A striking portrait of the underrated actor Chris Cooper features on this Japanese B2 for the release of the 2007 drama Breach. Based on a real incident, Cooper plays Robert Hanssen, a senior FBI agent who was discovered to have been an undercover spy for the Soviet Union and later Russia for over twenty years. Ryan Phillippe plays a somewhat fictionalised version of Eric O’Neill, another FBI employee who was tasked with going undercover as Hanssen’s clerk under the pretense of trying to bring to light certain ‘sexual deviances’.

Initially frosty, the older agent grows to like O’Neill and the pair become closer as the film progresses, despite the misgivings of O’Neill’s wife Erica (Caroline Dhavernas) who resents Hanssen’s intrusions into their life, including encouraging the pair to attend church with his family. Eventually O’Neill tells his handler (played by Laura Linney) that he can find no evidence of odd sexual activity, but then he is told of the real reason he has been tasked with getting close to Hanssen and agrees to help catch him passing secrets to the Russians. The tension escalates as Hanssen suspects that the net is closing in on him and O’Neill reassures his boss that nothing is wrong as he helps to orchestrate his downfall.

Cooper is probably best known for his role as the domineering, military neighbour of Kevin Spacey’s character in Sam Mendes’ American Beauty, but he has been acting for almost 30 years and is one of those classic ‘that guy’ character actors. He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Hanssen and the film itself was well received upon its release.

Not only is this probably the best poster artwork for the film that started the biggest sci-fi franchise of all, it’s also considered by many to be the greatest work by the late, great British artist Tom Chantrell. Declaring it so is not an easy decision to make since Chantrell illustrated thousands of posters during his long career and there are many classic designs to choose from, including several Hammer posters and a brilliant design for ‘One Million Years B.C.’. I have a number of other posters by him on this site for you to peruse.

In 2013 I interviewed Chantrell’s widow Shirley about their life together and she recalled how Tom would often ask her to pose so he could capture the correct stance for female characters appearing on his posters. Shirley recalls how the project came about for Tom:

Tom was given an invite to the premier showing and we all went along as a family. As soon as he’d seen the film he had the synopsis, the 10” x 8” press stills and then he started to think about how he was going to tackle the project. From beginning to end it took one month, which is a lot of work for one poster. He’d never taken that long before and I don’t think he did again.

Shirley once again posed for Tom and this time she was his Princess Leia. She not only still has the reference photos taken that day but also still has the same dress she wore.

This poster perfectly captures the excitement and adventure of the seminal sci-fi blockbuster and, although originally intended just to be used for the UK market on the quad, the art was liked so much by Lucasfilm that the decision was made to use it for this style C one sheet, as well as for other posters around the world. George Lucas himself would later purchase the original artwork for his archives and I like to imagine it’s hanging on a wall in Skywalker Ranch.

Note that the style C one sheet was originally printed for use in international territories, meaning it was printed in the US for use in other English-speaking countries. Note that it’s lacking the MPAA ratings box (PG). There were a handful of style Cs that were printed with a ratings box which were used for limited US screenings, but these are harder to find than this international version. Another thing to note is that this poster was bootlegged towards the end of the 1980s and there are thought to be thousands of copies out there. Unlike typical fake one sheets, the bootlegs are full size at around 27″ x 41″ but there are ways to differentiate them. The colours on the fake are not as vibrant and there are two hairs that were likely caught in the printing presses when the fakes were being run off (one on Leia’s gown and one on R2D2’s foot). This video goes into detail about what to look for and Cinemasterpieces.com has a detailed section on the poster here. Moviepostercollectors.guide also has a page on what to look out for.

Sadly, Tom Chantrell passed away in 2001 and my friend, and author of the must own British Film Posters: An Illustrated History, Sim Branaghan wrote his obituary for the Guardian. He may no longer be with us but Tom Chantrell’s classic artworks have stood the test of time and continue to impress decades later.

To see the other posters I have in the collection that were painted by Chantrell click here.

Very wild artwork features on this Polish poster for the release (in 1987) of James Cameron‘s sci-fi masterpiece Aliens. I find it hard to choose between this and Ridley Scott’s original Alien (1979) that saw a small crew on the salvage ship Nostromo get hunted down by a single Xenomorph, which burst from the chest of one of their colleagues following a planetary expedition. The original film is much more of a claustrophobic horror whereas Cameron decided to up the ante and make the sequel an action-packed thrill-ride. Sigourney Weaver reprised her role as Ripley, the only surviving crew member from the Nostromo and the film opens with her escape pod being discovered after 57 years floating through space. After waking her from cryo-sleep, a representative from Weyland Yutani (the company she was working for her) brief her that the planet on which her crew encountered the alien eggs is being terraformed and contact has been lost from the outpost there. After much cajoling they manage to persuade her to return to the planet with a bunch of hardened marines, but she agrees to go only if the purpose of the trip is “Not to study. Not to bring back. But to wipe them out.” Unfortunately for Ripley and the Marines, Weyland Yutani has nefarious plans for the aliens and things soon go awry, but the company didn’t count on Ripley’s tenacity and will to survive.

