Brilliantly over-the-top artwork on this US one sheet for the equally over-the-top 1982 action flick, Megaforce, which was directed by former stuntman Hal Needham, perhaps best known for Smokey and the Bandit (his directorial debut) and The Cannonball Run. The film focuses on an elite squad of soldiers equipped with an array of advanced weaponry and vehicles (several of which are depicted on this poster) who lend their help to a peaceful nation that is being invaded by the hostile forces of a neighbouring country.

Prolific film and TV actor Barry Bostwick plays Commander Ace Hunter, the leader of the titular unit who, in one of the more infamous scenes, rides a flying motorcycle to escape death and rendezvous with his squad in mid-air. The film was a commercial and critical failure and plans for a sequel called Deeds Not Words were shelved indefinitely. It didn’t help that the film was released in the summer of 1982 and was up against the likes of Blade Runner (released the same day) and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (released two weeks before).

Apparently, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are huge fans of the film and there are several references to it in their 2004 satirical action comedy Team America: World Police.

I’m unsure who is responsible for the artwork so please get in touch if you have an idea.

The trailer is on YouTube (“The good guys always win… even in the 80s!”)

Although considered by most Bond fans to be one of the weakest of the series, I know I’m not the only one to have a soft spot for Moonraker, Roger Moore‘s fifth outing as James Bond. Thanks to endless TV showings during the 1980s and early 1990s I’ve probably seen this more than any other in the series and, like Live and Let Die, it had a huge impression on my young mind.

Looking at it through the cynical fog of adulthood it’s easy to sneer at the camp script, supremely daft action sequences (motorised Gondola anyone?) and painfully obvious attempt to cash in on the success of Star Wars (a very common theme amongst films released in its wake). The film is probably the quintessential outing for Moore as Bond and only he could have pulled it off as well as he did, particularly when it comes to the hokey script and madcap action.

The film features several memorable sequences, including a stunning cable car fight over Rio de Janeiro, and a memorable bad guy in Richard Kiel‘s inimitable ‘Jaws’ who used to scare me senseless as a kid. Also notable is John Barry‘s soundtrack, which marked a departure from his previous Bond work by mainly using strings instead of the typical brass. The film also features one of the most (literally) eyebrow-raising character names in the form of Dr Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) and one of the best/worst sign-offs of the entire series:

Sir Frederick Gray, Minister of Defence:  My God, what’s Bond doing? 
Q: I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir.

This particular poster is the advance international one sheet with artwork by Dan Goozee who is responsible for several other Bond posters, including the US one sheet. Other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

This version has the phrase ‘Blasting off in June!’ at the bottom, but I also have one which says ‘Blasting off This Summer’ – see the last photos for images of it. I know there is also at least one other alternative version that has the phrase ‘Blasting off Soon’ (image taken from emovieposter.com).

The original trailer for the film is on YouTube.

Artwork by the great Drew Struzan on this US one sheet for French director Jean-Jacques Annaud‘s 1986 medieval whodunnit, starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater in one of his first major film roles. Based on the book by Italian novelist, semiotician, philosopher and critic Umberto Eco, the film focuses on the investigation of a series of mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey by the monk William of Baskerville (Connery) aided by his novice Adso of Melk (Slater). The pair must race against time to prevent falsely accused suspects, including Ron Perlman‘s demented hunchback Salvatore, being punished at the hands of the inquisitor Bernardo Gui (F. Murray Abraham).

Struzan’s portrait of a balding Connery is absolutely spot on and easily on par with the one he did three years later for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. According to IMDb, the presence of the ugly characters in the film (and on the poster) is due to Annaud “casting the ugliest actors he could get because he wanted the characters to appear “real”, based on the men in the village where he lived. When he returned to his village, some of the men asked him if he really considered them to be as ugly as the actors, and he said, “Yes.”

Several other international posters for the film, including this German one, depict Connery looking extremely serious and glum.

