John Hughes‘ teen classic was given a pretty dire US poster (unless you’re a fan of Matthew Broderick‘s head) but the international design, as seen here, is much more interesting. As well as this quad, the artwork was used for an English one sheet, plus posters for several other countries, including France, Germany and Italy.

For many years the artist responsible was a mystery. Several misattributions have been spotted over the years, with various names suggested, so I was absolutely thrilled when an artist called Steve Kingston contacted me via this page’s comments section to inform me that he was responsible and that he had recently rediscovered the original artwork in his archive. I emailed Steve and he explained how he had come to be involved with creating the artwork:

‘My career started on the route that many commercial illustrators followed, ie books and magazines. For almost a decade I worked for a well known men’s magazine called Mayfair, where I illustrated the misadventures of a character called Carrie. I’ve worked closely with former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman on a number of projects, and the commissions for the Ferris artwork came via an agency that Wyman used regularly.’

Steve was born in 1951 in the Clapham area of London and is a self-taught artist with ‘not a qualification in sight’. Like many other commercial artists of his generation he decided to get straight out into the workplace, rather than attend college or a university course (or what would have likely been called a polytechnic). Steve explains that he was ‘lucky enough to form a career out of my passion for art and illustration’.

Steve was commissioned to produce all the artwork for the UK Tower Records poster campaign when the American chain launched a number of ill-fated shops over in the UK. In 1985 he was asked to work on the international artwork for the Ron Howard film ‘Gung Ho’. Around this time he turned his attention towards painting fine art, specifically around the subject of wildlife. The resultant paintings sold well at major London auction houses. Steve no longer works as an artist and explained that ‘in 2009 I was diagnosed as having Parkinson’s and this degenerative condition, of which there is no cure, has gradually taken away my ability to paint and effectively ended a career I loved so much.’

This poster is in demand from automotive memorabilia collectors due to the famous Ferrari and other real-life car models that are featured.

Here’s the original trailer.

The Castle is a true cult film and one that many folks outside of Australia will never have even heard of, but those that have seen it are very likely to sing its praises to anyone who’ll listen. For a long time it wasn’t an easy film to catch in the UK, having opened at a handful of cinemas in 1998 and then languishing unreleased on DVD until a month ago (it was released on VHS at a time when that format was being ousted from most shops). I first saw it after borrowing a copy of the Australian DVD from a Kiwi friend who had urged me to watch it on a number of occasions and I’m very glad I did.

It’s a really funny, sweet little film and you can’t help but get caught up in the story of a family trying to save their home from destruction. Some of the Aussie references will be lost on non-natives but there’s plenty to enjoy and I heartily recommend you check it out as soon as possible. The film is endlessly quotable and, from what I understand, it’s a film that Australians really took to heart. I’ve been told that you’d be hard pressed to find any Aussie who can’t recite lines such as “This is going straight to the pool room” or “Tell him he’s dreaming”.

This British poster features a unique design of a ‘pottery relief’ of the Kerrigan family in front of their house with a Jumbo jet flying overhead. This was done by the great British artist Brian Bysouth. The press quote is also rather great and I had someone tell me that this particular poster was withdrawn at some cinemas for the ‘pissing’, though I’m not sure how true this is.

In December 2012 I met and interviewed Brian Bysouth and this poster was discussed:

One poster that I recently discovered had your input is the quad for The Castle, which is that small independent Australian film that came out in the 1990s. You modelled the wall plaque that’s featured on it, right? How did that come about?
We went to a screening of the film and afterwards had a meeting to discuss what we all thought was a unique and challenging film to create a poster for.  Later I sat down with Steve Laws, the studio manager and a leading creative, and we thrashed out some ideas, but inspiration was lacking.  The following day an excited Steve came into my office and explained his idea for making something ‘that the dad in the film would be happy to have in his poolroom’ (a famous quote from the film).

Steve’s idea was that we should create something that you could easily imagine hanging in the poolroom amongst all of the other bric-a-brac. We decided to imitate those bass-relief plaster plaques that you see in kitsch-filled shops. So we went out and bought some Plasticine and a very large plate to base the model on, and I set to work. I modelled the characters and the airplane taking off over the bungalow. The title was cut out of Plasticine and included around the base. I remember thinking that my art school training in sculpture was a real help.

Steve and I enjoyed a good laugh as we watched the thing develop, and a series of transparencies were made to show the client how it was progressing. When it was finished I painted it with poster colour then sprayed it with varnish to protect the delicate surface, and that was that. For the background of the poster we wanted to reproduce the wallpaper of the poolroom but couldn’t find anything we liked, so we ended up using a macro close-up of one of the FEREF account executive’s silk ties!

Note that the article also features an image of an initial sketch idea for the poster by Brian.

Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End is one of those films that leaves a lasting impression on anyone who sees it, but it was sadly considered to be a ‘lost’ film for many years and was practically impossible to see after its initial cinema opening in a handful of countries. The film was briefly available on VHS in the UK but was never released on DVD. In 2011 the BFI restored and re-released it at the cinema and also issued a blu-ray version complete with several extras, which is utterly superb and well worth picking up.

