‘Return’ title and all subsequent posters were renamed too. According to the Star Wars poster book, by the time the title had been changed thousands of Revenge posters had been printed and hundreds had been distributed to theaters. Lucasfilm stopped the shipping of the posters and destroyed all but 6,800 posters, which were sold in three days to Star Wars fan club members for $9.50. (Source: The Star Wars Poster Book).

The excellent resource site Movie Poster Collectors has a page on the poster that confirms:

The vast majority of posters that escaped destruction have the tagline “Coming May 25, 1983 to your galaxy” at the bottom.  According to reports, a very few – perhaps 100 – omit that tag line. The posters without the release date command somewhat higher prices than the “Coming May 25” posters.

Unfortunately because of its collectable nature there have been several fakes printed over the years and the MPC page features details on what to look for if you want to make sure you purchase an original.

The poster is one of Struzan’s most iconic designs and brilliantly depicts a moment from what would eventually be revealed as a fight between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The colours and use of painting techniques are fantastic and you should check out the detailed images to see these up close. The poster features on his own website. The design was later adapted for a British advance quad featuring the Return title.

This teaser one sheet was officially reprinted by Kilian Enterprises on the film’s tenth anniversary but with the Return title instead. This page on Learn About Movie Posters details the various versions that were released.

The other posters I’ve collected by Struzan can be viewed here.

Cult filmmaker Don Coscarelli wrote and directed this 1982 sword and sorcery flick starring Marc Singer as the titular prince and the gorgeous Tanya Roberts as Kiri, his love interest. Dar (Singer) is the son of King Zed (Rod Loomis) who, in a bizarre sequence, is stolen from his mother’s womb and placed inside the belly of an ox on the orders of evil priest Maax (Rip Torn). When born the prince is gifted with the ability to telepathically communicate with animals and after being adopted and raised by a lowly villager, Dar is trained to be a skilled swordsman. One day the village is attacked and burned by the rampaging Jun horde who are under the control of Maax, and the warrior sets on a quest for revenge with his animal friends, including an eagle, two ferrets(!) and a black panther.

According to the IMDb trivia page for the film, the black panther was actually a tiger with its fur dyed and whenever the animal took a drink the dye would wash off around its mouth, which is noticeable in several scenes. Also, rather brilliantly, the eagle often refused to fly on cue so in order to shoot footage of it in the air it was dropped from a trapdoor in a hot air balloon.

The artwork on the poster is by Noriyoshi Ohrai who is something of an enigma, even in his native Japan. I’ve been unable to find much about him beyond a few pages like this one on the Star Wars Wookiepedia. He’s responsible for a number of Star Wars posters, including this brilliant 1982 B2 to celebrate the release of the Japanese dubbed version of the original film and the excellent design for The Empire Strikes Back. Perhaps his most iconic film work is the series of posters he illustrated for the Heisei era Godzilla films, including this fantastic B1 for Godzilla vs King Ghidorah.

The other Ohrai posters I’ve added to the site so far can be seen by clicking here (note that I also have this poster in B2 size).

Princess Mononoke was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the founder of the legendary Japanese animation outfit Studio Ghibli. Apparently around 144,000 cels were hand drawn for this film with Miyazaki personally overseeing each one and making hand-drawn amends to over 80,000 of them.

A fantasy drama set in the Muromachi period of Japan, the film follows the plight of a young warrior called Ashitaka who is stricken by a curse whilst defending his village from attack. After learning that he may be able to obtain a cure from the Great Forest Spirit (Deer God), Ashitaka travels west to try and locate it and ends up becoming involved in the battle between the animal inhabitants of the forest and the greedy humans of Irontown, who are attempting to strip the land of an important mineral called ironsand. The animals have a special ally in the form of San (AKA Princess Mononoke) a human raised by wolves, and Ashitaka must join forces with her to put an end to the conflict before all is lost.

The film was picked up for distribution in North America by Miramax Films and after the then chairman Harvey Weinstein proposed multiple edits to the film Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki sent a Katana sword to Miramax with the simple message: ‘No cuts’.

