Colourful artwork features on this style B one sheet for the US release of the 1978 adventure comedy Corvette Summer. The film is perhaps most notable for starring Mark Hamill, fresh from his success with Star Wars a year earlier and prior to filming The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Production began only a short while after Hamill was involved in a car crash in Malibu that left him with facial injuries and visibly scarred. Matthew Robbins assumed directorial duties and he’s perhaps best known as the director of Batteries Not Included and the writer of two films that were directed by Guillermo Del Toro, 1997’s Mimic and 2015’s Crimson Peak.

Hamill stars as high-school senior Kenny Dantley who is obsessed with cars and builds a custom Corvette Stingray as part of a class project. The car has a heavily modified body, bright red paint with flames down the side and is adapted to be right-hand drive so Kenny can talk to girls as he rolls down the street beside them. Soon after unveiling the finished car it is stolen and Kenny manages to follow a trail that leads him to Las Vegas. On the way he meets Vanessa (Annie Potts) who describes herself as a ‘prostitute in training’ and who’s headed to Sin City to try and make it big.

After taking a job at a car wash, Kenny eventually spots the Stingray and sets out to try and steal it back, but the truth behind its disappearance, which involves a teacher from his high school (played by Eugene Roche), shocks Kenny. The revelation only makes him more determined to get his car back and Vanessa is ready to help him. The film received mixed critical notices and performed rather limply at the box-office. It has a minor cult following today, largely due to the Corvettes featured. An article about the ‘hero’ car in the film, which was originally found in a junkyard following a wreck, can be read here.

Frustratingly this poster doesn’t feature any indication of who painted the artwork and I’ve been unable to find anything online either. I did discover that the original painting was sold along with two others at Profiles in History’s ‘Hollywood Auction 56’ in 2013. The items are on page 93 of the auction catalogue PDF, or see here for a standalone page featuring the item on another site.  If anyone has any ideas as to who the artist is, please get in touch.

The original trailer is on YouTube and gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Released as Damnation Alley in the USA, this dystopian sci-fi adventure (set after the nuclear destruction of World War 3) pretty much disappeared at the box office, but later gained something of a cult status. It’s interesting to note that the studio, 20th Century Fox, were making two sci-fi films in 1977 and saw this as their big hope for a box-office blockbuster. The studio suits didn’t have much faith in the other project, a little film called Star Wars…

The film features a couple of infamous scenes with mutated creatures, including ‘giant’ scorpions (terribly composited using the blue screen process) and killer cockroaches. It also featured an interesting vehicle known as The Landmaster.

In some cinemas the film was shown with something called Sound 360. From IMDb:

20th Century-Fox developed a rival to Universal’s gimmicky ‘Sensurround’ sound process (popularized in the theatrical release of Earthquake (1974)) that was only used for the theatrical release of “Damnation Alley” called Sound 360. This process was basically a variation of Magnetic-Optical Stereo sound. This technical advancement/gimmick in sound did not last past “Damnation Alley” although it was planned for Walter Hill‘s The Driver (1978) and Damien: Omen II (1978). If you look at the one sheet of “Damnation Alley” the “Sound 360” declaration and logo are prominent at the bottom.

This one sheet by one of my favourite Japanese artists, Seito, is practically identical to one of the American one sheets that can be seen on IMPAwards (credited to artist Paul Lehr).

The film was recently released on blu-ray (in the correct aspect ratio) and a trailer for that can be watched here.

With great art by Robert Tanenbaum, this style A one sheet for Galaxina features an excellent tagline and an even better logo. The film itself is an undoubted clunker and currently has a rating of 3.0/10 on IMDb. I love this excerpt from the main review currently featured on the site:

While the guys are in cryosleep Galaxina, who has fallen in love with Sarge, teaches herself to speak and makes her body warm and soft. Upon thawing him out she offers herself to him, saying that she’ll make his every wish her command. Then she is kidnapped by space bikers who are going to sacrifice her to the god “Har Lee David Son,” when she is rescued, they get the blue star, the end.

Sadly, Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten (Galaxina) was murdered just before the film’s release by her ex-boyfriend – more details on Wikipedia.

The bizarre trailer (Japanese version) can be seen on YouTube.