The film focuses on Mike (John Moulder-Brown) a teenager who leaves school and gets his first job working at a local swimming baths. There he meets Susan (Jane Asher) an older woman with whom he quickly becomes infatuated. Without spoiling things too much, the film builds to a fairly shocking climax which has been known to polarize viewers. Jane Asher looks absolutely stunning and really plays the seductive, care-free Susan perfectly – it’s not hard to understand the reasons behind Mike’s infatuation!

Skolimowski was a contemporary of Roman Polanski and was mentored by the great Polish director Andrzej Wajda. He completed several films in Poland throughout the 1960s before moving to the UK where he made Deep End and a couple of other features. He then left to Los Angeles where he took up painting and occasionally acted in films, notably in White Knights and more recently in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises. His 17 year hiatus from directing ended in 2008 with the release of Four Nights with Anna and he made the spartan thriller Essential Killing with Vincent Gallo in 2010.

This poster by an unknown graphic designer is the quad that was printed when the film was given a wider UK release. The premiere showing had actually been at the Academy Cinema One on London’s Oxford Street and the poster for this was done by the legendary designer Peter Strausfeld (his Seven Samurai poster is on this site here).

The original trailer is on YouTube.

A striking portrait of actor Tom Conti on the British quad for this little seen film based on the play Spofford by Herman Shumlin, which was itself adapting the book Reuben, Reuben by Peter De Vries. Conti plays Gowan McGland, a character clearly based on the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, a compulsive womaniser and lifelong alcoholic who died from liver poisoning whilst on tour in the US in 1953.

The film follows Gowan, who is coping with writer’s block and depression, as he tours his poetry around various clubs and societies, seducing married women and drinking himself into oblivion. A chance encounter sees him meeting and falling in love with student Geneva Spofford (Kelly McGillis in her first film role), but can Geneva save him from himself before it’s too late? The film is notable for its sharp script and strong performance by Conti who was nominated for an Academy Award for the role. Frustratingly, it has never been released on DVD and there is no legal way of watching it currently.

I’ve struggled to discover who is the artist behind this UK poster but the US one sheet has practically identical art, so it’s either an adaptation of that or the same art was simply re-used. If you have any ideas who was responsible please get in touch.

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.

As with the film itself, the poster for the second Fright Night film is definitely a case of ‘if it’s not broken, why fix it?’. The artwork of the vampiric face is practically identical to the one that was used for the global marketing campaign for the original; the Japanese poster can be seen here. Note the slight difference in the eyes, which leads me to believe it may have been redrawn the second time around. The key difference for this version is the location and the suburban house of the first film has been replaced by the multi-storey town house of the second.

Set three years after the original, Charlie Brewster (William Ragsdale) has undergone psychiatric therapy and now believes that Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) was actually a serial killer who had disguised himself as a vampire, and is trying to get on with his life with new girlfriend Alex (Traci Lind). Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) has returned to being a burnt out vampire hunter on his Fright Night TV show, but one night a mysterious group of people move into his building lead by the alluring Regine (Julie Carmen). It’s not long before Charlie and Peter discover that she is Jerry’s vampire sister who plans to exact her revenge for his death and sentence Charlie to eternal damnation.

I’ve struggled to find out who was responsible for both the original and this sequel artwork so please get in touch if you have an idea.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

In August 2011 I was lucky enough to visit the island of Cuba for a ten day trip which was a fantastic experience. It really does feel like a country stuck in a time warp, circa 1965, particularly once you leave the capital and head into the countryside. It’s a stunningly beautiful island with very hospitable people but the relative poverty of the country is clear to see. It’s often said that the government is likely to relax the current freeze on foreign (particularly Western) investment once ‘Comandante’ Fidel Castro passes away, although with his brother Raul currently in charge very little has changed. This article on the BBC gives you an insight into the current situation.

The Cuban people’s love for film and cinema-going is legendary and our guidebook claimed that at the end of the 1950s there were over 300 cinemas in the capital Havana alone. Today, these great old buildings continue to thrive and whilst there I witnessed the queues of people lining up to see the latest releases. I took this picture of the Yara cinema in the Vedado area of Havana before the evening crowds descended.

Whilst in Havana I visited a bookshop that was selling original Cuban propaganda posters printed in the 1950s and 60s by OSPAAAL. They also had a handful of screen-printed film posters, all of which were reprints of the original Cuban cinema posters or re-imagined designs by local artists. They are officially screen printed by the ICAIC (Instituto Cubano de Artes Industrias Cinematografia) in Havana.

This is a screen print of the original poster for the 1985 animated film Vampires in Havana, which was directed by Cuban Juan Padrón. The story follows Joseph Amadeus von Dracula, known as Pepito, a trumpet player living in 1930s Havana who spends his time plotting to overthrow the incumbent dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. He’s completely unaware that he’s actually a vampire and that his uncle, a descendant of the original Count Dracula, has been using him as a test subject a secret formula which allows vampires to move about freely in sunlight. After learning about the potion, two sets of Vampires, including a group of Chicago mobster bloodsuckers, chase after Pepito with plans to use it for their own selfish means, but all is not as it seems with the potion.

The artwork is by the late designer and children’s book illustrator Eduardo Munoz Bachs who was born in Span in 1937 and moved to Cuba with his parents in 1941. Despite having no formal training in graphic design he designed his first poster for the ICAIC (Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematografica), which was founded after the Cuban revolution to produce and promote Cuban films. He went on to design over 2000 film posters and is considered one of the most important Cuban graphic designers ever to have worked. He sadly passed away in 2001.

