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.

A colourful montage on this Japanese poster for the release of Disney’s groundbreaking sci-fi film, Tron. Another title that was released in the incredible summer of 1982, which included Blade Runner, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and The Thing, the film follows the adventures of hacker Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) who finds himself broken down into data and absorbed into a 3D computer world of his own making. There he must join forces with his lover Yori and the titular Tron to battle the malevolent Master Control Program and liberate the system from its dictatorial grip, which is the only way Flynn can return to the real world.

The film features seminal use of computer graphics to depict the world inside the mainframe and, although the visuals date the film somewhat when viewed today, back in 1982 they wowed audiences worldwide and were instrumental in CGI’s rise to prominence in the years that followed.

Note that Japanese audiences would have been treated to a 70mm screening of the film. There is also a special B2 poster that was printed for the country that can be viewed here.

A joint collaboration between two British production companies, Palace Pictures and Lew Grade’s ITC Entertainment, The Company of Wolves was helmed by the Irish director Neil Jordan and based on a short story by the late English author Angela Carter, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jordan. The film begins in the modern day with the  lead character Rosaleen (played by first-time actress Sarah Patterson) having moved with her parents to a large house in a forest. At night Rosaleen falls asleep and has a vivid dream in which she is a medieval peasant girl who lives with her grandma (played by Murder, She Wrote’s Angela Lansbury) in a woodland village. Sitting by the fire one evening her grandma begins to tell her a story and what follows is a series of surreal, fantasy tales, with multiple narratives and narrators, most of which feature wolves or werewolves, and all of which are ripe with hidden meanings and deeper significances (check out this page on IMDb to give you an idea).

Featuring elements of the classic Little Red Riding Hood fairytale (and indeed the film features a blood red shawl worn by a young girl) the film is a parable of the loss of innocence and the beginning of adolescence and sexual awakening – as the Grandma says at one point ‘Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.’ Overcoming a slight budget The Company of Wolves has a dream-like, eerie atmosphere helped in no-small part by excellent production and costume design. There is also a werewolf transformation scene that challenges the famous one seen in American Werewolf in London. Palace Pictures would re-team several more times with Neil Jordan, including for Mona Lisa (1986) and Oscar-winning The Crying Game (1992)

The excellent illustration on this Japanese B1 poster is credited to the illustrator Sumio Tsunoda about whom I was able to discover next to nothing. A search revealed that this cyberpunk image can also be credited to him. If anyone knows any more details about the artist please get in touch or leave a comment.

Another of Disney’s forays into live-action filmmaking (this was actually the studio’s second PG-rated film after 1979’s The Black Hole), The Watcher in the Woods is an eerie mystery thriller that absolutely terrified me when I first watched it as a child in the 1980s. An Anglo-American co-production, the film was helmed by John Hough and English director who had proved his horror chops with the adults-only The Legend of Hell House (1973) and was chosen by the American producer Ron Miller to work on this film. Legendary Hollywood actress Bette Davis was lined up to star and the year of production coincided with her 50th in the business.

The story sees an Anglo-American family move to a manor house surrounded by thick woodland that is owned by Mrs. Aylwood (Davis). One of the daughters, Jan (played by Lynn-Holly Johnson, the real-life figure-skater who would appear in For Your Eyes Only soon after), is told she bears a striking resemblance to Mrs Aylwood’s daughter Karen who went missing 30 years earlier. Jan begins to see strange apparitions in the forest and suffers a series of unexplainable phenomena. After discovering an abandoned church in the middle of the woods, Jan finds that there’s more to Karen’s disappearance than she’s been told and it’s not long before the secret behind the ‘Watcher’ is revealed.

This British quad features an illustration of the scene that terrified me the most when I first saw the film, which is the moment that a ritual is carried out inside the church during a violent thunderstorm. It also features an image of the Watcher in the form seen in the final release, but as the Wikipedia article on the film details there had originally been an alternative ending to the film that showed it in a much different form. The first ending apparently went down disastrously with test audiences and critics because of the poor quality of the creature effects and the studio took the decision to reshoot a new one without the participation of John Hough. The original ending can be viewed on YouTube.

This poster was illustrated by one of my favourite British artists, Brian Bysouth, who worked on a number of posters for Disney during the 1970s and 1980s, including for several of their animated titles. You can read my extensive interview with the man himself by clicking here. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen by clicking here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

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).

Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1973) marked the end of an era for British film in more ways than one. It was the last gothic horror to be produced by the original incarnation of the British Hammer Films studio and followed on from a series of six feature films based around the character of Baron Frankenstein portrayed by the late, great British actor Peter Cushing (the less said about 1970s Horror of Frankenstein, with Ralph Bates in the lead role, the better). Director Terence Fisher had worked on many of Hammer’s best-loved horrors, including their first gothic feature, 1957s The Curse of Frankenstein (starring Cushing and Christopher Lee as the monster) as well as the original Dracula (1958), The Mummy (1959) and two other Frankenstein features for the studio. He was to effectively retire from film-making at the end of production on FATMFH, and he wasn’t the only one of the Hammer alumni to do so. This was also the last Hammer feature film that screenwriter Tony Hinds, who had worked on many of the studio’s most successful horrors, would supply a script for. Other crew members who had been instrumental in the production of dozens of Hammer horrors also called it a day once this film was released.