To see the other posters I’ve collected by Struzan click here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

Considered by many to be Sergio Leone’s masterpiece – certainly not an easy choice to make when there are films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West to choose from – ‘…America’ was to be the Italian director’s last film. Infamously, it had almost 90 minutes removed for its US cinematic release (in 1984), apparently after receiving terrible notice from American critics at the Cannes Film Festival – the re-cut version was also given a slating when it appeared.

Eventually the full 229 minute version was made available on home video in America. In 2012 it was announced that the film was to be restored to an even longer cut with over 40 minutes of newly discovered material that was thought lost. An extended cut of the film was released on blu-ray in 2014.

This one sheet was designed by the American designer and artist Tom Jung, who is probably best known for the Star Wars style A one sheet. A reader of the site got in touch to confirm that Jung used this still photograph by the on-set photographer Angelo Novi as the main image on the poster.

In 2012 I visited the same street in Brooklyn that leads down to the Manhattan Bridge and is featured in the film and on this poster. I took this picture, which gives you an idea of how the street looks today.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

Guillermo Del Toro’s sublime, fantastic fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth almost had an official cinema poster by the great Drew Struzan, that is until the studio suits had their way. The poster you see here is from a special screening in London and the design was never actually used as a cinema poster in any country. The final American Pan’s Labyrinth one sheet can be seen here.

The full story of how Struzan and Del Toro worked together on the poster can be found in the fantastic book ‘The Art of Drew Struzan’, which is an absolute must-buy for anyone who who has even a passing interest in Drew’s work (it’s currently only £16.49 on Amazon UK and $23.07 on Amazon.com). The stories associated with each of the artworks are a fascinating insight into what it’s like to work with directors and studios during the creation of a film poster.

These excerpts are taken from the Pan’s Labyrinth section of the book.

Drew on the completion of the artwork:

Then the shit hit the fan – the studio never used the painting. It did wind up on a special vinyl issue of the soundtrack album though.

Once the image had been released online there were many who couldn’t believe that Drew’s artwork wasn’t used for the final poster.

They were having a press conference in Europe, and a reporter actually stood up and asked one of the suits, “How come you didn’t use Struzan’s artwork for the poster?” … The suit’s reply was: “We didn’t use it because it looks too much like art.”

That statement from the studio representative says it all really. It seems like they genuinely believe that cinema-goers won’t respond to illustrated posters any more and that the photoshopped monstrosities so prevalent today are the only way to sell films successfully.

This particular example of the poster was obtained from a very established and trusted poster dealer that had bought them from a contact in London, who managed to secure a few after the event had finished. I’m assuming it was for the UK premiere or a large press screening, but I’d love to know for sure so please get in touch if you have any more details. I’m certain it’s not a bootleg poster as it measures the standard size for one sheets, is printed on decent paper and the details are sharp when viewed up close.

One of my top three Coen brothers films (with ‘Fargo’ and ‘The Big Lebowski’) and probably my favourite Nic Cage performance (the other contender being ‘Wild at Heart’), I like the simplicity of this US one sheet. I’ve been unable to find out the artist so if anyone knows could you please get in touch or leave a comment.

You might spot a strange looking stain on the bottom of the poster. I’m unsure of its origin, but I like to think Leonard Smalls had something to do with it.

The original trailer is on Youtube here, although it doesn’t do the best job of selling this classic film.

Easily my favourite of the various Return of the Jedi posters. I found some excellent info on an ebay auction I was watching a couple of years ago:

“The art is by Kazuhiko (Kazo) Sano. The art direction and design were by Christopher Werner. There was some resizing of Lando’s head on this poster, which needed to match the general size of the other actors. Because Sano was in Japan when this decision was made, they had another artist come in to do it.

This retouch artist may have been Vincent Malizia, an airbrush artist in Los Angeles. I have an old newspaper clipping with him standing in front of the Jedi B poster and a caption that reads he was an airbrush artist for this poster.”