This Pinterest gallery features many of his posters. Whilst I was at the shop I also picked up a poster for A Clockwork Orange and one for The Godfather.

A British action thriller directed by Peter Duffell, Inside Out sees the inimitable Telly Savalas star as conman Harry Morgan who teams up with James Mason and Robert Culp on the hunt for a stash of Nazi gold hidden since the end of the Second World War. Duffell is perhaps best known for his TV work, but he also directed the classic Amicus horror The House That Dripped Blood, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

I’m unsure who is responsible for the artwork on this US one sheet so get in touch if you have an idea. You’ll notice that there is some foxing present on the bottom part of this particular copy.

One of the best British films of all time, and certainly one of the best comedies, Local Hero was directed by Scotsman Bill Forsyth and tells the story of what happens when a Texan company reveals plans to turn a tiny stretch of the Northern Scottish coastline into a massive oil refinery. Burt Lancaster plays Felix Happer, the head of Knox Oil and Gas, who sends one of his hot-shot executives Mac (Peter Riegert) to the tiny village of Ferness to make a purchase offer to the residents. Mac meets up with local Knox representative Oldsen (Peter Capaldi) and the pair start negotiations with the help of local solicitor and pub owner Urquhart (Peter Capaldi).

Despite the enthusiasm of the majority of the locals, who relish the idea of the money heading their way, things don’t exactly go to plan as Mac starts to enjoy life in the sleepy village, Oldsen meets and falls in love with a local girl (mermaid?) called Marina and an old beachcomber who lives in a shack on the beach reveals he has no plans to sell up and move on.

The film features a brilliantly sharp script full of memorable characters, hilarious exchanges and some wonderful sight gags; one in particular featuring an abseiling therapist spelling out a message on a window is perfectly done. It also features a very memorable score by Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler. Local Hero could rightly be called a treasure of a movie and I strongly urge you to check it out if you’re yet to experience it.

The village of Pennan near Aberdeen was used for the village location shots and is now a scene of pilgrimage for the fans of the film, particularly the red phone box that plays a prominent role in the story. In 2008, the British critic Mark Kermode travelled to the village with Bill Forsyth to interview him about the film and hold a special screening on the 25th anniversary of its release. The video of the event can be watched here.

I’m unsure who is responsible for the artwork on this US one sheet but the UK quad also features a very similar image of Mac (with the addition of the phone box). If you have any ideas who might have been responsible please get in touch.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

Ace director Edgar Wright‘s Scott Pilgrim vs The World was my favourite film of 2010 and is one of the most carefully crafted, brilliantly realised and wonderfully energetic films ever released. Based on a series of graphic stories created by Canadian cartoonist Bryan Lee O’Malley, the film tells the story of the eponymous character, played in the film by Michael Cera, who falls for the alluring Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and must then battle her seven evil exes in order to win her heart. The actors playing the exes are perfectly cast and include Brandon Routh, Chris Evans and Jason Schwartzman.

The film is a visual treat and rewards multiple viewings thanks to the brilliant script, kinetic editing and careful inclusion of hidden elements (look out for the many ‘X’s secreted throughout the film, for example). Some of the effects have to be seen to be believed, including an amazing battle of the bands sequence featuring two building-sized dragons and one angry gorilla beast. Much was made of the fact that the film was a critical success but was unable to make much of a box-office impact on release, but there’s no question that the film has found, and will continue to find, an appreciative audience on home video.

The official film posters for the film were slightly disappointing considering the level of craft put into the film itself and I felt at the time that, despite an interesting advance poster, so much more could have been done.

This screen print was commissioned by the limited edition poster outfit Mondo for the Alamo Drafthouse premiere of the film. It was created by the incredibly talented Uruguayan designer and artist Martin Ansin, whose work has graced many of the best posters released by Mondo, including several in the Universal Monsters series, like this amazing Phantom of the Opera one. He perfectly captures the kinetic energy of the film and the title treatment is absolutely spot on, echoing as it does the use of type in the film itself. The artist also worked on a variant of the poster that features Nega Scott, seen briefly at the end of the film.

The other posters I’ve collected by Ansin can be seen here. His official website is well worth a browse.

An unusual design on this poster for 11 Harrowhouse, a British heist thriller from 1974 that was helmed by Aram Avakian. The American director had gained notoriety for the ground-breaking indie film End of the Road (1970), which was given an X-rating for its graphic depiction of an abortion and other scenes considered shocking for the time. 11 Harrowhouse stars Charles Grodin as a diamond merchant who is blackmailed into pulling a heist at a London jewel-exchange known as The System, which is located at the titular address. Candice Bergen features as his girlfriend who joins him on the heist, along with various ingenious ‘tools’ that include the cockroach depicted on this poster.

