One of my top five films of all time, Blade Runner was released with easily one of the most iconic sci-fi one sheets ever printed. The design and artwork is by the late, great John Alvin, a man responsible for several of the most memorable film posters of the past 40 years. This is perhaps his most well known piece since it featured on posters across the globe, was reused for the 1992 Director’s cut release and has been on the cover of home video releases for many years.

In August 2014 a book entitled The Art of John Alvin was released after four years of preparation by his wife and studio partner Andrea. An absolute must-own for any fan of film posters and the art of cinema, the book features almost all of John’s most memorable posters which are each given their own section. As well as images of the printed poster, there are also early sketches, painted concepts and pictures of the original artwork itself, plus Andrea has provided fascinating commentary detailing the creation of each piece.

Blade Runner is given six pages and the section features a look at the original graphite sketches done by Alvin to show to Ridley Scott and the studio’s marketing department. Elements of these were then combined to create the painting we know today. Andrea notes that the posters for the film were originally conceived to focus on the relationship with the characters and the futuristic city, but by the time of release Harrison Ford was a global star so Alvin was asked to make him more prominent in the artwork.

John apparently always regretted not featuring Rutger Hauer’s android Roy Batty so when he was asked to revisit the design for a 25th anniversary print he reworked several elements, including the two portraits of Harrison Ford and Sean Young and added the face of Roy Batty looming large over them. The print was called ‘I’ve Seen Things’ by John and can be viewed here.

There are known reprints of this poster and this particular version is one of three known variants. LAMP has a guide to all three here. To summarise:

Variation 1 – NSS Version
This version has NOTHING in the bottom left corner; Litho in U.S.A. (AND) the NSS tag in the center; BLADE RUNNER 820007 in the bottom right

Variation 2 – Studio Version
This variation has “PRINTED IN U.S.A.” in the bottom left corner; NOTHING in the center; and “NSS 820007” in the bottom right.

Variation 3 – Odd NSS Version
In the bottom left corner has “PRINTED IN U.S.A.”; in the center ‘IN SMALLER PRINT’ has “LITHO IN U.S.A.” (AND) the NSS tag; In the bottom right has “BLADE RUNNER NSS 820007” in ‘UNEVEN’ print.

As is clear from my photos, the version I have is the ‘Odd NSS Version’. I bought this particular example about five years ago from a very reputable and established dealer who has been in business over 25 years. I have also seen this version sold by the major auction houses on a number of occasions and have seen it in the collections of several long-time collectors.

A dealer in London once told me he believes all NSS versions of this poster are reprints/restrikes. If this is the case then the poster has fooled both respected dealers and collectors alike.

One of my top five films of all time, Blade Runner was released with easily one of the most iconic sci-fi one sheets ever printed. The design and artwork is by the late, great John Alvin, a man responsible for several of the most memorable film posters of the past 40 years. This is perhaps his most well known piece since it featured on posters across the globe, was reused for the 1992 Director’s cut release and has been on the cover of home video releases for many years.

In August 2014 a book entitled The Art of John Alvin was released after four years of preparation by his wife and studio partner Andrea. An absolute must-own for any fan of film posters and the art of cinema, the book features almost all of John’s most memorable posters which are each given their own section. As well as images of the printed poster, there are also early sketches, painted concepts and pictures of the original artwork itself, plus Andrea has provided fascinating commentary detailing the creation of each piece.

Blade Runner is given six pages and the section features a look at the original graphite sketches done by Alvin to show to Ridley Scott and the studio’s marketing department. Elements of these were then combined to create the painting we know today. Andrea notes that the posters for the film were originally conceived to focus on the relationship with the characters and the futuristic city, but by the time of release Harrison Ford was a global star so Alvin was asked to make him more prominent in the artwork.

John apparently always regretted not featuring Rutger Hauer’s android Roy Batty so when he was asked to revisit the design for a 25th anniversary print he reworked several elements, including the two portraits of Harrison Ford and Sean Young and added the face of Roy Batty looming large over them. The print was called ‘I’ve Seen Things’ by John and can be viewed here.

There are known reprints of this poster and this particular version is one of three known variants. LAMP has a guide to all three here. To summarise:

Variation 1 – NSS Version
This version has NOTHING in the bottom left corner; Litho in U.S.A. (AND) the NSS tag in the center; BLADE RUNNER 820007 in the bottom right

Variation 2 – Studio Version
This variation has “PRINTED IN U.S.A.” in the bottom left corner; NOTHING in the center; and “NSS 820007” in the bottom right.

Variation 3 – Odd NSS Version
In the bottom left corner has “PRINTED IN U.S.A.”; in the center ‘IN SMALLER PRINT’ has “LITHO IN U.S.A.” (AND) the NSS tag; In the bottom right has “BLADE RUNNER NSS 820007” in ‘UNEVEN’ print.