Originally produced and shot in 1972, it eventually limped into cinemas in 1974 well after the appeal of British gothic horror films had dissipated. Cinema-goers were keen to experience the visceral thrills of the new wave of films coming out of Hollywood, including William Friedkin’s 1973 masterpiece The Exorcist, which made British efforts like FATMFH seem positively antiquated. Because of the fall in demand from distribution companies who were previously happy to bankroll Hammer’s productions, the budget for this film was a tiny fraction of many of their previous horrors. It would be a lie to say that the lack of money doesn’t show on screen – most of the film takes place on what is clearly a single soundstage – but the skilled craftsmen at Hammer were still able to create a wonderful sense of atmosphere with the modest amount of funds at their disposal. The film is in many ways the perfect swan-song for Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein and his performance absolutely steals the show, from his brilliant crash-zoom entrance to the quiet madness of the denouement.

On the 29th of May, 2013 I was lucky enough to see the film at London’s British Film Institute in a special showing to both celebrate the centenary of Cushing’s birth and also preview a newly restored print of FATMFH. The reformed version of Hammer films have undertaken a series of restoration projects on many of the studio’s classic films, including the original Dracula and the original Curse of Frankenstein. I believe that the new print of FATMFH will see release on blu-ray at some point this year, as well as a new restoration of The Mummy. It was a real treat to see the film on the big screen and be able to revel in a classic Peter Cushing performance.

This British quad was created at the London-based Downtons Advertising agency by one of the principal designers, Eddie Paul, and painted by an artist named Bill Wiggins. Both men are featured in Sim Branaghan’s must-own book British Film Posters: An Illustrated History and are each responsible for several iconic British posters. The designer Eddie Paul was born in Hackney in 1920 and attended Southend School of Art, later beginning his career at Temple Art Studios before moving on to Star Illustrations on Shoe Lane, where he gained a good reputation as a scrapboard artist. After serving in the RAF during the war, Paul joined Pulford Publicity in 1946 and started designing film posters using crayons and coloured pencils. He worked on several successful poster campaigns during the 1960s, including El Cid (1961), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and the famous quad for From Russia with Love (painted by Renato Fratini). He later joined four ex-Downton colleagues and formed the successful agency FEREF in 1968. As Sim notes in his book, ‘He was well liked and respected within the business as a gentleman’. Eddie Paul passed away from a heart attack whilst on his way to work in 1984, just shy of his retirement from FEREF.

Bill Wiggins was born in 1915 and worked installing large cinema displays (on the front of the buildings) during the 1930s and was a special constable during the second world war. He arrived at Downton’s Advertising agency at the same time as another principal designer, Fred Atkins (later a partner in FEREF), in 1951. Wiggins worked in the film department of the studio for 25 years, painting dozens of posters alongside the likes of Vic Fair and Brian Bysouth. Wiggins is mentioned several times during my interview with the latter. He worked on several of the early Hammer films, including Dracula (1958), The Mummy (1959), Curse of the Werewolf, as well as the sci-fi films The Lost World (1960) and Day of the Triffids (1962). He initially retired in 1975 ‘but rapidly found himself so bored that he returned within a couple of months and continued full time for another three years, eventually leaving to paint commissioned oil portraits for an art/photographic business in Bromley’. He passed away, aged 73, in 1988. Sim believes that this poster for FATMFH is likely to be one of, if not the, final cinema poster that Wiggins worked on.

In addition to this single feature quad, there is also a double-bill quad for when the film was released in a pairing with the long-forgotten kung-fu film The Fists of Vengeance. The artwork for FATMFH is actually coloured on the double-bill poster and is therefore arguably superior to this quad. Sim confirmed to me that there was a policy around this time that the single feature quad would usually be monochrome whilst the double-bill was typically printed in full colour.

Finally, this particular copy is rolled and in great condition, which is somewhat unusual for a poster from this era. I recall reading that it may have been one poster that Hammer printed in greater numbers to give away to fans who wrote in to the studio, as was the case with the quads for ‘Dracula Has Risen from the Grave’ and the ‘She/One Million Years BC’ quads (see the bottom of this page for more detail). I’m not certain that this is case though and I’d appreciate more details about it if anyone has them.

A View to a Kill, Sir Roger Moore‘s last outing as James Bond was definitely not his finest hour, although it is memorable for a few reasons, including Christopher Walken‘s turn as the psychotic bad guy Max Zorin, Duran Duran’s great title theme and the appearance of the incomparable Grace Jones as Mayday, Zorin’s accomplice. She may not be the greatest actress but she’s never anything less than a striking presence and is definitely not a lady to mess with, as British chat show presenter Russell Harty infamously found out.

The film features a climactic fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which sees Bond and Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) face off against Zorin and his henchmen in the Zorin Industries airship. Special effects supervisor John Richardson filmed a series of sequences featuring stunt performers on top of the actual bridge that were later matched up against green-screen shots of the actors. This was the first Bond film to have its premiere held outside the UK; it opened on the 22nd of May, 1985 at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

The excellent artwork on this advance one sheet (those are some very long legs!) is by the American poster artist Dan Goozee who was also responsible for a few other Bond posters, including Moonraker and Octopussy, as well as several other classic designs from the 1980s. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

This is the UK quad for Roger Moore‘s sixth outing as the legendary spy, 1983’s Octopussy. Considered by many to be one of the weaker entries in the long-running series, the film nevertheless continued the more ‘realistic’ and down to earth approach that was taken for the previous entry, For Your Eyes Only (1981), following the over-the-top lunacy of Moonraker (1979). The story sees Bond sent to investigate the death of his fellow agent ‘009’ who perishes in front of the British embassy in East Berlin clutching a copy of a priceless Fabergé egg. When the trail leads to an auction house in London where the real egg is to be sold, Bond enters a bidding war with the mysterious Afghan prince Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), forcing him to spend several times its listing price.