The initials FMA can be seen on the right of the poster (see picture 8) but I’m unsure who they belong to. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch and I’ll add the credit.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

The horror anthology The Monster Club was produced by ex-Amicus co-owner Milton Subotsky and was the final feature film from director Roy Ward Baker. Subotsky had seen great success as one half of Amicus (his partner was the screenwriter Max Rosenberg) with the release of several ‘portmanteau’ horrors, including three directed by genre stalwart Freddie Francis; Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), Torture Garden (1967) and Tales from the Crypt (1972). Roy Ward Baker is best remembered for his work on the Titanic film A Night to Remember (1958) and several successful horror films for one of Amicus’ rival studios, Hammer, including the excellent Quatermass and the Pit (1967) and Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1972). Baker directed a handful of horrors for Amicus, including the anthologies Asylum (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973), as well as the ghost story And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973).

The Monster Club features American horror legend Vincent Price as the vampire Eramus who bumps into the horror writer R.Chetwynd-Hayes (played by the prolific John Carradine) and feasts on his blood but ‘doesn’t bite deep enough’ to turn him into one of his own. Eramus then invites the writer to visit the titular club claiming that he’s sure it will offer plenty of inspiration as it’s home to all manner of werewolves, ghouls, beasts and other assorted creatures (read: extras in hastily prepared rubber masks). What follows is three fairly dull horror stories featuring several notable actors (Donald Pleasence, Richard Johnson and Britt Ekland) but it’s the surrounding sequences in the club itself that are more interesting with a handful of catchy musical numbers and one memorable sequence in which a stripper takes everything off, including her skin (via a shadowy animation).

The poster was designed and painted by the brilliant British illustrator Graham Humphreys. Because it wasn’t a poster we discussed during our 2011 interview I wanted to speak to Graham to hear the story of the making of this poster in more detail. The interview with Graham can be read here.

Wes Anderson‘s superb Moonrise Kingdom is my favourite film of 2012 and this American one sheet is in the running for poster of the year too. Arguably the director’s best to date (although I’d have a hard time justifying picking this over Rushmore) the film is set on a fictional New England island in the 1960s and follows the exploits of a pair of young lovers who decide to elope (her from home, him from scout camp) and trigger a series of events as the islanders set out on the hunt for them. The pair at the centre of the film (as depicted on this poster) are played by two unknowns, Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman. They are surrounded by Anderson regulars, including Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, as well as a handful of first-time collaborators like Bruce Willis and Edward Norton.

This poster is the result of a pairing of two considerable talents; the British artist Michael Gaskell and the American letterer and illustrator Jessica Hische. Gaskell, born in 1963, is an award-winning painter of still-life, landscapes and portraits who has been the subject of five solo shows in London and has twice been awarded second prize in the BP Portrait Award. His official website features a biography as well as a gallery of his work. I’m not sure how his involvement in this poster came about and have been unable to find out any details online. I intend to try and contact him to discover more.

Jessica Hische is responsible for the design of the typography that was used on the posters as well as the credits during the film itself. Hische is a multi-talented letterer and illustrator who has worked on projects for advertising, editorial, branding and books. Her official website features a biography as well as an extensive portfolio of her work. The site used to have a page on which the designer wrote about her involvement in the project:

“I worked directly with Wes and his small team of co-producers to bring his vision to life. […] The initial direction was based on Ed Benguiat’s Edwardian Script, but the direction shifted toward something more hand-hewn looking and lightly referencing titles from a Chabrol film. I was hired to create the 20 or so credits in the beginning of the movie, and a typeface to be used for the end credits. I ended up creating two fonts—a display and a text weight of the same typeface. […] Working with Wes was an absolute dream and I was amazed and impressed at just how involved he is with every aspect of his films.”

The page notes that art direction was given from Jeremy Dawson and Molly Cooper who were producer and co-producer respectively.

The trailer for the film is on YouTube and if you’re yet to see the film I strongly urge you to hunt down a copy of it ASAP, with the only caveat being that if you’re not a fan of Wes Anderson’s output then this film will not convert you!

Bruce Robinson’s Withnail & I is my favourite British film and one of the best black comedies ever made. Based on the director’s own experiences of living in North London as an unemployed actor, the film stars Richard E. Grant in his debut film role as the titular Withnail and Paul McGann as ‘I’/Marwood. Tired of the mess in their squalid apartment and sick of the lack of job prospects, the pair decide to take advantage of the fact that Withnail’s eccentric uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths) has a cottage in the Lake District, and they plan a relaxing break in the country. After driving up North in Marwood’s battered Jaguar the pair find their time in the cottage is significantly less idyllic than they’d hoped, and the film follows their escapades as they  have to deal with inclement weather, a lack of supplies and a bunch of oddball locals. To make matters worse Monty arrives unannounced and takes a keen interest in Marwood.

The artwork on this American one sheet is by the famed British cartoonist and illustrator Ralph Steadman who is perhaps best known for his long-term collaboration with the late American author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Born in 1936, Steadman is a noted political cartoonist and has painted book covers for writers such as Ted Hughes and George Orwell, as well as editorial work for papers like The Independent. Steadman’s work with Thompson saw him accompanying the journalist on several field trips, which saw the birth of the famed Gonzo style of journalism. He illustrated the covers for both Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 and the classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which saw the creation of the stylised character of Thompson depicted with bucket hats, aviator glasses and a cigarette holder. The artist’s official website features a great biography and plenty of galleries of his work.

