Great art by John Solie features on this over-sized one sheet for the little-seen blaxploitation actioner The Slams, released in 1973. The film was produced by the brother of infamous b-movie legend Roger Corman, Gene Corman, who was behind a few other blaxploitation features like Hit Man and Darktown Strutters. Corman hired Jonathan Kaplan to direct after he’d worked with his sister-in-law on a couple of exploitation features, and genre-regular and ex-NFL player Jim Brown took the lead role.

Brown plays Curtis Hook, a heist-man who is caught soon after completing a successful robbery that netted him $1.5m (once he’d killed his partners) and is sent to jail. Once there he is assailed by several interested parties, including the corrupt head of the prison guards Captain Stambell (Roland Bob Harris), who all want to know where he stashed the loot. Hook discovers that the locations he left the cash are due to be demolished so he hatches a plan to escape from prison and collect the loot before it’s lost forever.

The artwork on this 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.

I’m unsure why this poster is so over-sized as it’s definitely not a cardstock 30×40″ poster but has all the hallmarks of one, including the text down the side with the NSS information. It’s on standard thin paper and measures 45″ in the vertical so it’s a bit of a mystery. Note that the NSS info has an ‘R’ in front of it, which would typically indicate a re-release poster, but since the film was released in 1973, it’s likely that this was actually meant to indicate that the poster was revised in some way (as noted on this emovieposter.com auction page for a 30×40 of the film).

This is one of two Japanese B2 posters (that I’m aware of) for the release of the 1977 crime drama Le Gang. The film was an Italian-French co-production and was directed by Jacques Deray, a Frenchman who helmed a number of crime thrillers during his career. French superstar Alain Delon, who collaborated with Deray on a number of similar films, plays the leader of the titular gang of criminals. The story is set in France during the 1940s and the plot, apparently based on true events, is described thusly on IMDb:

In 1945, as World War Two comes to a close, five small time crooks unite to form a gang. After several bold robberies they become notorious as “the front-wheel drive gang”. The police attempt to stop their crime spree with little success, but how long will their luck last?

The other style B2 can be seen on emovieposter.com here.

Legendary German film maker Werner Herzog wrote and directed this brilliant, stylish homage to the 1922 Dracula adaptation, ‘Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens’. F. W. Murnau‘s seminal silent classic was actually filmed without permission from Bram Stoker‘s estate and had a number of minor details changed in attempt to avoid infringing copyright. Their attempts were unsuccessful and Stoker’s widow filed a lawsuit that resulted in the film being withdrawn and most of the prints being destroyed. Luckily, a handful survived and the film was able to be properly restored and saved from total loss.

Frequent Herzog collaborator (and occasional adversary) Klaus Kinski stars as Count Dracula (changed from the Count Orlok of Murnau’s verison), the undead vampire who travels to Germany from Transylvania. He intends to prey upon Lucy (Isabelle Adjani), the wife of Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) from whom the Count purchased real-estate deeds before locking him in his castle. Jonathan manages to escape and heads home in hot pursuit of the evil vampire to save Lucy from an undead fate. Herzog’s version is particularly notable for the way it portrays the classic Count as a weary, unloved character who is struggling with the idea of immortality and is disgusted with the predatory side of himself. This was in stark contrast to many of the Dracula adaptations that had been made since Murnau’s original.

Unusually, the studio (20th Century Fox) requested that Herzog film each scene with dialogue twice (in German and English, spoken by the same actors) so that two versions of the film could be constructed with the idea that the English one would appeal more to Western audiences. Today most fans prefer the German version as the actors are clearly more comfortable speaking in their native language and the acting is thus more natural.

This Japanese poster features elements of the fantastic American one sheet, which was painted by David Palladini, and is one of the best posters of the 1970s, in my opinion. In the place of the illustration of Count Dracula is a striking image of the gorgeous Adjani and two smaller photos featuring the Harkers and Dracula.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

The distinctive German filmmaker Werner Herzog directed his frequent collaborator, the equally eccentric Klaus Kinski, for the first time in this 1972 German New Wave adventure film Aguirre, Wrath of God. The story follows a 16th Century Spanish expedition from the mountains of Peru into the jungle surrounding the Amazon river as a band of conquistadors search for the mythic city of El Dorado and the riches that supposedly dwell within. After struggling through the difficult terrain the leader of the group selects a small band of people to scout ahead. Commanded by Don Pedro de Ursua (Ruy Guerra), with Don Lope de Aguirre (Kinski) as his second in command, they soon encounter further difficulties and the expedition descends into a nightmare from which there may be no return.

Tales of Herzog and Kinski’s battles behind the scenes are legendary and the film is known to have had a very high pressured shoot. Apparently, before every shot featuring Kinski, the director would deliberately infuriate the actor in order to get the performance he desired. The story goes that when Kinski made the decision to leave the set and return home, Herzog pulled a gun and threatened to shoot him and then turn the gun on himself.