After following Khan back to his palace in Rajasthan, India, the spy eventually ends up in the clutches of Khan’s bodyguard Gobinda (an imposing Kabir Bedi) and, after escaping, discovers that the prince is working with a power-hungry Soviet general named Orlov (Steven Berkoff) who plans to detonate a nuclear bomb in a US Air Force base in Germany in order to destabilise Europe and expand Soviet borders. Bond heads to a palace on an Indian lake on the trail of Octopussy (Maud Adams), the enigmatic leader of an all-female cult and head of a travelling circus troupe that Khan and Orlov plan to use to smuggle the weapon into the base. Bond must convince Octopussy that Khan is only using her for his nefarious plot and sets out to prevent the bomb from detonating before Europe is plunged into chaos.

This quad was jointly illustrated by both Renato Casaro, an Italian artist with a prolific output, and the American artist Dan Goozee who painted the central two figures for the US one sheet. They were reused here and then surrounded by the montage of action scenes painted by Casaro. On the Japanese B2, Casaro actually repainted the figures, which then sat alongside a slightly modified montage.

Renato Casaro began his career in 1953, aged 19, at the famous Studio Favalli in Rome, which was part of the legendary Cinecittà studios and handled film publicity for many Italian productions. Casaro soon decided to become a freelance artist and went 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 many German posters as well as others from countries including Japan, UK, North America 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’ve collected by Casaro can be seen by clicking here.

This is the B1 advance poster for the Japanese release of The Empire Strikes Back, which by 1980 was one of the most anticipated sequels in the history of cinema following the continuing international success of George Lucas’ original Star Wars (1977). This image of bad guy Darth Vader’s helmet was also used for the North American advance one sheet and is a photograph of a prop helmet created to be worn by Dave Prowse in the original trilogy. The photo shoot for this poster was apparently done by the respected poster designer and artist Bob Peak, who was responsible for many classic 70s and 80s posters, including Apocalypse Now, The Spy Who Loved Me and Superman.

This image was only used for the B1 size Japanese poster, with a photographic montage being used for the standard B2 whilst Noriyoshi Ohrai was responsible for the artwork on the superb alternative style B2, which was also printed as a B1 size poster.

To see more posters by Bob Peak in the Film on Paper collection click here.

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 original Czech poster for the release of Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom, which followed on from the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark but was in fact a prequel to the original action-adventure. Set in 1935 (so pre-WWII Nazis), the film sees Harrison Ford’s intrepid adventurer escaping from an ambush in a Shanghai nightclub whilst trying to procure an ancient artefact. Together with the American lounge singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) and a cocky Chinese kid called Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan) he escapes on a plane only to be double-crossed by the pilots who disable the controls before parachuting out. Surviving with the improbable help of a rubber dinghy, the trio end up in a remote northern Indian village.

After discovering that all the children from the surrounding area have been kidnapped and taken to the nearby Pankot Palace, as well as the fact that village’s sacred stone is missing, Indy decides to pay a visit to the palace. Although they receive a warm welcome at first, questioning around the missing children is quickly dismissed and later that night Indy is attacked by an assassin, which leads the trio to discover a hidden door in Willie’s room. Venturing through booby-trapped passages they discover an underground temple which is presided over by an evil Thuggee priest called Mola Ram and before long their presence is discovered.

Although the film received mixed critical notice back in 1984, particularly in respects to its darker tone and increased violence over Raiders (the film was responsible for the creation of the American PG-13 rating), the film was mostly well received by fans and has since gained more of a critical appreciation. Spielberg was less enamoured by the finished film, however, and is quoted as saying “Temple of Doom is my least favourite of the trilogy. I look back and I say, ‘Well the greatest thing that I got out of that was I met Kate Capshaw. We married years later and that to me was the reason I was fated to make Temple of Doom'”

The film was first released in Czechoslovakia in 1986 and this poster was designed and printed by the Czech artist Milan Pecák. The imagery alludes to one of the most memorable scenes in the film, which seriously disturbed me when I watched it as a child, where Mola Ram sacrifices an unlucky innocent into a fiery pit. A celebrated designer and artist, Pecák was born in 1962 and studied at the Vaclav Hollar School of Fine Arts in Prague before working as an architect and later as a set designer for several films.

It was whilst working on the 1986′ ‘Zastihla Me Noc’ that he was first given the opportunity to work on the film’s poster and from then onwards he was in demand as an artist for posters advertising Czech releases, as well as several American films, including Gorillas in the Mist, Mississippi Burning and arguably his most famous design for James Cameron’s Terminator (released in Czechoslovakia in 1990). In addition to film posters, Pecak is also an accomplished book and magazine cover illustrator and in his spare time works on fine art painting as well as digital graphics.

