British director Stephen Weeks had already made a film loosely based on the Arthurian poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that was released in 1973 as Gawain and the Green Knight and starred the singer Murray Head as Gawain. Unfortunately, a falling out between producer and studio meant that the film was not properly distributed and pretty much disappeared without trace. 10 years later the notorious producers in charge of Cannon Films, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, were casting around for a new project and Weeks managed to persuade them to remake his original story with just a handful of tweaks. Quite frankly, everyone involved should have stayed away as the result is a risible mess.

Practically the only thing of note are the actors that the producers managed to persuade to join the cast, which includes the late Peter Cushing (in one of his final appearances) and Trevor Howard, as well as star of the Indiana Jones series John Rhys-Davies. Unquestionably their biggest coup was securing Sean Connery to play the Green Knight, a performance he managed to squeeze around his role in the unofficial Bond film Never Say Never Again, a task made easy by the fact that he only appears in a few scenes. But what an appearance! If you thought his costume in Zardoz was bizarre, just wait until you see him covered in bright green armour, glitter, bare-chested, covered in fake tan and wearing small antlers on his head! He certainly gives it some gusto and seems to enjoy prancing around the sets swinging his giant axe.

The story begins inside a great banqueting hall with an unhappy king (Howard) stopping a planned feast because he’s fed up with the nobles who he feels don’t have much worth. He challenges them all to prove that they’re worthy of eating from his table. Just at that moment Connery’s Green Knight bursts through the door on horseback and proceeds to taunt the people in the hall with a challenge to cut off his head in order to prove their courage. At first no one accepts, but then a plucky young squire called Gawain (a Barbie-haired Miles O’Keeffe) who was delivering the king’s new suit of armour decides to take up the challenge. Gawain swings the axe and the Green Knight’s head is removed but the whole thing is a strange ruse and only a minute later the Knight is whole again and turning the axe on Gawain.

Just before delivering the final blow he decides to spare the squire and offers him a year to solve an odd rhyming riddle. When the Green Knight has gone, the king is thrilled with Gawain’s bravery and immediately knights him and sends him off on a quest to solve the riddle. The rest of the film moves from scene to scene without much urgency and features some dreadful battle scenes and sword-fighting that make it look like an amateur production. The script is truly terrible and it’s clear that whole scenes were truncated heavily as half of it doesn’t make much sense. Perhaps worst of all is the abysmal synthesiser score that warbles in the background of every scene.

In the end, this film would also fall foul of producer and distributor problems and wasn’t given a proper release and poor reviews didn’t help much at all. Weeks would never direct again. This poster features artwork that I believe to be unique to the British quad and I’ve been unable to find out who is responsible. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch.

Check out the ridiculous trailer on YouTube.

A film that is perhaps only notable for a bizarre scene in which a nude Bo Derek nurses a small chimpanzee (link here and NSFW, obviously), Tarzan the Ape Man was an attempt to tell the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs story from the point of view of Jane, rather than the titular hero.

Directed by Bo’s husband John Derek (this was one of four collaborations between the pair) the production was reportedly sued by the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate for containing too much erotic content. The estate apparently failed in their bid to prevent the release of the film but succeeded in having over three minutes of footage excised from the theatrical release.

According to the film’s Wikipedia page, the film was quite a success at the US box office (taking over $36 million), despite being critically mauled and winning six Golden Raspberry Awards.

Bo Derek featured in an issue of Playboy magazine around the release of the film and I have the advance one sheet for this film advertising the fact, which can be seen here.