Steadman has illustrated several film posters, including Terry Gilliam’s brilliant adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the film based on Thompson’s life Where the Buffalo Roam, as well as the recent documentary Gonzo. In addition to this one sheet, the artwork seen here was used on the superb British quad for the film.

Director George A. Romero was hired to direct this horror anthology and was paired with legendary horror author Stephen King who was on screen-writing duties (hence the top tagline). The film is an homage to boys’ comics of the 1950s, including Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, and features five short stories that are bookended by scenes featuring a young boy (played Joe King, son of Stephen) who is berated by his abusive father for reading those ‘crap’ comics and who later takes deadly revenge on his father. As with any anthology some of the stories are stronger than others and arguably the best is the one called ‘The Crate’ that sees an ancient creature unleashed from its titular prison, whilst ‘Something to Tide You Over’ a seriously creepy tale of revenge starring Ted Danson and a villainous Leslie Nielsen.

Romero once again collaborated with the special effects guru Tom Savini whose work on Creepshow definitely stands up as amongst the finest of his career. His cockroach-wrangling during the final story ‘They’re Creeping Up On You’ deserves special mention. The director assembled a very impressive cast that includes the likes of Ed Harris, Hal Holbrook and genre-favourite Adrienne Barbeau. Stephen King himself even makes an (overblown, hammy) appearance as an unlucky yokel who gets more than he bargained for after discovering a strange meteorite.

The artwork is unique to this British quad but is based on artwork (source) by the American artist Bernie Wrightson that was painted for the title page of the tie-in comic book adaptation. The artwork has recently (July 2013) been confirmed as having been painted by the British poster art stalwart Tom Chantrell. Confirmation was made after the job books of Alan Wheatley, the design agency account handler for the distributor Alpha Films Ltd, were checked and Chantrell’s name was assigned to it. The poster’s artist identity had previously been unknown, although Chantrell’s name had been put forward despite the lack of his usual signature.

Note that there is a printed code upside down on the top left edge of the poster (see last picture). I’m not sure why this was added but it’s possibly to do with it being part of a poster dealer’s inventory – someone cataloguing posters may stamp them with a number to keep track of them – but why stamp it on the front? I know of at least one other copy of the poster with the number on the top so it’s a bit of a mystery.

The character of The Creep depicted on the poster also features on both the excellent advance one sheet and the final version, as well as the Japanese B2.

An appropriately lurid design on this UK quad for the release of infamous independent studio Troma Entertainment’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High. The film was directed by Richard W. Haines and Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman (under the pseudonym Samuel Weil) and the story centres on the Tromaville High School in New Jersey, which is located close to a dodgy nuclear power-plant that continuously suffers leaks of hazardous material. The Cretins are the school’s anarchic gang (who feature heavily on this poster) and are responsible for peddling drugs to the other pupils. When they inadvertently buy a marijuana plant that has been contaminated by nuclear waste things start to get very messy indeed. Of particular note is the parasitic offspring birthed by Chrissy (Janelle Brady) under the influence of the toxic weed, which mutates into the spiky monstrosity seen at the top of this poster.

Criticising a Troma production is a bit like tearing down a school production; this is amateur entertainment at best, with acting that is hilariously awful across the board, choppy editing and a total lack of atmosphere. With that being said, if you go in expecting the usual Troma mixing-pot of gore, guns, girls and explosions you won’t leave too disappointed. Some of the effects are actually well-realised on what I can only assume was a minuscule budget.

The montage on this quad was designed and painted by one of my favourite British artists Brian Bysouth, whose wonderfully detailed illustrations featured on hundreds of posters over three decades. Some of his most famous posters include the withdrawn one sheet for A View to a Kill, Highlander, Big Trouble in Little China and The Living Daylights. In 2012 I was lucky enough to meet and interview Brian and the resultant article can be read by clicking here.

This is the British quad for the release of Honkytonk Man, which was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood who also stars alongside his son Kyle Eastwood. Set during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the film follows the western singer Red Stovall (Eastwood snr.) who is suffering from tuberculosis and is living on a dust-ruined farm in Oklahoma. He decides to take a chance at making it big in Nashville and sets off in a vintage Lincoln convertible accompanied by his nephew Whit (Eastwood jr.).

The film follows the pair’s escapades along the way as they meet a whole host of unique characters and Red takes Whit to a whore house to ‘make him a man’. When they eventually make it to Nashville, Red manages to impress a record executive who gives him a chance to make a recording, but his illness is quickly catching up with him.

This poster artwork is unique to the UK poster and was painted by the British artist Tom Beauvais who I was lucky enough to interview for this site in 2013. This poster was discussed during the interview and the following is an excerpt:

I wondered if I could ask you about the two posters you painted featuring Clint Eastwood, Bronco Billy and The Honkytonk Man?
With Bronco Billy, the bit that was on the left of the giant circus advert was taken from the American poster but the British distributor felt that it wasn’t enough and they requested a close-up of Clint Eastwood holding guns. I painted the portrait from a still and then married it together with the American art.

The figure of the boy on the Honkytonk Man poster is actually based on a reference pose by my son Keith. There was a still of Clint in the bathtub and also a still of Kyle Eastwood, who played the son in the film, but it was only a headshot so I got Keith to pose with his elbows on the back of a chair.

To see the other posters in the collection that are designed and/or illustrated by Tom Beauvais click here.