Milan Pecak’s official website can be viewed here and features several galleries of his work as well as a biography.

This is the artwork style Japanese poster for the release of George Lucas’ sci-fi classic The Empire Strikes Back, which features a fantastic illustration by the Japanese artist Noriyoshi Ohrai which, in my opinion, is the best artwork for the best film in the six film saga. I’d have a hard time choosing between this and Tom Chantrell’s classic design for the greatest overall Star Wars poster artwork.

As well as this Japanese B1, the artwork featured on a Japanese B2 as well as several other international posters, including an Australian one sheet. Sadly it was not to be used for the US or UK campaigns. In 2010, for the ESB 30th anniversary, Lucasfilm released a limited edition one sheet of the poster taken from the original artwork transparency – see this article for more info.

Noriyoshi Ohrai is my favourite Japanese artist and certainly in my top five greatest film poster illustrators of all time. He’s responsible for a number of other Star Wars related posters, including this lovely 1982 B2 to celebrate the release of the Japanese dubbed version of the original film. He is also know for a series of Godzilla posters, some of which can be seen here. In March 2014 a retrospective exhibition was held in Japan of Ohrai’s work and I made the trip over to Miyazaki to see the exhibition and I’m very glad I did as it featured most of his original artwork and a whole array of posters and book covers. A full report will follow soon.

The posters I’ve managed to collect by him can be seen by clicking here.

This is one of two posters printed for the original Polish release of Return of the Jedi in 1984. Although ROTJ, the third in the original trilogy of Star Wars films, was often maligned by fans who complained it was a weak end to the series and derided for featuring the child-friendly Ewoks, all was forgiven with the release of the 1999’s The Phantom Menace and its ‘galactic trade disputes’ and the risible Jar-Jar Binks. Now, although certainly not as highly acclaimed as the original 1977 film or the classic The Empire Strikes Back, ROTJ is still beloved by fans of the series. In 2015, director JJ Abrams will release Episode VII into cinemas, mooted as a direct sequel to this film and much anticipated by fans worldwide. JJ is seen as a much safer pair of hands than George Lucas after his shepherding of a well-received reboot of the Star Trek franchise.

Even if the Ewoks are loved and hated in equal measure, ROTJ still features many memorable, fan favourite characters, locations and scenes, including the attempted rescue of Han Solo from Jabba the Hut’s palace leading to a memorable showdown above a Sarlacc pit monster (which features the ignominious exit of fan favourite Boba Fett). Later the film sees the passing of Yoda along with more revelations about the Skywalker family, and an excellent scene that sees Luke Skywalker confront the evil Emperor Palpatine with Vader standing by. Meanwhile, the Ewoks (essentially child-sized teddy bears) join forces to defeat the ground forces of the Empire on the surface of the planet Endor.

This poster, depicting the exploding head of Darth Vader (featuring real-life camera parts), was designed and illustrated by Witold Dybowski who, according to the short biography on his official website, was born in Sopot, Poland and went on to study at the College of Design in Gdansk. After graduating he worked as a graphic designer, illustrator, art director and creative director in Poland, Germany and Austria. During the 1980s he worked on a number of Polish film posters advertising both native and Hollywood productions, which include this and one other poster for Return of the Jedi (to be added to Film on Paper later this year), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the ‘bubbles’ style poster for Aliens. Since 2010 he has been working as a freelance photographer and his official site features galleries of his work.

A striking design on this one sheet for the 2009 surrealist sci-fi comedy Cold Souls, in which Paul Giamatti stars as a fictionalised version of  himself. Written and directed by Sophie Barthes, the film focuses on Paul, an actor preparing to star in a stage adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya who is suffering from profound angst. He is finding it increasingly difficult to disassociate himself from the roles he plays and is becoming overwhelmed as a result. One day he reads about a company offering to remove your soul and put it into storage, which in theory should allow you to concentrate fully on a task without all the emotional burdens and anxieties.

After meeting the doctor responsible for the procedure Paul decides to go ahead. The operation leaves him with 5% of his soul remaining and this has negative effects on both his relationship with his wife (Emily Watson) and his acting abilities. In desperation Paul agrees to have the soul of a Russian poet implanted hoping that it will help with the play, only to find the side effects of dealing with another soul overwhelming. When he decides to have his original soul returned he discovers that it’s gone missing and has been trafficked to Russia, so Paul sets out to retrieve it with the help of Nina (Dina Korzun) a ‘soul mule’.

This one sheet was designed by the Los Angeles-based And Company, which was established in 1999 and services the entertainment, automotive and food and drink industry, with branding, apps, websites and printed material. You only need to look at their IMPAwards page to see how prolific they are in terms of film and TV print campaigns. One commenter on the poster’s IMPAwards page points out that the idea of a Russian doll style image was used by the Swiss media corporation SonntagsZeitung for their ‘Insight Story’ campaign in 2008, which means that this idea is not necessarily original, but it is nonetheless still very eye-catching.