This B2 poster depicts Ashitaka but other poster styles were printed for the theatrical release of the film in Japan.

A colourful montage on this Japanese B2 poster for Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, which was the 2oth film in the series featuring the King of the Kaiju (giant monsters) and was marketed as the 40th anniversary of the series. The film was also the fifth release in the second generation of Godzilla films, which were part of the Heisei era of Japanese monster movies (daikaiju eiga). The monster movie eras are named after the Japanese emperor at the time, so the first generation of Godzilla films were part of the Shōwa era. Despite sharing the same title with a 1974 film, this is neither a remake or a re-imagining of the earlier version.

The story sees the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center (UNGCC) created in order to stop the legendary monster. Two machines are manufactured from the salvaged parts of Mecha-King Ghidorah, a mechanised abomination last seen in 1991s Godzilla vs King Ghidorah; one is a flying gunship called Garuda and the other is the titular Godzilla-like robotic beast. When a mysterious egg is discovered on an island in the Bering sea, both Godzilla and Rodan – the irradiated pteranodon seen in several previous films in the series – appear and battle over it, allowing a team to escape to a research centre in Kyoto. When the egg hatches it is revealed to be Baby Godzilla (AKA Godzilla Junior) and once again the legendary Kaiju is summoned to Japan by its psychic powers. The UNGCC decide to mobilise their new defence weapons and both Rodan and Godzilla are pitched against the metallic foes.

The artwork on the poster is by Noriyoshi Ohrai who is something of an enigma, even in his native Japan. I’ve been unable to find much about him beyond a few pages like this one on the Star Wars Wookiepedia. He’s responsible for a number of Star Wars posters, including this lovely 1982 B2 to celebrate the release of the Japanese dubbed version of the original film and the brilliant design for The Empire Strikes Back.

Ohrai painted a poster for each of the Heisei era of Godzilla films, which were always accompanied by a photographic-style poster. I will be adding more of the Ohrai Godzilla posters over the coming weeks.

The other Ohrai posters I’ve added to the site so far can be seen by clicking here.

Nothing says you’ve made it like an all-white tuxedo and a Rolls-Royce Phantom, or so thought Hong Kong-born screen legend Jackie Chan circa 1982. This is a B2 poster that was printed around the time of the Japanese release of the film Dragon Attack (AKA Fantasy Mission Force) in which the prolific actor appeared as a wrestler in a team of mercenaries on a rescue mission during an alternative-universe World War II (American muscle-cars feature, for example).

A bizarre mix of comedy and ‘Dirty Dozen’ style men (and women) on a mission, the film is apparently something of a nonsensical but entertaining mess. As one reviewer on IMDb states:

‘Reviewing this movie is like reviewing someone else’s hallucination. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to it, no way to even know what I just saw, let alone how to describe it. It makes Yellow Submarine seem as coherent as Schindler’s List.’

Another review has definitely peaked my interest:

‘This movie has everything! Hopping undead corpses. Crazed Amazons. Ghosts who cheat at cards. Japanese Nazis who attack riding atop 1970s clunker cars. Stupid musical numbers. Abraham Lincoln as a World War II general. Throw in loads of gratuitous violence, Chinese guys dressed in kilts and Elvis jumpsuits, and, er, Jacky Chan (and his chicken) and you have quite possibly the stupidest movie ever made.’

The trailer for the film is on YouTube (as is the entire film itself).

Easily one of the most iconic pieces of film poster artwork ever printed, John Alvin’s superb image was used around the globe to advertise Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi masterpiece, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The story of a small alien who gets stranded on earth and meets a young boy called Elliot (Henry Thomas) touched the hearts of millions of movie-goers around the world. Within a year of its release it was crowned the highest-grossing film of all time, overtaking the previous leader, George Lucas’ Star Wars (this record has since been bested by over forty films in the intervening years). Last year saw E.T. celebrate its 30th anniversary and having watched the 2012 blu-ray release recently there’s no question that it has stood the test of time well.

