Utterly bonkers, laughably terrible, bizarrely brilliant; Zardoz is one of those films that you have to see at least once just to believe that it was even made. There are countless unforgettable images in the film, not least of which is Sean Connery in a red leather nappy and knee-high boots. There’s also a moment where he dons a wedding dress.

The script is also rather special; ‘The Penis is evil! The Penis shoots Seeds, and makes new Life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the Gun shoots Death and purifies the Earth of the filth of Brutals. Go forth, and kill! Zardoz has spoken”

I’m a fan of this poster for a number of reasons, including the tagline and the strange choice of images to depict from the film, but it’s the film’s logo that deserves special mention as surely one of the best of the 1970s, if not ever.

The artist for this poster is American artist Ron Lesser, who is also responsible for the excellent High Plains Drifter one sheet (thanks to MightyMcT for confirming this).

Check out the trailer to get a taste of the wonder of Zardoz. If you want to see the best bits someone has made a short film entitled ‘Zardoz in 10 minutes’.

Finally, bear witness to Zardoz dog!

Featuring a cognitive illusion so overt it’s a wonder that the artist didn’t paint Roger Daltrey with one eye winking, this is the US 30×40 poster for the release of the late, great British director Ken Russell‘s resolutely bonkers biography of the Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt. The film is (very) loosely based on a biography written by one of Liszt’s mistresses and, rather than follow a traditional linear narrative, tells the story of his life through a series of increasingly bizarre sequences. It’s a typically flamboyant, vulgar and controversial effort from Russell, who manages to cram in adultery, violence, vampires, Nazis, a mechanical viking, a ten-foot phallus and Ringo Starr as The Pope. Lisztomania arguably shows the director at his most self-indulgent but it definitely has to be seen to be believed.

In a cinematic release situation not often repeated, Russell had also helmed Tommy, a film based on The Who’s 1969 rock-opera album of the same name, which also had Roger Daltrey as the lead and was released earlier in 1975. This explains the inclusion of the terribly clunky ‘it out-Tommys “Tommy”‘ in the top tagline – Tommy was released in March and Lisztomania in November.

The phallic imagery on this 30×40 poster directly references a hallucination sequence in the film in which Listz’s libido is stroked to such an extent that he grows a ten-foot long erection, which is then celebrated by a horde of lusty maidens before being directed to a nearby guillotine – talk about pleasure and pain! Despite extensive searches, I’ve been unable to identify the artist responsible so if you have any ideas please get in touch. I’m a big fan of the logo design too.