LAMP reports that there are three variations of this poster:

This poster was issued with 3 variations. The first variation has ‘Return of the Jedi Style ‘B’ One Sheet’ printed in the lower right corner.The second variation has the same line as the first but the NSS number ‘830013’ was added below the first line and ‘Return of the Jedi’ was repeated below the NSS number.The third variation is the international poster. The international version doesn’t have the white border around the poster and measures only 26 3/4 x 39 1/4. ‘Return of the Jedi Style B International One Sheet’ is printed in silver in the bottom right corner. The PG rating and the phrase ‘May be too intense for very young children’ was dropped from the poster and the phrase ‘Trade marks owned by Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) and used by Film Freak Shop under authorization’ was added to the copyright information.

An iconic design on this poster for the US release of Paul Verhoeven‘s sci-fi masterpiece, Robocop. Set in a dystopian future Detroit where organised crime is rampant and the city is close to financial ruin, the mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products enters into an agreement with the city to run the police force and plans to introduce a robotic enforcer to work alongside the human officers. When tests with a weaponised droid called ED-209 go awry and an OCP junior executive is killed, the chairman agrees to back the plans of Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer), another OCP executive with designs for a cyborg (half-man, half-machine) cop.

Shortly after, veteran officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is brutally attacked and effectively killed on his first patrol at a new precinct and Morton sees him as the perfect candidate for his Robocop program. OCP quickly goes about transforming his ravaged body into the future of law enforcement, but when he reawakens Murphy initially struggles with his transformation and loss of his family. Soon he sets about avenging his ‘death’ at the hands of crime boss Clarence Bodicker (an unforgettable performance from Kurtwood Smith) and attacks the corruption that is destroying Detroit, which leads all the way to the boardroom of OCP.

This one sheet was designed by the Los Angeles based marketing company B.D. Fox Independent, who have been working on film posters for over 35 years, creating some truly iconic images, including Halloween and The Fly. The brilliant, photo-realistic artwork was painted by the American artist Mike Bryan. In March 2014 the original painting was sold at auction (reaching almost $48k) and it was accompanied by a letter by the artist and that can be read here.

Unique artwork by Omer Muz features on this Turkish one sheet for Paul Verhoeven‘s sci-fi masterpiece, Robocop. Set in a dystopian future Detroit where organised crime is rampant and the city is close to financial ruin, the mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products enters into an agreement with the city to run the police force and plans to introduce a robotic enforcer to work alongside the human officers. When tests with a weaponised droid called ED-209 go awry and an OCP junior executive is killed, the chairman agrees to back the plans of Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer), another OCP executive with designs for a cyborg (half-man, half-machine) cop.

Shortly after, veteran officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is brutally attacked and effectively killed on his first patrol at a new precinct and Morton sees him as the perfect candidate for his Robocop program. OCP quickly goes about transforming his ravaged body into the future of law enforcement, but when he reawakens Murphy initially struggles with his transformation and loss of his family. Soon he sets about avenging his ‘death’ at the hands of crime boss Clarence Bodicker (an unforgettable performance from Kurtwood Smith) and attacks the corruption that is destroying Detroit, which leads all the way to the boardroom of OCP.

Omer Muz is a prolific Turkish artist whose signature appears on many posters from the country but I’ve been unable to find out much about him. If anyone has any details please get in touch.

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.

Artwork by the brilliant Robert McGinnis on this US one sheet for the 1980 re-release of Woody Allen‘s 1973 sci-fi comedy Sleeper. Allen stars as Miles Monroe, a musician and health store owner who is cryogenically frozen by accident in 1973 and then revived 200 years later to discover that 22nd-century America is now an oppressive police state ruled by a dictator. Monroe falls in with a group of rebels who are trying to infiltrate the government’s top secret Aires Project, and it’s not long before he is on the run from the authorities with a kidnapped socialite Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton) in tow.

One of the director’s earliest and best, in my opinion, the film is a frequently hilarious slapstick adventure that differs greatly from many of his later, more serious and introspective films. Incredibly, Allen was able to complete editing almost 35 hours of footage down to the release running time of two hours; a feat he managed with two days to spare. The film was released with the title ‘Woody and the Robots’ in French-speaking Canada and this led the director to ensure he had a clause in all future contracts that prevented his film titles being changed by third parties.