The artist responsible for the artwork on this one sheet is Olivia De Berardinis, known simply as Olivia, an American artist who is famed for her paintings of women in a pinup or ‘cheesecake’ style. Born in California, Olivia spent most of her youth on the East Coast, attending the New York School of Visual Arts from 1967 to 1970. By 1975 she was taking on commercial work, which included illustrations for novel covers, periodicals, advertisements and movie posters. She’s perhaps best know for the paintings she did for adult magazines, including most famously for Playboy. She had a regular slot in the magazine since 2004, often accompanied by a Hugh Hefner caption. She now resides in Malibu, California and continues to work and sell her previous paintings to fans. One of the other movie posters she worked on was for the 1981 romantic sexploitation comedy Babe, which can be seen here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

A creepy slice of horror from Tobe Hooper, the man responsible for the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Funhouse features a menacing atmosphere helped by great production design, solid performances from a number of character actors and a genuinely ghoulish killer. The story sees a quartet of teenage friends; Amy (Elizabeth Berridge), her boyfriend Buzz (Cooper Huckabee), her best friend Liz (Largo Woodruff) and Liz’s boyfriend Richie (Miles Chapin), visit a traveling carnival where they smoke marijuana, sneak into an over-21 strip show and interact with the carnies who run the shows. Richie dares the group to spend the night in the The Funhouse, an indoor ride on rails (often called a ghost train in the UK), and the girls reluctantly agree to hide until the park clears of people.

After sneaking into the depths of the ride the group inadvertently witness the mute, mask-wearing ride operator murder Madame Zena (Sylvia Miles), the fortune teller who also moonlights as a prostitute. When the ride’s barker Conrad (Kevin Conway) discovers what has happened it is revealed that he is the father of the murderous ride operator, actually called Gunther, and when Conrad admonishes him he knocks the mask off revealing a hideous freak underneath. Conrad realises that the crime has been witnessed by the kids and he unleashes Gunther to track them down. The rest of the film sees the teenagers trying to outwit the murderous carnies and escape The Funhouse alive. The make-up for Gunther is incredibly effective and he surely ranks up their as one of the best horror movie bad guys.

This Japanese B2 features an obscured photograph of Gunther which emphasises his glowing eyes. A photo montage of the four unlucky teens is displayed at the bottom along with the same logo seen on the US one sheet.

A creepy slice of horror from Tobe Hooper, the man responsible for the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre (as noted on this poster), The Funhouse features a menacing atmosphere helped by great production design, solid performances from a number of character actors and a genuinely ghoulish killer. The story sees a quartet of teenage friends; Amy (Elizabeth Berridge), her boyfriend Buzz (Cooper Huckabee), her best friend Liz (Largo Woodruff) and Liz’s boyfriend Richie (Miles Chapin), visit a traveling carnival where they smoke marijuana, sneak into an over-21 strip show and interact with the carnies who run the shows. Richie dares the group to spend the night in the The Funhouse, an indoor ride on rails (often called a ghost train in the UK), and the girls reluctantly agree to hide until the park clears of people.

After sneaking into the depths of the ride the group inadvertently witness the mute, mask-wearing ride operator murder Madame Zena (Sylvia Miles), the fortune teller who also moonlights as a prostitute. When the ride’s barker Conrad (Kevin Conway) discovers what has happened it is revealed that he is the father of the murderous ride operator, actually called Gunther, and when Conrad admonishes him he knocks the mask off revealing a hideous freak underneath. Conrad realises that the crime has been witnessed by the kids and he unleashes Gunther to track them down. The rest of the film sees the teenagers trying to outwit the murderous carnies and escape The Funhouse alive. The make-up for Gunther is incredibly effective and he surely ranks up their as one of the best horror movie bad guys.

This US one sheet features the jaw of Gunther and is supposed to be something of a parody of the classic one sheet for The Rocky Horror Picture Show (the bright red lips). I’m not certain whether it’s actually painted or is a photographic image, although there has definitely been some additional touch-up work if it’s the latter. If anyone knows for sure please get in touch.

Shaft’s Big Score is the second in the trilogy of films featuring Blaxploitation hero Shaft (Richard Roundtree) which sees the private-eye caught up in a war between two rival mobs after the death of one of his friends. The murder leaves the two gangs chasing a missing $200,000 and battling to take over a neighbourhood with Shaft battling to stop them. The film was directed by Gordon Parks who was also responsible for the first film and would later direct another blaxploitation caper, The Super Cops (1974). Although singer Isaac Hayes had provided the score for the first Shaft film, he wasn’t available for this sequel and Parks decided to work on the score himself since he was also a composer.

