This is the original Japanese poster for the award-winning biography of General George S. Patton, the celebrated US Army officer who led successful campaigns during World War II. The film, simply titled Patton, was in development for several years and was something of a passion project for producer Frank McCarthy who had worked at the United States Department of War during WWII. The film was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (arguably best known for Planet of the Apes, 1968) and starred the late actor George C. Scott in one of his most celebrated roles as the eponymous general. Karl Malden also appears as fellow senior officer, General Omar N. Bradley. The screenplay was written by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North, with the pair (who never worked together in person) basing their screenplay on two biographies of Patton. 

The film opens with a famous monologue where Patton addresses unseen troops in front of a giant American flag. The rest of the film, which clocks in at over three hours and features an intermission, deals with incidents from Patton’s career during World War II, including his successful campaigns in North Africa and Sicily. This includes controversial incidents that had a severe effect on his standing with the military top brass, including Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower (later US President). One involved him berating and slapping a shell-shocked soldier, which saw him reprimanded and forced to apologise to the entire division. Patton is depicted as something of a glory chaser, wanting to be at the front of any campaign and pushing the soldiers under him to their limits, with punishing schedules and lack of rest and relaxation. The final third of the film depicts his legendary sweep through Europe and into Germany before the eventual surrender of the German forces.

The film’s production design is incredible and, although largely filmed in Spain, the locations feel very authentic and the numerous battle scenes are suitably epic with plenty of actual military hardware in use (as opposed to the CGI that would be employed today). The film would justly win the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. It was also the Best Picture and Best Director winner at the 1971 ceremony, winning seven awards in total. Infamously, Scott won for Best Actor but declined the award, saying the politics around the ceremony was “demeaning” and that the show amounted to nothing more than “a two-hour meat parade”. The film remains one of the best War films made to this day. Note the Dimension 150 logo on this Japanese B2 poster which refers to an ultra-widescreen format, similar to Cinerama, that was only employed by two productions (The Bible being the other).

A striking design features on this US one sheet for the little-seen 1977 film Short Eyes, which is based on the Miguel Piñero play of the same name and was directed by Robert M. Young. The lead is played by Bruce Davison, one of the all-time classic ‘that guy’ character actors. The film sounds like a pretty tough watch if its Wikipedia description is anything to go by:

‘Short Eyes is set in an unnamed House of Detention in New York City, the prisoners of which are predominantly black or Puerto Rican. One day, a new prisoner is brought in: Clark Davis, a young, middle-class white man accused of raping a young girl. His fellow prisoners immediately turn on him —pedophiles are considered the lowest form of prison life — except for Juan, one of the institution’s older prisoners, who treats him with dignity. While Davis insists he doesn’t remember raping the girl, he admits that he has molested several other children.’

Despite the subject matter it was reviewed well on release and was praised for its realistic depiction of prison life. The film was recently released on blu-ray should you wish to check it out.

The poster design is credited to LSC&P Design Group Inc about whom I’ve been unable to discover much. There’s this page of some of their work on the AIGA website. It also appears to have been a company that was originally founded by the famous designer Herb Lubalin.

George Roy Hill‘s ice hockey comedy was critically panned on release but quickly grew into a cult classic and is considered by many to be the best sports/comedy movie ever made.

This Japanese poster is actually a combination of two of the American one sheets and a promotional still from the film. The artwork by Craig Nelson on the Style A one sheet is combined with the sketch-style artwork (credited to ‘R.G.’) on Style B. The photo of Paul Newman appears to have been taken from this still and his lower half has been illustrated to extend it downwards.

You can watch the original trailer here.

Great Bob Peak artwork on this poster for the third in the original series of Star Trek films, The Search For Spock. For some reason, despite Peak having done the poster for the first film, his artwork wasn’t used for the USA one sheets of the sequel or this film, but it did appear on the international posters for The Wrath of Khan and this film. The studio then went back to using Peak artwork on the US posters for the fourth and fifth films.

The Search For Spock picks up where the second film left off and sees the surviving crew of the Enterprise returning to Earth after their fight against the superhuman Khan. Before long Captain Kirk and the rest of the crew are hijacking the decommissioned Enterprise and racing to save the spirit of Spock, who was previously feared dead, from the clutches of a Klingon commander near an unstable planet created by the Genesis device from the second film.

Seen by many as the start of the ‘all odd-numbered Star Trek films are bad’ rule, the film was fairly well received by critics, but many fans reacted negatively to its talky script and poor production values, particularly the effects used to realise the Genesis.

The original trailer for the film is on YouTube.

A classic piece of Bob Peak artwork on this poster for the fourth in the original series of Star Trek films, The Voyage Home. For some reason, despite Peak having done the poster for the first film, his artwork wasn’t used for the USA posters of the second and third in the series, but did appear on international posters for The Wrath of Khan and The Search For Spock. The studio then went back to using Peak artwork on the US posters for the fourth and fifth films.

The Voyage Home is memorable for its extensive use of location-filming, which took place in around the city of San Francisco, as well as for its humorous, knowing script and barmy plot in which the crew must travel back in time to 1986, find two humpback whales, and transport them into the future so their calls can be used to save Earth in 2286. The film marked the culmination of a storyline that began in The Wrath of Khan.

The rather odd international one sheet for the film can be seen here.

The original trailer for the film is on YouTube.