Robert McGinnis is an American artist and illustrator who is perhaps best known for his work on several James Bond posters, as well the iconic one sheet for the first release of Breakfast at Tiffanys. These and many others can be seen on this website. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

The brilliantly bonkers trailer can be seen on YouTube.

The last film from Jack Hill, the director of several exploitation films such as Foxy Brown and The Swinging Cheerleaders, Sorceress was one of several fantasy films released in the wake of Conan the Barbarian. It currently sits on a meagre IMDb score of 3.7 out of 10 and sounds like something of a clunker:

Sorceress is bad. Astronomically bad. Not the kind of bad that we’re used to. No, not mediocre Hollywood bad. It’s so bad, it’s almost a religious experience.

To be fair, with a poster like this it’s not like the audience were expecting much, as another reviewer points out:

Tremendously fun if you approach it in the correct frame of mind (and probably even better when one is drunk). Oh, did I happen to mention the beautiful boobies on display in this?

This is the international one sheet featuring artwork by American artist Robert Tanenbaum. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

The US one sheet looks like this and the original trailer is on YouTube (contains bewbs).

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.

This American one sheet for Starcrash, Luigi Cozzi’s 1978 Star Wars ‘homage’, has excellent artwork by John Solie, featuring Caroline Munro as the superbly monikered Stella Star. Critically panned on release, it has since gained cult status thanks to the camp script and infamous special effects. It was recently re-released on blu-ray under the ‘Roger Corman Cult Classics’ series. The film also features a score by the late John Barry – I like this bit of trivia on IMDb.

Witness David Hasselhoff battling space droids with a ‘lightsword’ on YouTube.

Check out the original trailer on YouTube (edited by the great Joe Dante) and bear witness to the quality of the effects.

Director Eli Roth has recorded a commentary to the trailer on the Trailer From Hell site.

‘The ultimate melt movie’, Street Trash, the classic 1987 splatter-fest, is as gore-filled and tasteless as this American one sheet suggests. The image of the unlucky tramp melting into the toilet was re-used for the multiple VHS and DVD releases and is definitely up there as one of the all-time great horror poster images. I remember reading/hearing who did the artwork but forgot to write it down so if anyone knows could they please get in touch or leave a comment.

It’s interesting that they used a quote from a British radio broadcaster, the late Tommy Vance, for the American poster, but it’s not hard to see why; If that combination of classic titles doesn’t make you want to watch the film then there’s no hope.

The splendid original trailer can be see on YouTube – “It’s easy to find us…. we’re all over the place.”

Here’s the IMDb page for the film. Vaguely interesting bit of trivia: I bought this one sheet from the person who plays the chef in the restaurant scene and only found out after the fact.

Ace director Walter Hill‘s 1984 Streets of Fire is an odd mix of action, musical and comedy and, despite being released with the hope of it becoming a summer blockbuster, the film was something of a critical and commercial failure, with the US box office takings ending at just over half of its original budget. It has since garnered a significant cult following, thanks in part to its brilliant Wagnerian soundtrack.

The plot sees an ex-soldier, Tom Cody (Michael Paré) returning to his old town to rescue ex-girlfriend and lead singer of a rock group, Ellen Aim (Diane Lane), who has been kidnapped by a psychotic biker gang lead by Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe). Hill had apparently conceived the idea for the film whilst making 48 Hrs and, according to the film’s original press kit, Hill wanted to make what he’d have thought was a perfect film when he was a teenager, and he put in all of the things that he felt were “great then and which I still have great affection for: custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor.”

Plans for a trilogy of films featuring Tom Cody were shelved when it became clear how much of a flop the film had been. A non-official sequence called Road To Hell was made in 2008 directed by Albert Pyun and with Paré playing Cody again.

This US one sheet is one of several advance posters that were printed using silkscreen techniques and day-glo inks. I have added two other designs at the same time as this one and each one is available in various striking colours, including bright green, mauve, red and orange. Some of the close up pictures reveal the details of the silkscreen printing.

The final one sheet is on this site here and the film’s original trailer is on YouTube.