The image of the two fingers touching is an obvious homage to the most famous section of the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome that was painted by the Italian artist Michelangelo in the 16th century. Known as The Creation of Adam, the painting is thought to depict God breathing life into Adam, which is the Biblical creation narrative from the book of Genesis. The painting is arguably as famous as Leonardo da Vinci’s legendary Mona Lisa. In Alvin’s version it is E.T.’s gnarled hand that reaches out towards what is clearly the hand of Elliot. The alien’s finger is shown to have particular powers during the film.

The poster artwork on this British quad is by the late American designer and artist John Alvin, who was responsible for over 135 film poster designs over a thirty year period. Alvin painted many unforgettable pieces of artwork, including for Blade Runner and Gremlins, both of which were used around the world to promote their respective films. Alvin sadly passed away too early, just shy of his 6oth birthday (in 2008), but his fantastic designs will live on for generations to come.

A colourful montage on this Japanese B1 poster for Godzilla vs Mothra, which was the 19th film in the series featuring the King of the Kaiju (giant monsters). The film was also the fourth release in the second generation of Godzilla films, which were part of the Heisei era of Japanese monster movies (daikaiju eiga). The eras are named after the Japanese emperor at the time, so the first generation of Godzilla films were part of the Shōwa era. There was an earlier film in the franchise called Mothra vs Godzilla (1964) but this film is not a remake of that story.

Godzilla vs Mothra is, adjusted for inflation, the most financially successful entry in the entire series. The story sees a meteor crashing to earth and awakening not only the legendary lizard but also uncovering an egg of the benevolent giant moth, plus an evil version of Mothra called Battra that was created by Earth’s ‘life force’ to protect the planet itself from threat. Godzilla sets off on one of his usual rampages and Battra attacks Tokyo in anger at the pollution that mankind has caused. The trio of monsters face-off against each other in several battles and there’s also a subplot involving an Indiana-Jones-like treasure hunter and ethereal creatures known as Cosmos who are involved in the bigger conflict.

The artwork on the poster is by Noriyoshi Ohrai who is something of an enigma, even in his native Japan. I’ve been unable to find much about him beyond a few pages like this one on the Star Wars Wookiepedia. He’s responsible for a number of Star Wars posters, including this lovely 1982 B2 to celebrate the release of the Japanese dubbed version of the original film and the brilliant design for The Empire Strikes Back.

Ohrai painted a poster for each of the Heisei era of Godzilla films, which were always accompanied by a photographic-style poster. I will be adding more of the Ohrai Godzilla posters over the coming weeks.

The other Ohrai posters I’ve added to the site so far can be seen by clicking here.

Chuck Norris versus David Carradine was always going to be a good match and this is definitely one of Chuck’s better films. His character, a Texas Ranger named J.J. McQuade, was the inspiration behind his successful TV series Walker, Texas Ranger that began 10 years after this was released. In this film, ex-Marine McQuade lives on his own with only a wolf for company and prefers to do things his way. When an army convoy is hijacked and his daughter put in hospital after witnessing the attack, the Texas Ranger reluctantly teams up with an FBI agent (Leon Isaac Kennedy) and ends up facing off against the arms dealer Wilkes (Carradine). The pair go head to head in a series of increasingly violent martial arts and gun battles. The film’s body count is detailed in a YouTube video.

This British quad poster was designed and painted by the British artist Brian Bysouth whilst he was working at the FEREF agency. The artwork is unique to this poster but it has elements that appear on both the Style A and the style B American one sheets. I also have another American one sheet for the film in the collection. In 2012 I interviewed the artist and that article can be found here. Other posters I’ve collected by Brian can be seen by clicking here.

The uncensored trailer can be watched on Youtube. Someone has made a clip called Lone Wolf McQuade in four minutes, which is handy if you never intend to watch the film in full.