Herzog once said of Kinski: “People think we had a love-hate relationship. Well, I did not love him, nor did I hate him. We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other’s murder”.

This is the poster for the film’s first release in Japan in 1983.

The original trailer for Aguirre is on YouTube.

A Japanese double-bill poster for re-release of ace director Werner Herzog‘s two masterpieces. Made ten years apart, both films star Klaus Kinski, a frequent collaborator, and the stories behind the making of the films are legendary.

Fitzcarraldo tells the true story of  one man’s obsession to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle, a task that sees him having to drag a full-sized steamer boat over a mountain from one river to another. Rather than rely on special effects or clever editing, Herzog and the crew actually did drag a steamer boat over a mountain! The story of the shoot was told in the excellent documentary Burden of Dreams.

Aguirre, Wrath of God was a similarly chaotic and pressured shoot and the story goes that when Kinski decided to leave the set and return home, Herzog pulled a gun on him and threatened to shoot him and then turn the gun on himself.

Herzog once said of Kinski: “People think we had a love-hate relationship. Well, I did not love him, nor did I hate him. We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other’s murder”.

I believe this double-bill poster was for a Japanese release in either 2000 or 2001 and the artwork is by an artist called Suzuki Cohjizukin about whom I know very little. Some of his other works can be found with a google search but if anyone knows anything more about him please get in touch.

Here are the original trailers for Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre.

This is the UK quad for the release of Diva, which was the first full-length feature from Jean-Jacques Beineix, the French director whose most internationally famous film is Betty Blue (1986). Beineix is seen as the originator of the French film movement that became known as ‘cinéma du look‘, which was described as prioritising style over substance and spectacle over narrative. Luc Besson (Subway, Nikita) and Leos Carax (Les Amants du Pont-Neuf) were the other key directors and their films often featured doomed love affairs, scenes in the Paris Metro and plenty of contemporary pop-culture references.

Based on the novel of the same by Swiss author Daniel Odier the film is set in Paris and tells the story of a young mild-mannered postman called Jules (Frédéric Andréi) who has an obsession with a celebrated opera singer called Cynthia Hawkins. The singer has never had one of her performances officially recorded, believing that music like hers should only exist in the moment for the audience watching. Jules attends a performance and illicitly makes a perfect recording before meeting her backstage and stealing the dress she performed in. A few days later Jules inadvertently gets drawn into a criminal conspiracy after a desperate woman on the run from hitmen, including Dominique Pinon‘s Le curé (as seen on this poster), drops a cassette into his postbag. The tape implicates the local police chief in an international smuggling ring and soon Jules has not only the hitmen after him but also a shady pair of Taiwanese men who want the recording of the opera singer. Luckily, Jules has help in the form of a mysterious bohemian called Gorodish (Richard Bohringer) and his Vietnamese-French muse Alba (Thuy An Luu).

As progenitor of the ‘cinéma du look‘ movement the film is visually stunning throughout and features excellent use of several Paris locations, including a memorable chase sequence on the Metro and a great scene inside a giant abandoned factory. The story may come second to the visuals but it’s still an excellent watch and rightfully garnered plenty of critical plaudits on its release in France and then later in the US and the UK.

This UK quad was printed for the legendary British distribution (and later production) company Palace Pictures and, like their quad for Evil Dead, features a flash indicating that the film was available on video. I believe the first time this film was released in the UK was in 1982 and it’s likely that Palace gave the film a limited cinema release as well as making it available on VHS. Friend of the site John Costello confirmed that the film received a release on VHS on September 25th 1982.

The design and illustration of the poster, which is actually of a shot in the film where Jules’ bike helmet is seen on a mannequin, is credited on the poster to ‘Pens’, about whom I’ve been unable to find any details. If anyone knows more about the designer I’d appreciate the info.

A striking design on this poster for the 1977 British-Canadian horror anthology The Uncanny, which is based around the unlikely theme of malevolent cats. The film is often mistakenly credited as being an Amicus Productions anthology (like Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror) but it was in fact a Rank release with the involvement of Milton Subotsky, one half of the Amicus team, which had disbanded in 1975.

The film features three stories told as part of an overarching framing tale that sees Peter Cushing as a British author visiting his agent in Montreal to present the idea for his next book, which is that all cats are inherently evil, supernatural creatures. To illustrate his reasoning he tells three separate tales, each from different eras and locations. The first is set in London and sees Miss Malkin (Joan Greenwood) a sick, wealthy widower leave her fortune to her houseful of cats, which angers her only nephew. He enlists the help of the housemaid Janet (Susan Penhaligon) who attempts to steal the copies of the will but disturbs the elderly woman as she’s doing so and kills her in the struggle that follows. Much to Janet’s surprise, the moggies then take their revenge on her and the nephew.