Ace director Walter Hill‘s 1984 Streets of Fire is an odd mix of action, musical and comedy and, despite being released with the hope of it becoming a summer blockbuster, the film was something of a critical and commercial failure, with the US box office takings ending at just over half of its original budget. It has since garnered a significant cult following, thanks in part to its brilliant Wagnerian soundtrack.

The plot sees an ex-soldier, Tom Cody (Michael Paré) returning to his old town to rescue ex-girlfriend and lead singer of a rock group, Ellen Aim (Diane Lane), who has been kidnapped by a psychotic biker gang lead by Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe). Hill had apparently conceived the idea for the film whilst making 48 Hrs and, according to the film’s original press kit, Hill wanted to make what he’d have thought was a perfect film when he was a teenager, and he put in all of the things that he felt were “great then and which I still have great affection for: custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor.”

Plans for a trilogy of films featuring Tom Cody were shelved when it became clear how much of a flop the film had been. A non-official sequence called Road To Hell was made in 2008 directed by Albert Pyun and with Paré playing Cody again.

This US one sheet is one of several advance posters that were printed using silkscreen techniques and day-glo inks. I have added two other designs at the same time as this one and each one is available in various striking colours, including bright green, mauve, red and orange. Some of the close up pictures reveal the details of the silkscreen printing.

The final one sheet is on this site here and the film’s original trailer is on YouTube.

Ace director Walter Hill‘s 1984 Streets of Fire is an odd mix of action, musical and comedy and, despite being released with the hope of it becoming a summer blockbuster, the film was something of a critical and commercial failure, with the US box office takings ending at just over half of its original budget. It has since garnered a significant cult following, thanks in part to its brilliant Wagnerian soundtrack.

The plot sees an ex-soldier, Tom Cody (Michael Paré) returning to his old town to rescue ex-girlfriend and lead singer of a rock group, Ellen Aim (Diane Lane), who has been kidnapped by a psychotic biker gang lead by Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe). Hill had apparently conceived the idea for the film whilst making 48 Hrs and, according to the film’s original press kit, Hill wanted to make what he’d have thought was a perfect film when he was a teenager, and he put in all of the things that he felt were “great then and which I still have great affection for: custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor.”

Plans for a trilogy of films featuring Tom Cody were shelved when it became clear how much of a flop the film had been. A non-official sequence called Road To Hell was made in 2008 directed by Albert Pyun and with Paré playing Cody again.

This US one sheet is one of several advance posters that were printed using silkscreen techniques and day-glo inks. I have added two other designs at the same time as this one and each one is available in various striking colours, including bright green, mauve, red and orange. Some of the close up pictures reveal the details of the silkscreen printing.

The final one sheet is on this site here and the film’s original trailer is 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.

This is a ‘review’ one sheet and was originally meant to have local reviews printed into the blank space on the right side, as seen here.

Jim Henson and Frank Oz co-directed this 1982 fantasy, which is notable as being the first full-length, live-action film to feature no human characters at all; puppets play all major roles. It’s notably darker than anything the pair had worked on previously and apparently ended up suffering at the box office; parents were unsure about its suitability as a family film and it was also up against the mega-hit E.T.

The film features puppets and other creatures designed by the renowned English illustrator Brian Froud, whose fantasy artwork has brought him international acclaim. He worked directly with Jim Henson to concept, design and even help to build the complex puppets seen throughout the film. Froud would go on to collaborate with Henson on Labyrinth (1986) and his son Toby even played the baby of the same name who is kidnapped at the start of the film.

This particular poster is the advance US one sheet and the artwork is often wrongly credited to other artists, including Bob Peak and Richard Amsel. Bob Peak did do a poster featuring the titular crystal, but this wasn’t used in the US and can be seen on the Japanese B2. Richard Amsel did the final US one sheet and the artwork features on the UK quad (as well as posters from other countries).