The all-action artwork on this 30×40 poster is by the American artist John Solie who has been working as an illustrator for over 40 years. Film posters are just one aspect of his output, which also includes book and magazine covers, sculptures, portraits and work for NASA. He continues to paint today in Tucson, Arizona. Another gallery of his work can be viewed on Wrong Side of the Art.

Here are the posters by John Solie I have collected to date.

You can view the trailer on YouTube.

This is the British quad poster for the release of the 1973 crime drama The Stone Killer. The film was one of a number that starred action legend Charles Bronson and was directed by Michael Winner. Their most successful collaboration (in box-office terms), Death Wish, was released a year later. The film features a cop who bends the rules to crack a case and was made in the wake of the hugely successful Clint Eastwood film, Dirty Harry (1971). That film also focused on a detective willing to play dirty, as this poster’s tagline shouts.

Bronson plays detective Lou Torrey who has recently been transferred to a Los Angeles beat. After the murder of a former hitman, he uncovers a plot involving the local mafia. The don, Al Vescari (Martin Balsam) has instigated a number of murders in revenge for killings that took place in 1931. This spree saw Sicilian capos executed across the US (a real-life crime dubbed the Night of the Sicilian Vespers). Vescari has decided to use Vietnam vets to carry out the killings and Torrey must race against time to stop the hitmen before the revenge plot is complete.

The stark imagery on this quad also featured on the US one sheet (see here) and the title block and main tagline have also been recycled by the British designer.

This is the UK one sheet (sometimes referred to as English one sheet) for the 1978 version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, based on the 1915 magazine serial-turned-book of the same name by the Scottish author John Buchan. The story has been turned into a film a number of times, including a 1935 version by Alfred Hitchcock that was later remade in 1959. This version, directed by the late Don Sharp (Psychomania, a couple of Hammer horror films), is considered to be the most faithful to Buchan’s original book. The film is set in the UK in 1914 and focuses on the character of Richard Hannay (whom Buchan would return to for five other novels) who becomes embroiled in a nefarious plot by German sleeper agents to start a war by assassinating a visiting foreign minister. Robert Powell plays Hannay and a host of notable British actors also feature, including John Mills, David Warner and Eric Porter. 

The film makes great use of real locations all over the UK, including in Scotland where the bulk of the film takes place. It’s most known for a climactic sequence that occurs on the clock face of London’s Big Ben tower (in reality a large scale model on a set) that aped a sequence from Harold Lloyd’s 1923 film Safety Last. The film was a box-office success and would later spawn a TV series featuring the same character and starring Powell, called simply Hannay.

This poster was designed and illustrated by Vic Fair, who was one the most important designer/artists ever to work on British film marketing. He was responsible for several iconic posters, including The Man Who Fell To Earth, posters for Hammer horrors like Vampire Circus, and the withdrawn advance one sheet for A View to a Kill. I interviewed Vic for this site and that article can be viewed by clicking here. He sadly passed away in early 2017 but his great legacy lives on.

It shares some similarities with another poster Fair designed and illustrated for Rank (the production company and distributor), the 1977 horror anthology The Uncanny.

Note also that there’s another version of this one sheet which has a stylised title logo in the space on the right and can be seen here. I’m not sure why some have it and others don’t but I suspect the one without was a printing error, or a first printing.

To see the other posters I’ve collected that were designed and/or illustrated by Vic Fair click here.

This is one of four great designs that were printed to be used as wildings (posters intended to be used out in the wild – billboard posting etc).

Shaft’s Big Score is the second in a trilogy of films featuring blaxploitation hero Shaft (Richard Roundtree). This Japanese poster features a still from one of the big action sequences in the film. I’m a fan of the typography used for the title.

You can view the trailer on YouTube.