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House of Whipcord / quad / UK

12.12.14

Poster Poster
Title
House of Whipcord
AKA
Stag Model Slaughter (USA - reissue)
Year of Film
1974
Director
Pete Walker
Starring
Barbara Markham, Patrick Barr, Ray Brooks, Ann Michelle, Sheila Keith, Dorothy Gordon, Robert Tayman, Ivor Salter, Karan David, Celia Quicke
Origin of Film
UK
Genre(s) of Film
Barbara Markham, Patrick Barr, Ray Brooks, Ann Michelle, Sheila Keith, Dorothy Gordon, Robert Tayman, Ivor Salter, Karan David, Celia Quicke,
Type of Poster
Quad
Style of Poster
--
Origin of Poster
UK
Year of Poster
1974
Designer
Unknown
Artist
Unknown
Size (inches)
30" x 39 13/16"
SS or DS
SS
Tagline
... and no one escaped...

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.

Dressed To Kill / quad / UK

16.05.12

Poster Poster
Title
Dressed To Kill
AKA
--
Year of Film
1980
Director
Brian De Palma
Starring
Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz, David Margulies, Ken Baker, Susanna Clemm, Brandon Maggart
Origin of Film
USA
Genre(s) of Film
Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz, David Margulies, Ken Baker, Susanna Clemm, Brandon Maggart,
Type of Poster
Quad
Style of Poster
--
Origin of Poster
UK
Year of Poster
1980
Designer
Unknown
Artist
--
Size (inches)
30" x 40"
SS or DS
SS
Tagline
Every Nightmare Has A Beginning...This One Never Ends

Brian De Palma‘s 1980 erotic crime thriller Dressed to Kill is frequently held up as a high-watermark in the career of the virtuoso director, and the film saw him perfecting the technical and stylistic flourishes he had been honing in the years before with films such as Sisters (1973) and Obsession (1976). Blending obvious homages to Hitchcock (Vertigo and Psycho for starters) with several hallmarks of the Italian Giallo genre, the film features multiple plot twists and outlandish sequences, including the murder of one of the main characters after 35 minutes.

The plot ostensibly focuses on the murder of a sexually frustrated housewife, and the subsequent investigation by her son and the high-class call girl who was the only witness to the crime. It features memorable turns from Angie DickinsonNancy Allen (De Palma’s wife at the time) and Michael Caine in one of his more atypical performances. The reveal of the identity of the killer is one of the film’s most infamous moments and certainly lingers long in the memory after the credits roll.

This British quad is as subdued as the US one sheet, sharing the same stylised image of the killer peeking through the bathroom door (if memory serves me correctly this particular image was created specifically for the poster). The American one sheet features the moniker that De Palma had been given at the time; ‘The Master of the Macabre’.

The trailer is on YouTube.

Dressed To Kill / B2 / black style / Japan

17.05.11

Poster Poster
Title
Dressed To Kill
AKA
--
Year of Film
1980
Director
Brian De Palma
Starring
Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz, David Margulies, Ken Baker, Susanna Clemm, Brandon Maggart
Origin of Film
USA
Genre(s) of Film
Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz, David Margulies, Ken Baker, Susanna Clemm, Brandon Maggart,
Type of Poster
B2
Style of Poster
Black style
Origin of Poster
Japan
Year of Poster
1980
Designer
Unknown
Artist
--
Size (inches)
20 5/16" x 28 12/16"
SS or DS
SS
Tagline
--

Static / quad / UK

18.05.11

Poster Poster