This is the German A1 poster for the 1981 re-release of ace director John Carpenter‘s first film, Dark Star. The sci-fi comedy was made over a period of several years whilst Carpenter was a student at the famous USC School of Cinematic Arts in California, which counts hundreds of well known directors, producers and screenwriters amongst its alumni. Made in collaboration with his friend and fellow student Dan O’Bannon, the shoestring budget (reportedly just $60,000) meant that the pair were multitasking throughout the shoot, with Carpenter co-writing the screenplay, directing, producing and writing the score, whilst O’Bannon shared the screenwriting duties as well as acting and working on the special effects.

The film follows the exploits of the spaceship Dark Star, an exploratory vessel traveling through space looking for unstable planets to blow up with giant bombs, clearing the way for space colonisation. The small crew has to deal with malfunctioning equipment (including the fact that their last supply of toilet paper was destroyed), a mischievous mascot alien, and a sentient bomb that must be persuaded not to destroy the ship by giving it a rudimentary lesson in phenomenology. As depicted on this poster the crew are also keeping the dead body of their captain in freezer storage and are able to speak directly with his conscious. The film is often credited as the first sci-fi to explore the mundanity of working in space.

After playing successfully in a series of short film festivals, the film was seen by the producer Jack H. Harris who was known for launching the careers of fledgling filmmakers, including John Landis whose first feature Schlock was shepherded onto the screen by the producer. Carpenter and O’Bannon were given budget to expand the short into a feature, and several new sequences were added before its eventual release in 1974. The film opened on a significant number of screens considering its origins but left audiences confused, particularly since it came out of nowhere with a brief marketing campaign that made the film seem like a dark and serious sci-fi. Despite being a box-office flop, the film would later gain a great cult following once it was released onto VHS in the 1980s.

Dan O’Bannon went on to work on the special effects for George Lucas’ Star Wars, as well as further exploring the idea of ‘workers in space’ in his script for Ridley Scott’s Alien. Carpenter would next direct the taught thriller Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), which saw international success and firmly established him as a director, paving the way for his milestone horror film, Halloween (1978).

This re-release poster, which depicts the moment that one of the crew members surfs on a shard of debris, is practically identical to the 1975 original release poster, that is missing the white text at the top. There’s at least one other German re-release poster for the film (possibly from 1979) that features the same design but with different colours.

Cult filmmaker Don Coscarelli wrote and directed this 1982 sword and sorcery flick starring Marc Singer as the titular prince and the gorgeous Tanya Roberts as Kiri, his love interest. Dar (Singer) is the son of King Zed (Rod Loomis) who, in a bizarre sequence, is stolen from his mother’s womb and placed inside the belly of an ox on the orders of evil priest Maax (Rip Torn). When born the prince is gifted with the ability to telepathically communicate with animals and after being adopted and raised by a lowly villager, Dar is trained to be a skilled swordsman. One day the village is attacked and burned by the rampaging Jun horde who are under the control of Maax, and the warrior sets on a quest for revenge with his animal friends, including an eagle, two ferrets(!) and a black panther.

According to the IMDb trivia page for the film, the black panther was actually a tiger with its fur dyed and whenever the animal took a drink the dye would wash off around its mouth, which is noticeable in several scenes. Also, rather brilliantly, the eagle often refused to fly on cue so in order to shoot footage of it in the air it was dropped from a trapdoor in a hot air balloon.

The artwork on this US one sheet is by an American artist called C. Winston Taylor, about whom very little can be found online. The Lost Video Archive blog has a post on the artist that features images of some of his other posters and video covers. In the 1990s the artist was hired to paint the covers for a Quantum Leap comic book series and a gallery of those images can be viewed on this site, which also features three images of the artist himself. Comicbookdb.com features a small profile of Taylor with the following mini-biography:

C. Winston Taylor always knew from a young age that he would communicate through his drawings. Fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, where he earned two Bronze Stars, helped solidify this vision. After graduating with honors from the Art Center College of Design, in Los Angeles, he quickly became a well-respected illustrator. His work has received numerous awards and he served as the president of The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles. 

The other posters I’ve collected with artwork by him can be seen by clicking here.