This is the UK quad for the release of arguably the most famous Australian film ever released, Crocodile Dundee. The film took its inspiration from the real life exploits of an Australian hunter called Rodney Ansell who was stranded for 56 days in the remote outback with limited supplies and managed to survive and stay alive by living off the land. The film’s story sees Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski), a New York reporter, travel to Australia to try and meet Mick Dundee (a memorable turn by Paul Hogan) a legendary bushman who is reported to have lost his leg in a battle with a crocodile. What she finds is an uncouth, less than legendary figure who makes several clumsy advances towards her. She starts to warm to him as they travel into the wilderness and she witnesses first hand his survival skills, ability to interact with dangerous creatures and his ease with the native aborigines.

When Mick teases her that she’d be unable to survive on her own she sets off to prove him wrong, but is soon almost killed by a crocodile before Mick intervenes. Eventually Sue invites the bushman back to New York under the pretext of continuing the story and comedy ensues as Mick has to adjust to life in one of the busiest cities on earth. The film was made on a relatively low budget, specifically tailored for American audiences and was a runaway success at the box office and ended up as a worldwide phenomenon as the second-highest grossing film of 1986. It spawned another sequel soon afterwards and a third (forgettable) entry in 2001.

The artwork, which also featured on posters around the world, including the US one sheet, is by American poster artist Dan Goozee. An unknown UK artist is likely to have painted the extra windows on the right side to adapt the artwork to a landscape format. Goozee is perhaps best known for his work on several Bond posters, including Moonraker and Octopussy, as well as several other classic posters from the 1980s. The other designs I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, Licence to Kill, the sixteenth James Bond adventure, marked the end of an era in the franchise. Whilst certainly not in the running for best Bond film, it’s nevertheless a solid entry with excellent use of locations (actually forced due to budgetary constraints), a memorable bad guy in Robert Davi‘s drug kingpin Sanchez and a number of impressive stunt sequences. Fans of the original Ian Fleming novels often rate Licence to Kill as the film that’s closest to the original source material’s harder-edged action. Licence to Kill marked the last Bond film for director John Glen who had been involved in the series since 1969 and also saw legendary producer Albert R. Broccoli effectively retire from the reigns of a franchise he had begun with producing partner Harry Saltzman back in 1958. 

The story is significantly darker and grittier than anything that had come before in the series, particularly those films released during the Roger Moore era. It opens with Bond and old friend CIA agent Felix Leiter on the way to the latter’s wedding ceremony in Key West (Florida) when they’re informed that Sanchez, a wanted drug lord, has been spotted in the area. The pair manage to apprehend the kingpin after an exciting chase that ends with them parachuting out of a helicopter and landing in front of the church, just in time for the ceremony. After the title sequence (with the excellent Gladys Knight theme tune) things take a dark turn as Sanchez escapes and takes revenge on Felix and his new bride.

When Bond discovers a badly mutilated Leiter and his dead bride he vows revenge, but when his superiors deny his request and order him on another mission to Turkey, Bond flees and has his licence to kill revoked. With the help of one of Leiter’s friends, he follows a trail leading him from the Bahamas to the fictional Republic of Isthmus where Davi’s plan for global drugs domination is revealed. The film ends with a thrilling chase involving several tanker trucks along a dangerous highway, which is easily one of the most memorable action sequences in the series’ history. The film was Welsh actor Timothy Dalton‘s second appearance as 007 and would ultimately prove to be his last after a protracted legal wrangle meant that no Bond film was put into production until 1995’s Goldeneye, by which time the actor had moved on and was replaced by Pierce Brosnan.

The marketing of the film went through a number of iterations, designers and artists and, crucially, marked the first time that painted artwork gave way to a photographic montage. Despite some initial sketches and concepts by the legendary artist Bob Peak, MGM decided to commission a number of designers and artists to work on the posters, including American Steven Chorney who designed this particular advance one sheet, and British design firm FEREF (led by Robin Behling) which designed a montage that was used on the international one sheet, the British quad and for some other posters around the globe. Although initially produced under the title ‘Licence Revoked’, MGM feared that American audiences wouldn’t understand the second word and changed it to the title we know today. Note that there was some wrangling over whether to go with the American spelling ‘License’ or the British-English ‘Licence’. Eventually the latter won out, but not before these posters had been printed with the American spelling (the same poster also exists with ‘Licence’ too).

This is the excellent ‘style D’ poster for the original sci-fi classic Star Wars, which was printed for the 1978 re-release of the film in the US. The artwork, which only appears on this US one sheet, was a collaboration between two talents; Charles White III who was at the time an established and well regarded artist well known for his skills with an airbrush, and Drew Struzan who was early in his film poster painting career and yet to paint the iconic images for which he is famous for today. This is Struzan’s first poster for the Star Wars franchise and he would later go on to be one of Lucasfilm’s most trusted artists, painting several other posters and related images for the Star Wars universe over the following 35 years.

In an interview with Airbrush Magazine in August 1999, Struzan said:

‘I will never fail to give credit to Charlie White for what he did for me. It may have been a small thing to him, but a life changer for me. He is an extraordinary artist famed for his airbrush work. He had the desirable assignment to do the one-sheet poster for the re-release of Star Wars in 1978. He is marvellous at painting objects, but was hesitant to paint portraits for the poster. Somehow, he asked me to paint the portraits while he would paint the droids and the like…Only an extraordinary individual does anything so generous and unselfish. It is the individual who deserves the honor. I have no doubt that there was a desire on Charlie’s part to do the best job possible on the Star Wars project…It was to his advantage to use the best talent he could find. He also gave the lettering to a great letterer. It made for an outstanding poster. All of us who worked on it have been proud ever since to have had the opportunity. It remains a perennial favorite, even among Hollywood executives.’