A cinematic experience quite unlike any other, Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi‘s 1977 masterpiece House is almost impossible to categorize or even describe and simply needs to be seen to be believed. The American distributor Janus Films, who supervised a restoration of the film in 2010, attempt to summarise the film better than I possibly could:

‘How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 movie House? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby Doo as directed by Dario Argento? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home, only to come face to face with evil spirits, bloodthirsty pianos, and a demonic housecat. Too absurd to be genuinely terrifying, yet too nightmarish to be merely comic, House seems like it was beamed to Earth from another planet.’

Relatively unknown outside of his native Japan, Obayashi had started his career in the field of experimental filmmaking and quickly forged a reputation as a master visual artist. His skills were soon utilised by advertising agencies and he quickly became a sought-after commercial director, working with Western actors including Sophia Loren and Charles Bronson who were earning lucrative paycheques to hawk various goods. The Japanese studio Toho approached Obayashi and asked him to develop a script for a horror film that would hopefully emulate the great success of Spielberg’s Jaws. The director spoke to his 11-year-old daughter Chigumi to get some inspiration, claiming later that adults “only think about things they understand…everything stays on that boring human level”.

The resultant script, written by Chiho Katsura, included several of Chigumi’s suggestions. Toho green-lit the script and then, after struggling to find a director willing to tackle it, gave the job to Obayashi himself despite him not being a member of the Toho staff. The resultant film is clearly the work of someone who is unafraid to experiment with the medium of film and the director spent two months on Toho’s biggest soundstage shooting the script without storyboards and utilising a whole host of special effects techniques, several of which Obayashi seemingly created especially for this film. House was a huge hit, much to the studio’s surprise, unquestionably helped by the fact that the popular band Godiego providing the best-selling soundtrack, thus cementing the film’s appeal to the youth market.

Despite Japanese success the film wasn’t released outside of the country, that is until Janus Films bought the distribution rights and aided with a digital restoration in preparation for a cinema re-release, and eventually a blu-ray release on their Criterion label in 2010. When the Nashville-based designer and artist Sam Smith (AKA Sam’s Myth) prepared a poster for a preview showing of the film at his local Belcourt Theatre he had no idea that Janus would eventually decide to not only use the image for their official one sheet but also as the cover of the eventual Criterion release. In June 2013 I interviewed Sam and the resultant article can be read here. We discussed the House poster and the following excerpt explains how he arrived at the final design:

How quickly did you arrive at using the image of Blanche the cat as the poster image?
Almost instantly actually. In fact, my friend Zack Hall who is a manager at the Belcourt sent me some images and we were brainstorming at that image of Blanche just jumped out at me and seemed like something I could use. But I wanted to transform it from the screenshot into a graphic piece. The angle of that shot isn’t quite straight on, so I manipulated that, and I gave the cat’s face the entire frame of the poster, removed from the picture frame. I touched the image up and blew it out in black and white, and I just saw this field of red-orange over the whole thing, thinking it could really transform that image into something iconic. The lettering and everything else– the little house illustration– all came very quickly, in a single pass. It’s by far the fastest any poster design has ever come together for me. I didn’t really think much about it and don’t really remember it happening.

Were you surprised at how iconic the Blanche image has ended up being?
A little bit, but I must give credit to Obayashi who came up with this image in the first place. It’s not like I drew it or created it out of my own imagination. I feel that I just plucked it out of the film and tried to transform it graphically into something iconic that represented the insane, exciting, colorful energy of the film, while adding my own touches with the lettering and accoutrements. People loved it though. I suggested making t-shirts and stickers, and I still see people wearing them when I’m at a festival or traveling somewhere. It really taught me that in this day and age, the most important quality of a poster is for its design to feel iconic and eye-catching, above all else. The goal is to get people talking about the film and going to see the film and telling their friends about it, and it’s cool to hear people say “you know, the movie with the poster of the red cat face” and realize you had a role in the film finding its audience.

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Sam’s blog has a post about the creation of the House poster and is well worth a read.

Featuring a cognitive illusion so overt it’s a wonder that the artist didn’t paint Roger Daltrey with one eye winking, this is the US 30×40 poster for the release of the late, great British director Ken Russell‘s resolutely bonkers biography of the Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt. The film is (very) loosely based on a biography written by one of Liszt’s mistresses and, rather than follow a traditional linear narrative, tells the story of his life through a series of increasingly bizarre sequences. It’s a typically flamboyant, vulgar and controversial effort from Russell, who manages to cram in adultery, violence, vampires, Nazis, a mechanical viking, a ten-foot phallus and Ringo Starr as The Pope. Lisztomania arguably shows the director at his most self-indulgent but it definitely has to be seen to be believed.

In a cinematic release situation not often repeated, Russell had also helmed Tommy, a film based on The Who’s 1969 rock-opera album of the same name, which also had Roger Daltrey as the lead and was released earlier in 1975. This explains the inclusion of the terribly clunky ‘it out-Tommys “Tommy”‘ in the top tagline – Tommy was released in March and Lisztomania in November.

The phallic imagery on this 30×40 poster directly references a hallucination sequence in the film in which Listz’s libido is stroked to such an extent that he grows a ten-foot long erection, which is then celebrated by a horde of lusty maidens before being directed to a nearby guillotine – talk about pleasure and pain! Despite extensive searches, I’ve been unable to identify the artist responsible so if you have any ideas please get in touch. I’m a big fan of the logo design too.