The second story is based in Quebec and sees Lucy (Katrina Holden Bronson) an orphaned girl, going to live with her Aunt and bringing her beloved cat Wellington with her. After being mistreated by the family who decide to try and dispose of Wellington, Lucy seeks help from her collection of witchcraft books and takes out her anger on her malicious cousin Angela. The final story is set in Hollywood during the 1930s and features Donald Pleasence giving it his all as an actor who rigs an onset accident that kills his wife so he can shack up with his mistress, a younger actress. Unfortunately, his wife’s cat is none too pleased with its owner being offed and sets out to get its revenge, which it does in a ridiculous finale.

The film features very little in the way of horror, with only some very fake looking blood in a few scenes and absolutely nothing in the way of suspense. The special effects are mostly awful and in the scenes where cats are supposedly attacking people you can practically see the hands of the animal handlers who’ve just thrown them at the victim. The middle story set in Canada is particularly poor, thanks to a woeful performance by the actress playing Lucy. The simple fact is that cats are not particularly scary and anyone who owns a cat knows that the worst that might happen is a bit of scratched skin. Apparently the film flopped at the box office and was never even given a release in American cinemas.

This poster was designed and illustrated by Vic Fair, who is one the most important designer/artists ever to work on British film marketing. He is 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.

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

Five great portraits painted by Renato Casaro feature on this German re-release poster for Poppies Are Also Flowers (AKA Danger Grows Wild and several other titles). Made as an anti-drug trafficking film with the help of the United Nations, it was sponsored by corporate entities, including Xerox.  As this poster attests, it was based on a screenplay by James Bond creator Ian Fleming, was directed by Bond director Terence Young and had a seriously star-studded cast. The likes of Yul Brynner, Angie Dickinson, Trevor Howard and Marcello Mastroianni all signed up and, so the story goes, worked for $1 each. Some serious favours must have been called in as I find it hard to believe they were all passionately anti-narcotics!

The story is described thusly on the film’s Wikipedia page:

In an attempt to stem the heroin trade at the Afghanistan–Iran border, a group of narcotics agents working for the United Nations inject a radioactive compound into a seized shipment of opium, in the hopes that it will lead them to the main heroin distributor in Europe.

Now largely forgotten, the film is apparently in the public domain and is available to watch on YouTube and elsewhere (although the quality of all copies out there is atrocious). Although originally intended for TV, the film was given a cinema release in several countries, including Japan, UK (as Danger Grows Wild) and Germany. This poster is apparently for a 1973 re-release (for what reason I’m not certain) and the original German release poster can be seen here. Casaro was clearly tasked with making the film appear as exciting as possible and added the action scenes in the bottom half of the poster. It’s safe to say that for all the effort that went it to making the film it wasn’t exactly successful in curtailing the activities of the international drug trade!

One of my favourite artists, Renato Casaro is an Italian with a prolific movie poster output that lasted over 35 years. He began his career in 1953, aged 19, at the famous Studio Favalli in Rome and would go on to design and paint posters for many of the biggest directors in the world. His skill at accurately portraying actors and his brilliant use of colour and composition saw him much in demand from studios and actors alike. His artwork has featured on posters used in multiple countries, including Japan, Germany, USA as well as in his native Italy.

Check out the incredible amount of work on his official website here, which also features a biography of the artist. In March 2014 I published an exclusive interview with Renato and it can be read by clicking here. The other posters I’ve collected by Renato Casaro are here.

Great artwork features on this US one sheet for the little-seen 1982 western Barbarosa. The film was the first American film to be directed the Australian producer/director Fred Schepisi who would go on to international success with films such as Roxanne and Six Degrees of Separation. It stars the legendary country musician Willie Nelson who forged a career in acting towards the end of the 1970s and this was one of his first feature films. He appears alongside Gary Busey who plays a young farm boy who joins up with Nelson’s titular outlaw. The plot is described thusly on IMDb:

Karl Westover (Busey), an inexperienced farm boy, runs away after unintentionally killing a neighbor, whose family pursues him for vengeance. He meets Barbarosa, a gunman of near-mythical proportions, who is himself in danger from his father-in-law Don Braulio, a wealthy Mexican rancher. Don Braulio wants Barbarosa dead for marrying his daughter against the father’s will. Barbarosa reluctantly takes the clumsy Karl on as a partner, as both of them look to survive the forces lining up against them.

The film appears to have only been released in a few countries, including the US and Australia but was well received by critics at the time. The artwork on this one sheet appears to have been used to promote the film in most of the markets in which it was released. It features the signature (see picture 9) beloning to an artist called George Tsui. A reader of the site commented and helped me identify him after I’d struggled to read the signature originally. I’ve struggled to find out much in the way of biographical details about him other than that he was born in Hong Kong and moved to New York in the late 60s. He first studied at the School of Visual Arts and later majored in oil painting at the Art Students League.

According to this site Tsui worked for NBC for a number of years and won the 1997 Emmy Award for Best Individual Art and Craft. That site also features other pictures of his work. Apparently he worked on other film posters (the titles of which I’m struggling with) and a series of posters for the 1984 Winter Olympics. If anyone has any more information about the artist and his work on film posters please get in touch.