After a bit of research I was able to determine that the designers of this poster were Jeff Kerns and Lili Lakich at the agency Calko, Kerns and Lakich. The latter is well known for her work as a sculptor of neon and has worked in various fields of design for over three decades. Lakich started her professional career designing for the entertainment industry at Seiniger Advertising in Los Angeles. In 1981 she left to form her own studio with two partners and continued to work on film posters and other marketing material until 1987. Her official site’s about page lists an impressive range of work, including logos, identity, brochures and annual reports, signage, packaging, websites and fundraising campaigns for corporations, nonprofits and individuals. Her neon artwork can be seen on the Lakich studio website.

I emailed Lili to ask her if she could recall who was responsible for the artwork on this poster and the following is an excerpt from one of her replies:

I’m afraid I can’t remember who the illustrator was for The Dark Crystal. Somewhere I have a framed poster which may have his name on it, but I can’t access it easily. It was not Bob Peak or Richard Amsel but a young guy that we hired to do comps and then the finished artwork. It was done for Calko, Kerns and Lakich which was my advertising agency from about 1980 to 1987.

UPDATE 05/06/2012
A reader of the site got in touch to confirm that the artist is Bob Lee Hickson and the Dark Crystal image can be seen on his website here.

The film’s original trailer can be seen on YouTube.

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.

Roger Kastel artwork on this poster for the 1978 heist-caper starring Donald Sutherland and Sean Connery and directed by the late Michael Crichton. The film is based on his book of the same name, which is itself loosely based on an actual heist known as the Great Gold Robbery of 1855 in which a large quantity of gold was stolen from a train by a master thief and his accomplices. Pierce (Connery) works with Agar (Sutherland) to acquire the four keys that are required to break into the storage compartment on the moving train and must then attempt to escape with the loot.

The film is notable for the stunt-work, including walking on the roof of a moving train, that was apparently done by Connery himself. It’s also worth noting that the film was renamed to The First Great Train Robbery in the UK so it wouldn’t get confused with an infamous British train robbery in 1963 in which £2.6 million was stolen from a train in Buckinghamshire. The crime was dubbed The Great Train Robbery by the British press.

Roger Kastel’s website can be viewed here and it features plenty of great images of his brilliant work, including the iconic image that he originally drew for the paperback cover of Jaws, which was later used on movie posters for the film all over the world.. He’s also responsible for the excellent ‘Gone with the Wind’ style one sheet for The Empire Strikes Back.

The original trailer for the film is on YouTube.

The Greatest Film Ever Made (IMDb) was re-released with a brief cinema run on its 10th anniversary in 2004. Director Frank Darabont approached legendary illustrator Drew Struzan and asked him to work on the poster. This design is featured in the brilliant book ‘The Art of Drew Struzan’ (available at Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk).

The book reveals several of the other designs that he and Darabont worked on together and explains how the pair first met:

You know how I met Frank Darabont? He ordered two copies of the Creature from the Black Lagoon print and liked them so much he called me on the phone, out of the blue, to thank me and ask to meet. Frank became my friend through his appreciation of my work, same as Guillermo [Del Toro].

Once Frank approached Drew to work on the Shawshank re-release poster the pair quickly struck up a close working relationship:

Warner Bros. Home Video was ready to accept whatever Frank wanted, so I did some comps [comprehensive roughs] directly for him. The trouble with working a director who loves my stuff: He couldn’t decide what he wanted: he wanted them all! He ultimately chose my reprise of Tim Robbins in the rain for the cover.

Drew clearly has a fond recollection of the project and remarks on the fact that the style of painting stands out from the rest of his work:

It was a real blessing – he got me the job, he used the art, and I got to do a kind of painting that is completely different from what I had done for movie posters. The experience was all about Frank. We didn’t meet in some office; he came over to my house, we collaborated, I showed him my pictures, and he watched me work.

And the fate of the other comps that can be seen in the Art of Drew Struzan book?

In the end, they’re hanging in his house because he fell in love with the art, and I fell in love with him.
The original US one sheet is the single photographic image of Andy (Tim Robbins) in the rain after his escape and, whilst that image is a well-known one, I do prefer Drew’s moody collage. The use of light and dark on the faces is superbly done and the layout of each of the characters works very well.

The other posters in my Drew Struzan collection can be seen here.