This is the US 30×40 poster for the release of Wattstax, the documentary dubbed ‘the African American Woodstock’ that was put together by Mel Stuart, a prolific director and producer who is perhaps best known for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). The concert was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots that had seen the worst social unrest in the city’s history. It was organised by Memphis’ Stax Records (hence the name) and featured performances from many of the top black artists of the time, including Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, The Bar-Kays, Rufus Thomas and Kim Weston.

Mel Stuart was reportedly unhappy with the quality of a lot of the concert footage and decided to intersperse the music with interviews and stand-up footage of the likes of Richard Pryor, Ted Lange and other African American comedians and actors who spoke about their experience of being black in America at the time.

The concert ends with Isaac Hayes performing the hit music he recorded for the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft, the poster of which is clearly referenced with the title treatment on this one for Wattstax.

Wes Anderson‘s superb Moonrise Kingdom was my favourite film of 2012 and is arguably the director’s best to date (although I’d have a hard time justifying picking this over Rushmore). The film is set on a fictional New England island in the 1960s and follows the exploits of a pair of young lovers who decide to elope (her from home, him from scout camp) and trigger a series of events as the islanders set out on the hunt for them. The pair at the centre of the film (as depicted on this poster) are played by two unknowns, Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman, and are surrounded by Anderson regulars, including Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, as well as a handful of first-time collaborators like Bruce Willis and Edward Norton.

This Japanese B1 poster is markedly different from the American one sheet but this posed image of the characters, created especially for the marketing campaign, was also used on several other international posters, including the British quad.

Jessica Hische is responsible for the design of the typography that was used on the posters (only the title of which features on this B1) as well as the credits during the film itself. Hische is a multi-talented letterer and illustrator who has worked on projects for advertising, editorial, branding and books. Her official website features a biography as well as an extensive portfolio of her work. The site used to have a page on which the designer wrote about her involvement in the project:

“I worked directly with Wes and his small team of co-producers to bring his vision to life. […] The initial direction was based on Ed Benguiat’s Edwardian Script, but the direction shifted toward something more hand-hewn looking and lightly referencing titles from a Chabrol film. I was hired to create the 20 or so credits in the beginning of the movie, and a typeface to be used for the end credits. I ended up creating two fonts—a display and a text weight of the same typeface. […] Working with Wes was an absolute dream and I was amazed and impressed at just how involved he is with every aspect of his films.”

The trailer for the film is on YouTube and if you’re yet to see the film I strongly urge you to hunt down a copy of it ASAP, with the only caveat being that if you’re not a fan of Wes Anderson’s output then this film will not convert you!

A true cult horror classic, Re-Animator was based on H. P. Lovecraft‘s 1922 short story ‘Herbert West–Reanimator‘ and was director Stuart Gordon‘s first feature film. Originally planned to be a TV series set around the beginning of the 20th century, a pilot and a number of episodes were scripted by Dennis Paoli and William Norris. Eventually the trio decided to update the story to present day Chicago since the period setting was increasing production costs, and were then persuaded to make it as a feature film after Gordon was introduced to producer Brian Yuzna. The infamous horror director/producer Charles Band‘s Empire Pictures agreed to help with post-production in return for distribution rights (note the logo on this poster).

One of the reasons for the films cult success was the hiring of Jeffrey Combs to play the lead role of scientist Herbert West, which led to one of horror’s all-time great performances. Coombs’  portrayal of West is pitch-perfect, blackly comic and the film is unquestionably elevated by his presence. At the beginning of the film West’s medical student is dismissed from a Swiss University after a failed experiment to bring his dead professor back to life using a concoction he has been developing for several months.Some time later, West arrives at a New England university and immediately carries on his experiments, enlisting the help of his room mate Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott). When Dan’s girlfriend Megan grows suspicious of their activity, a series of events see the body count rising and West is able to test his new serum and ‘defeat death’.

The film has brilliant, gore-heavy special effects that stand up well nearly thirty years on and it’s a perfectly paced horror that was, unusually for the time, lauded by most critics. It went on to spawn sequels and launched Gordon’s career as a horror director of note.

This is the photo style one sheet and features one of the all-time great horror tag-lines. There is also an illustration style one sheet that can be seen here.

This is the scarce international one sheet for the release of Army of Darkness, the third installment in the Evil Dead trilogy. As with the previous entries in the cult horror series, the film was directed by Sam Raimi, produced by Robert Tapert and stars their friend Bruce Campbell as Ash, the unlucky goofball at the centre of the chaos. Re-interpreting the end of Evil Dead II somewhat, the film opens as Ash is sucked through a time portal and lands in 1300AD, whereupon he is captured by a medieval army led by Lord Arthur who believes him to be in league with his enemy.

After battling a deadite in a pit, Ash is set free and celebrated as a hero by Arthur and his men. He also meets and strikes up a friendship with Sheila, the sister of a fallen knight. Upon learning that he must find and use the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (Book of the Dead, as seen in the previous films) to return to his time, Ash sets off to locate it but things don’t go quite to plan. Whilst running through a haunted forest, he ends up crashing into a mirror inside a windmill and, in a superb sequence, is attacked by several mini clones of himself. Eventually one of them creates a full-size evil version of Ash and is soon uniting all of the deadites together to form the Army of Darkness.