The style D page on TheForce.net notes that this is said to be George Lucas’ favourite Star Wars poster and the original artwork apparently hangs on the wall in his house. It is often described as being a ‘circus’ style poster as the main image has been illustrated to appear that it’s sitting on a wooden board with other older, torn paper surrounding it.

In another interview with Struzan carried out by Cinefantastique in 1997, the artist recalls how the design came about:

‘The novel idea of making the poster appear as if it were pasted on a wall came about almost by accident. “We had already done the lettering of the title, painting it in as part of the poster,” recalled Struzan. “Then, when we got the billing, we discovered there wasn’t enough room for all the credits, so we had to figure out a way to make more space. We thought, ‘Why don’t we take what we already have and paint it to look like it’s wild posted on top of other posters?’ That gave us the extra room we needed for the billing at the bottom. It was a case of Necessity being the Mother of Invention.” …”We had to do other art to fill it out, so we had a chance to include more characters. We added Han Solo in a little vignetted circle, and Alec Guinness was an afterthought. It kind of grew to include everybody.”‘

Note that this is the ‘studio’ version of the one sheet and there is also the National Screen Service (NSS) version which has all of the associated markings on the bottom edge of the poster. The studio style was printed by the studio itself, whilst the NSS version would have been produced at one of their own printing offices. There were also two official reprints done around the time of the film’s 15th anniversary but they are pretty easy to spot since they are undersized and feature several new lines of text (copyright and so on). Moviepostercollectors.com features a page on the poster that’s well worth a read.

Drew Struzan barely needs an introduction to film fans worldwide but he also has an official website featuring galleries of his work. To see the other posters I’ve collected by Struzan click here.

Following the unprecedented success of the original Star Wars, released in 1977 to worldwide audience acclaim, expectations were high for the sequel which was put into production a few months after its release. Three years later, The Empire Strikes Back arrived in cinemas and was met with huge audience and critical acclaim, firmly cementing the series’ place in the hearts of millions of fans across the globe. A less well-received third part of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, and a lacklustre set of prequel films failed to dampen audience enthusiasm for the franchise and a new film adventure is set to be released at the end of 2015.

To capitalise on the successful release of the films, particularly before home video was a reality, distributor 20th Century Fox decided to release a double-bill of both Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back in to cinemas towards the end of 1980. This event was repeated across the world but this British quad is unique to this country and is the result of the amalgamation of the original quads for both films, plus an extra photographic element not included on either in the figure of Jedi master Yoda, which was probably added due to the characters’ popularity.

The original Star Wars quad was designed and illustrated by the late, great British artist Tom Chantrell whose dynamic and colourful work featured on hundreds of posters over a forty year period. The artist sadly passed away in 2001 but last year his widow Shirley launched his official website, which showcases his work and features a great biography written by Sim Branaghan, author of the must-own book British Film Posters. Chantrell illustrated many classic poster designs, including several Hammer posters such as the brilliant quad for ‘One Million Years B.C.’, and he was also responsible for many other pieces of iconic poster artwork. I have a number of other designs by Chantrell on this site and you can read an exclusive interview with Shirley by clicking here.

The Empire Strikes Back quad features the artwork painted for the US style B one sheet, which was by the American artist Tom Jung, perhaps best known for his iconic ‘style A’ one sheet that he painted for the release of the original Star Wars. Jung was a prolific designer and illustrator for film campaigns from the 1950s through to the 1980s. IMPAwards features a gallery of his work and his Wikipedia article has a selected list of the posters he worked on. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

Another special quad was put together for a triple-bill event after the release of Return of the Jedi, which again featured elements of the artwork from all three separate release quads. Note that this poster can be found undersized at around 28″ x 40″ and this was because several hundred copies were machine trimmed to be used in special frames on the London Underground, a fate which befell a number of posters around the end of the 1970s and early 1980s.

A View to a Kill, Sir Roger Moore‘s last outing as James Bond was definitely not his finest hour, although it is memorable for a few reasons, including Christopher Walken‘s turn as the psychotic bad guy Max Zorin, Duran Duran’s great title theme and the appearance of the incomparable Grace Jones as Mayday, Zorin’s accomplice. She may not be the greatest actress but she’s never anything less than a striking presence and is definitely not a lady to mess with, as British chat show presenter Russell Harty infamously found out.

The film features a climactic fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which sees Bond and Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) face off against Zorin and his henchmen in the Zorin Industries airship. Special effects supervisor John Richardson filmed a series of sequences featuring stunt performers on top of the actual bridge that were later matched up against green-screen shots of the actors. This was the first Bond film to have its premiere held outside the UK; it opened on the 22nd of May, 1985 at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

The excellent artwork depicting an action scene on the Eiffel Tower in Paris (which is not exactly accurate in terms of events in the film) is by the American poster artist Dan Goozee who was also responsible for the other ‘legs’ advance and the final US one sheet which features another action-packed scene. He also worked on the posters for a few other Bond posters, including Moonraker and Octopussy, as well as several other classic posters designs from the 1980s. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

This is the B1 poster for the original Polish release of The Empire Strikes Back, which was one of the most anticipated sequels in the history of cinema following on from the unexpected international success of George Lucas’ original Star Wars (1977). The first film wasn’t released in Poland until 1979 and Empire Strikes Back appeared in 1983, the same year that the original trilogy came to an end in most other markets with Return of the Jedi (released a year later in Poland).

