A truly international production, Red Sun was filmed in Spain by the British director Terence Young and starring American action legend Charles Bronson,the Japanese actor Toshirô Mifune (best known for Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai), French superstar Alain Delon and the gorgeous Swiss actress Ursula Andress. Terence Young had previously seen great success directing Sean Connery in three of his outings as James Bond.

The film sees two ruthless robbers, Link (Bronson) and Gauche (Delon) who attack a train bound for Washington carrying the Japanese ambassador. During the raid Gauche steals a very valuable sword and then betrays Link, trying to kill him before escaping with the loot. Link must team up with the only surviving Samurai escort of the ambassador (Mifune) and track down Gauche before it’s too late.

Bronson had previously starred in The Magnificent Seven, an American remake of Seven Samurai. The main figures on this poster appear to be photographic and I’m uncertain who is responsible for the artwork above them.

This is the scarce Posters and Toys variant of the 2011 screen print by Tyler Stout for the much-loved Coen Brothers classic, The Big Lebowski. Jeff Bridges stars as The Dude, a lifelong slacker who also happens to share his name with a millionaire philanthropist with a trophy wife who owes money to a shady pornographer. A pair of hired goons break into his place, rough him up and urinate on his rug. When the goons realise they have the wrong man they leave The Dude alone but, after consulting with his friends Walter (a memorable turn by John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi), he decides to seek out the real Lebowski to seek compensation for the rug, but things start to spiral out of control when the wife is kidnapped and he agrees to help secure her return.

To say the film has become something of a cultural phenomenon since its release in 1998 would be an understatement. As well as a worldwide legion of fans, there’s the annual Lebowski-Fest, which started in 2002 in Louisville, Kentucky and has since been held in several other cities. Jeff Bridges iconic ‘The Dude’ character is even the focus behind a form of religion called Dudeism.

I’d have a hard time choosing between this and Fargo as my favourite Coen Brothers film, although Raising Arizona and Barton Fink are also strong contenders.

I recently spotted this rather excellent GIF.

The UK quad for the classic submarine film The Boat (AKA Das Boot) was designed by Marcus Silversides and painted by Brian Bysouth. In 2012 I met and interviewed the artist and the resultant article can be read here.

This image was considered too disturbing by the distributors of the film and the decision was made to go with another design for the English marketing campaign. It was replaced with a much less impressive photo montage quad and one sheet. Supposedly most of the Russian Roulette style were destroyed and very few remain.

The image was still used for the Italian posters.

Fantastic artwork by the late, great Frank Frazetta on this poster for the 1977 action film, The Gauntlet, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. The film marked the second pairing of Eastwood with his then off-screen girlfriend Sondra Locke, here playing a prostitute who is being hunted by the Mob, with Eastwood as the cop assigned to protect her.

Frazetta was the perfect choice to depict Eastwood as a muscled-up action star with his long career creating fantasy and science-fiction artwork featuring hulking warriors and improbably curvy ladies. Frazetta was much admired for his unique style and was a strong influence on many other illustrators over the years. He worked on illustrations for comics, as well as album and book covers and a handful of film posters.

Some galleries of his work can be seen here. A selection of comic covers and other film posters can be seen on this site. Frazetta sadly passed away in 2010 but there is no question that his legacy lives on through his wonderful artwork.

This particular poster was released at the same time as the regular one sheet (with credits etc) and shows the full artwork at (close to) 27″ x 41″. It’s technically counted as a commerical poster and my belief is that it was for sale in cinemas or at certain stores in the US.

The other Frazetta posters I’ve managed to collect can be seen here.