Infamously, Universal Studios wrestled control from Raimi during post-production as they were unhappy with the downbeat ending that the director had shot, which depicted Ash drinking too much special potion and waking up in a post-apocalyptic future landscape. Another ‘happy’ ending, set in a supermarket with Ash recalling events of the film to a colleague, was filmed during reshoots and Army of Darkness was released in the US with that ending. Raimi was able to restore his preferred ending for international releases, including the UK, and subsequent home video releases have included both cuts.

This one sheet was illustrated by one of my favourite artists, Renato Casaro, an Italian with a prolific movie poster output that lasted over 35 years. He began his career in 1953, aged 19, at the famous Studio Favalli in Rome and would go on to design and paint posters for many of the biggest directors in the world. His skill at accurately portraying actors and his brilliant use of colour and composition saw him much in demand from studios and actors alike.

His artwork has featured on posters used in multiple countries, including Japan, Germany, USA as well as in his native Italy. Check out the incredible amount of work on his official website here, which also features a biography of the artist. The other posters I have collected by Casaro can be seen by clicking here.

This artwork also features on the UK quad and a few other European posters, including the Spanish release. The American one sheet features an excellent illustration by Michael Hussar.

A detailed painting by Renato Casaro features on this German poster for the release of Fire, Ice and Dynamite. The film, which is actually a series of action sequences held together by a ropey plot, was conceived of and helmed by Willy Bogner, a German alpine ski racer who is perhaps best known for working as a stuntman on several James Bond films, most notably On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but also several of the Roger Moore entries.

Ostensibly an excuse to showcase a range of stunts, the plot part of the film features Moore as Sir George, an rich philanthropist who fakes his own death and sets up a series of sporting events in which his children have to take part to try and win his $135 million fortune. A ruthless pair of villains also get in on the act. According to most reviews I’ve read the plot fizzles out towards the end and only the stunts manage to keep the audience’s attention. The film also features cameos from several sports stars, including Steffi Graf and Nikki Lauda, as well as other celebrities like Isaac Hayes.

One of my favourite artists, Renato Casaro is an Italian with a prolific movie poster output that lasted over 35 years. He began his career in 1953, aged 19, at the famous Studio Favalli in Rome and would go on to design and paint posters for many of the biggest directors in the world. His skill at accurately portraying actors and his brilliant use of colour and composition saw him much in demand from studios and actors alike. His artwork has featured on posters used in multiple countries, including Japan, Germany, USA as well as in his native Italy.

Check out the incredible amount of work on his official website here, which also features a biography of the artist. In March 2014 I published an exclusive interview with Renato and it can be read by clicking here. The other posters I’ve collected by Renato Casaro are here.

Probably my favourite of the five cinematic outings by the Monty Python crew, Life of Brian is one of the funniest films ever made and the brilliant satirical humour hasn’t diminished at all in the thirty plus years since its release. Infamously causing an uproar with various religious groups, it also saw EMI, the original financial backers, pulling out during production claiming the script was blasphemous. Luckily, George Harrison stepped in with the finance, apparently after realising it may have been the last chance to see another Python film in cinemas. His company HandMade Films was formed as a result of this deal.

The film’s religion-baiting story sees a man called Brian (Graham Chapman) born at the same time as Jesus Christ and initially mistaken for the Messiah, who ends up living an unremarkable life under the Roman occupation of Judea. Things take a fateful turn when his infatuation with a young rebel called Judith (Sue Jones-Davies) leads him to join the People’s Front of Judea, a bickering group who have decided to take a stand against the emperor.

The film raised the ire of several religious groups who were outraged at the concept, despite most of them having never even seen the film, and it was only given a general release once several cuts had been made. Despite the edits, several local UK councils banned the film from being shown at cinemas within their boroughs. Apparently some of these bans lasted until very recently, with the Welsh town of Aberystwyth finally lifting its one in 2009, which then saw a screening of the film attended by Jones, Michael Palin and Sue Jones-Davies, who was the then mayor of the town.

One of the more infamous bans was carried out by the Norwegians who refused to allow the film to be screened at all, which lead some of the international marketing material for the film to be emblazoned with the proclamation ‘So funny it was banned in Norway!’

This is a scarce, alternate style UK quad which differs from the other somewhat confusing design, which is simply the logo doubled up. A reader of the site got in touch to confirm that this quad was designed in house at HandMade films. To quote their informative email:

HandMade and the Pythons decided to re-submit the film to Irish Film Board to have the original ban overturned. The submission was successful and with the censor certification under our belt plans to release the film moved ahead and the Life of Brian was finally released in Ireland  I recall in the summer of 1988 as I recall eight years after original release. One of the unsung heroes of HandMade was freelance artist/designer George Rowbottom.

George was closely involved in many HMF posters over the years along with Ray Cooper and it was George who re-worked Life of Brian poster and came up with the “tablet” design for the quad used for the Irish release and also the superior amended 1-sheet. In both cases these were printed by National Screen who printed all our posters for domestic and international.

The original American trailer can be seen on YouTube.