This is the second variation (studio version) but I also have the ‘Odd NSS Version’, which can be viewed here. A dealer in London once told me he believes all NSS versions of this poster are reprints/restrikes. If this is the case then the poster has fooled both respected dealers and collectors alike.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this poster was advertising a film from the 1980s but it is actually an early pre-release/festival poster for the 2008 independent horror Parasomnia. Written and directed by William Malone, who is probably best known as the director of the 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill, the film is a horror thriller that centres on Laura Baxter (Cherilyn Wilson), a young woman who suffers from the titular condition. Since a childhood accident Laura has been unable to stay awake for longer than a few minutes and has been kept in a hospital’s psychiatric ward for a number of years.

When art student Danny Sloan (Dylan Purcell) visits his friend in the drug rehab wing of the same hospital he is encouraged to sneak into the psychiatric ward to take a look at notorious serial killer Byron Volpe (Patrick Kilpatrick). Volpe is kept chained in a padded cell after being convicted of killing his wife Madeline (Sean Young) and he is thought to have powers of hypnotism so strong that he has a black bag over his head at all times. Danny sneaks a look at Volpe and then notices Laura in a room nearby and soon becomes obsessed with her. When he learns that she’s to be moved to a clinic to be part of an experiment he breaks her out of hospital, but what he doesn’t realise is that Volpe has infiltrated Laura’s mind and when his neighbour is brutally murdered he sets out to try and put a stop to Volpe. Danny underestimates the killer’s powers and soon Volpe is on the run and looking for Laura.

The film is certainly stylish with some macabre sequences, particularly the nightmarish dreamscapes that were apparently influenced by the director’s love for the surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński. The film received a full release at the US cinema with a different poster to this one but was a straight to video release in most other countries. Malone has not directed another feature film since this one.

I’ve been unable to discover who painted the artwork on this pre-release one sheet so if you have any ideas please get in touch. The only reference information that I could find was this page on Cinema Secrets that reveals there was a version of the artwork that featured nudity.

This poster was created by Carlos Bêla and Kako for the Now Showing exhibition at the Cosh Gallery in Soho, London in 2008. It’s a giclée print on Da Vinci archival art paper and only 25 were printed. It comes with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it will not be reprinted. I happened to be passing by just before the exhibition opened and was able to reserve one.

Photos from the exhibition can be found on Flickr here

Thanks to Bond expert Kevin Harper for identifying the artist for me:

‘This is a 70s reissue using artwork by Yves Thos. He had supplied superb artwork of George Lazenby used on French posters for OHMSS. He painted a generic version of the Sean Connery You Only Live Twice pose which was used on the Festival poster you have, but this was also used extensively on reissues of the 60s films in Europe. I have attached an example of the Thunderball poster which shows his credit.’

Ridley Scott‘s seminal sci-fi classic needs no introduction and is on many people’s ‘top 10 films of all-time’ list, including my own.

This British quad is based on the French poster credited to Jouineau Bourduge which is the combined surnames of two French poster designers/artists (both with the first name Guy) who were responsible for many classic posters from 1960s through to the 1980s. MoviePostersGallery.com has a gallery of posters by him, as does cinemaffiche.com. I’ve been unable to find anything in the way of a biography online so please get in touch if you have more information.

I’ve always found it interesting that Deckard (Harrison Ford) is given a very stylistic representation on the poster whilst the other two characters are displayed using photographs. It’s also slightly bizarre that the studio decided to promote a tie-in to win a Volkswagen Polo – talk about a mismatch of content and product!

One interesting thing to note is that the book tie-in shown in the bottom right corner features artwork by Drew Struzan. The design was proposed for the American one sheet but the production team ultimately went with John Alvin’s illustration instead. Drew would later be asked to design the poster for the release of the final cut in 2007.

The other Blade Runner posters I have collected can be seen here.

An exciting montage on this Japanese poster for the 1974 re-release of Thunderball, Sean Connery‘s fourth outing as the legendary spy. The plot sees Bond on the trail of two nuclear bombs stolen from a British Vulcan bomber by Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), an agent of Spectre, which takes him to the islands of The Bahamas. Spectre requests £100million in uncut diamonds with a threat of detonating the bomb over a major city and Bond must track the weapons down before time runs out. The gorgeous Claudine Auger plays Domino, Largo’s mistress and an eventual ally of Bond; to my mind one of the better Bond girls.

The film features a series of groundbreaking underwater action scenes and a number of memorable gadgets, including a jetpack used in the opening sequence. Viewed today, however, the final section featuring a fight onboard Largo’s runaway jet-powered boat is completely cringeworthy as it uses sped-up footage with badly matched rear-projection that was meant to give the feeling of speed. Whilst it may have been acceptable in 1965, time has not been kind and it now looks unforgivably poor. I count Thunderball as one of the weakest of Connery’s official Bond films.

With that being said, the advertising campaign and accompanying artwork used for the British and American releases was arguably the best of any in the series, and Robert McGinnis and Frank McCarthy‘s wonderful designs and illustrations are quintessential Bond.

This montage appears to have been colour-tinted by hand, as evidenced by the bronze Aston Martin seen between Domino and her giant spear gun. The image of Connery with the large, silenced pistol was previously used on a Japanese poster for From Russia With Love.