This highly-stylised image, the centre of which resembles Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in the outfit he wears during the opening scenes on the ice planet of Hoth, was created by the designer and artist Jakub Erol who was born in Zamość in 1941 and graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1968. He worked as a prolific poster artist for over 25 years and designed several iconic images for both Polish and American films. Some of his other poster highlights include the bizarre image he conjured up for Ridley Scott’s Alien, a striking design for James Cameron’s The Terminator and the poster for Robocop. One of his best, in my opinion, is the skull-style poster he created for the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Polishposter.com website features many of his designs, several which are for sale, and the Polish cinemaposter.com website also features three pages of his work. This list of his designs on the same website gives you an idea of how prolific an artist he was.

Note that the name of director Irvin Kershner has been misspelled at the bottom of the poster (Wershner).

A unique and colourful montage by artist Tongdee features on this Thai poster for the release of Disney’s groundbreaking sci-fi film, Tron. Another title that was released in the incredible summer of 1982, which included Blade Runner, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and The Thing, the film follows the adventures of hacker Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) who finds himself broken down into data and absorbed into a 3D computer world of his own making. There he must join forces with his lover Yori and the titular Tron to battle the malevolent Master Control Program and liberate the system from its dictatorial grip, which is the only way Flynn can return to the real world.

The film features seminal use of computer graphics to depict the world inside the mainframe and, although the visuals date the film somewhat when viewed today, back in 1982 they wowed audiences worldwide and were instrumental in CGI’s rise to prominence in the years that followed.

Tongdee Panumas (he signs his posters with just his first name) was an incredibly prolific Thai film poster artist during the 70s, 80s and 90s but I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947. If anyone has any more information please get in touch. A knowledgeable collector of Thai posters told me that the artists would rarely if ever see the film they were creating the poster for and would instead paint images based on still photos or posters from other countries. This led to some wild designs and even some artwork with characters and elements that didn’t even appear in the actual film!

Another film that is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Ghostbusters, like James Cameron’s 1984 sci-fi classic Terminator, has had a lasting cultural impact and recent announcements of a long-awaited sequel helped to reinforce how big its worldwide fan base is. Director Ivan Reitman helped comedian and actor Dan Aykroyd develop his original concept into the New York-set story of three nerdy parapsychologists – Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Dr. Raymond Stantz (Aykroyd) and Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) – setting up a ghost-hunting team to take care of pesky spooks around the city.

Demand for their services quickly escalates and they end up hiring a fourth member of the team (Ernie Hudson‘s Winston Zeddmore). Soon they are having to deal with a demonic spirit called Zuul, which infests the apartment of Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) before possessing her, whilst nerdy accountant Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) is also possessed by ‘the keymaster’. They herald the arrival of the ancient, evil god Gozer the Gozerian who the Ghostbusters battle on top of an apartment complex before it morphs into the now-infamous form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which begins attacking the city. The film was a massive critical and commercial success and ended up as the second-highest grossing film of 1984, behind Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop. A less successful sequel followed 5 years later but two cartoons, comics and video games (plus plenty of merchandise) kept the franchise going for many years.

This wonderfully surreal image was painted by Petr Poš for the 1988 Czech release of the film. Poš was born in Prague in 1944 and studied at the city’s School of Applied Arts from 1958-62 and then the Academy of Applied Arts and the Studio of Animated Film for the following 6 years. In 1981 he went to Brussels to study at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. Back in Prague he worked as an assistant at the Studio of Film and Television Graphics.

He’s responsible for several acclaimed animated films, including Až opadá listí z dubu (1991) and Lakomá Barka (1998). He also worked as a graphic artist and, according to the Czech film poster site Terry Posters, he completed 53 film posters over a 27 year period. This poster was given an honourable mention in the Best Czechoslovak Poster competition, 1988. Other films he created posters for include DARYL and Krzysztof Kieslowski ‘s A Short Film About Love

Not only is this probably the best poster artwork for the film that started the biggest sci-fi franchise of all, it’s also considered by many to be the greatest work by the late, great British artist Tom Chantrell. Declaring it so is not an easy decision to make since Chantrell illustrated thousands of posters during his long career and there are many classic designs to choose from, including several Hammer posters and a brilliant design for ‘One Million Years B.C.’. I have a number of other posters by him on this site for you to peruse.

In 2013 I interviewed Chantrell’s widow Shirley about their life together and she recalled how Tom would often ask her to pose so he could capture the correct stance for female characters appearing on his posters. Shirley recalls how the project came about for Tom:

Tom was given an invite to the premier showing and we all went along as a family. As soon as he’d seen the film he had the synopsis, the 10” x 8” press stills and then he started to think about how he was going to tackle the project. From beginning to end it took one month, which is a lot of work for one poster. He’d never taken that long before and I don’t think he did again.

Shirley once again posed for Tom and this time she was his Princess Leia. She not only still has the reference photos taken that day but also still has the same dress she wore.

This poster perfectly captures the excitement and adventure of the seminal sci-fi blockbuster and, although originally intended just to be used for the UK market, the art was liked so much by Lucasfilm that the decision was made to use it for a style C one sheet as well as for other posters around the world. George Lucas himself would later purchase the original artwork for his archives and I like to imagine it’s hanging on a wall in Skywalker Ranch.

This particular style of the poster is the first printing of the poster for the initial 1977 release in cinemas and this can be distinguished from the later printing known as the ‘Oscars version’, so called because it was printed once the film had won a handful of Academy Awards a few months after the original UK release. The ongoing success and phenomenon of the film meant that many more copies of the second version were printed as it was shown around the UK. The Oscars version is also in the Film on Paper collection and can be viewed here.

During the time I spent with Shirley we browsed through several boxes of the plentiful material she has kept from the days that Tom was working on film posters. I was amazed to see that he had retained the original invoice that he had sent to 20th Century Fox (Star Wars’ UK distributors) and some letters from Fox relating to the invoice, which confirmed that he had been paid the sum of £1000 for his original work on the art. These can be viewed by accessing picture thumbnails 28 and 29.

Sadly, Tom Chantrell passed away in 2001 and my friend, and author of the must own British Film Posters: An Illustrated History, Sim Branaghan wrote his obituary for the Guardian. He may no longer be with us but Tom Chantrell’s classic artworks have stood the test of time and continue to impress decades later.

This is the original UK quad for the release of House of Whipcord from the British director, producer and writer Pete Walker, who specialised in exploitation pictures during the 1960s and 1970s. Walker started out making shoestring budget sexploitation pictures, including School for Sex that were often relative hits in the UK, which worked out well for him since his films were almost always self-financed and thus most of the profits were his to keep and plough into the next feature. In the early 1970s, Walker grew tired of feeding the ‘dirty mack brigade’ and turned his hand to horror.

Whipcord is certainly one of the directors most memorable films and had a plot that was all but guaranteed to rile certain sections of the British press at the time of release. The film begins in London and focuses on young French model Ann-Marie Di Verney (Penny Irving) who has moved to the capital and has started to pose in nude photoshoots. One evening she is seduced by a mysterious character named, rather ominously Mark E. Desade (played by Robert Tayman) and a relationship develops between the pair. Sometime later Mark invites Ann-Marie to ‘visit his parents’ who live out in the country and only when she arrives does she realise that it was all a ruse to get Ann-Marie into a secret illegal prison which is being ruled over by his unhinged mother Mrs Wakehurst (Barbara Markham) and three ‘guards’, including the sadistic Walker (a memorable performance from regular collaborator Sheila Keith – note the character name!)

Mrs Wakehurst is a former school mistress whose corrupt regime led one of her charges to commit suicide but, believing she did nothing wrong and that lax morals led to the corruption in the school, she seduced the judge who was trying her, Justice Bailey (Patrick Barr), and managed to escape sentence. She then persuaded him to set up what he believed would be a private correctional institute in which ‘girls with loose morals’ would be ‘reeducated’ properly and then let back into the world. As Ann Marie and other inmates discover, the truth is far more horrifying.

The film was critically mauled over here but did solid business in cinemas and was later released in US cinemas through AIP. I’m unsure who is responsible for the design and artwork on this poster so if you have any ideas please get in touch.

The original trailer can be viewed here.

This is one of two posters printed for the original Polish release of Return of the Jedi in 1984. Although ROTJ, the third in the original trilogy of Star Wars films, was often maligned by fans who complained it was a weak end to the series and derided for featuring the child-friendly Ewoks, all was forgiven with the release of the 1999’s The Phantom Menace and its ‘galactic trade disputes’ and the risible Jar-Jar Binks. Now, although certainly not as highly acclaimed as the original 1977 film or the classic The Empire Strikes Back, ROTJ is still beloved by fans of the series. In 2015, director JJ Abrams will release Episode VII into cinemas, mooted as a direct sequel to this film and much anticipated by fans worldwide. JJ is seen as a much safer pair of hands than George Lucas after his shepherding of a well-received reboot of the Star Trek franchise.

Even if the Ewoks are loved and hated in equal measure, ROTJ still features many memorable, fan favourite characters, locations and scenes, including the attempted rescue of Han Solo from Jabba the Hut’s palace leading to a memorable showdown above a Sarlacc pit monster (which features the ignominious exit of fan favourite Boba Fett). Later the film sees the passing of Yoda along with more revelations about the Skywalker family, and an excellent scene that sees Luke Skywalker confront the evil Emperor Palpatine with Vader standing by. Meanwhile, the Ewoks (essentially child-sized teddy bears) join forces to defeat the ground forces of the Empire on the surface of the planet Endor.

This poster, depicting four members of the rebel alliance, including Luke Skywalker (centre top) and friendly robot C-3PO, and was designed and illustrated by Witold Dybowski who, according to the short biography on his official website, was born in Sopot, Poland and went on to study at the College of Design in Gdansk. After graduating he worked as a graphic designer, illustrator, art director and creative director in Poland, Germany and Austria. During the 1980s he worked on a number of Polish film posters advertising both native and Hollywood productions, which include this and one other poster for Return of the Jedi (to be added to Film on Paper later this year), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the ‘bubbles’ style poster for Aliens. Since 2010 he has been working as a freelance photographer and his official site features galleries of his work.

I also have the Darth Vader style Polish B1 designed by Dybowski.