This poster was designed and illustrated by Andrzej Pagowski, a prolific film poster artist who was born in Warsaw in 1953 and studied at the celebrated University of Fine Arts in Poznań, graduating in 1978 under the tutorship of the noted artist Waldemar Świerzy. In 1990 he started his own graphic design studio called Studio P, which he developed into an advertising agency by 1993. According to the biography on his official site, Pagowski has illustrated over 1000 posters during his career and has also done work for books, magazines and music covers. In addition, he is also a TV and theatre stage designer and a screen writer. Undoubtedly a man of many talents! His official site features an extensive gallery of his work, including several of the posters. Polishposter.com also features multiple pages worth of his movie posters and this culture.pl article is well worth a read too.

There is another poster for the Polish release of the film, which I have nicknamed the ‘bubbles’ style and this will be added to the site at a later date.

During 1989, after four months of writing, the Coen Brothers experienced a period of difficulty in pulling the story together for their gangster-themed classic Miller’s Crossing and the pair decided to take a break. They traveled to New York from Los Angeles and during their stay there they penned a new script for a film set in a largely abandoned hotel in Los Angeles, with John Turturro in mind for the lead role. Once filming was complete on Miller’s Crossing the pair returned to the script and started to plan the production with the actor.

Set in 1941, the film follows the titular playwright (Turturro) who has seen great success with his recent play on Broadway and is persuaded by his agent that an offer from Capital Studios in Hollywood of a thousand dollars a week to write scripts is too good to pass up. Although Barton is worried that living there will make him lose his connection to the ‘common man’, which is what he feels give his plays their power, he reluctantly agrees and decides to stay at the almost empty Hotel Earle, rather than a more salubrious establishment. His room is dark, drab and devoid of any decoration save for a photograph of a woman in a bikini on a beach looking at the surf, which mesmerises Barton as he imagines the scene come to life.

Soon he meets the boss of Capital, Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner), who promises him his total support and asks him to start off with writing a wrestling picture. Disappointed with the choice of subject, he returns to the Earle and sits down at his typewriter. Immediately he finds himself suffering writers block, a situation made worse by distracting sounds in the hotel and the appearance of his room neighbour, Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), who introduces himself as a traveling salesman and tries to help Barton to get back on track. Later he meets a famous novelist called W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) who moved to Hollywood years before and has been writing scripts ever since, despite suffering from alcoholism and anger management issues. Mayhew’s long-suffering assistant, Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis) agrees to help with his script as the demands from Capitol grow stronger. After visiting his hotel room, Audrey and Barton spend the night together, but when he tries to wake her the next morning he finds that she’s been murdered and soon a pair of belligerent detectives appear in the lobby of the Earle.

The film clearly references a number of real characters from 1940s Hollywood but their characters are skewed just enough that it’s not libellous, and the ‘Sources, inspirations and allusions’ section on the film’s Wikipedia page gives a good rundown of the recipe for the Coens’ script. Barton Fink was a huge critical success and was the first film to win the Palme d’Or, Best Director and Best Actor at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, critical success didn’t translate into box-office performance and the film apparently failed to recoup its production budget.

I’m unsure who is responsible for the design of this quad, which is unique to the international campaign (the striking US one sheet looks like this), so if anyone has any ideas please get in touch.

A striking design on this Japanese B2 for the release of the 1974 thriller The Day of the Jackal, which was based on the 1971 novel of the same name by the English author Frederick Forsyth. The story is set in 1962 and focuses on a fictional assassination attempt on France’s then president Charles de Gaulle who had angered many in his own country by deciding to grant independence to the French colony of Algeria. An underground resistance group called the OAS had formed to fight this decision and both the novel and the film start with a real incident in which de Gaulle’s car had been sprayed with machine gun fire, but he had miraculously survived unscathed. In the film the OAS decide to cut their losses and hire a professional assassin. They settle on an Englishman (played by Edward Fox) who decides on the call sign ‘Jackal’.

The film follows The Jackal as he prepares for the assassination by traveling all over Europe to procure identity documents, a special weapon, and other items necessary for the task. The French authorities become aware that someone has been hired for the job and appoint ‘France’s best detective, Lebel (Michael Lonsdale, best known for his role as the villain in Moonraker), to lead the hunt for him. Lebel calls in favours from all over Europe in the hunt and eventually they strike it lucky with enquiries by Scotland Yard in the UK. The film ratchets up the tension as the French authorities close in on The Jackal, but he manages to evade them long enough to line de Gaulle up in his sights. 

The film is almost two and a half hours long but maintains a brisk pace and is certainly thrilling throughout. It makes brilliant use of real locations and the Wikipedia page for the film points out some of the places the production visited. The film was very well critically acclaimed but failed to perform as spectacularly at the box-office as some had hoped, something later blamed on the fact that the lead was the then unknown Fox.

This is one of two styles of Japanese posters for the film and I also have the ‘face’ style, which can be seen here.

A wonderfully detailed painting by the American artist Charles Moll features on this one sheet for the release of the 1976 dystopian sci-fi Logan’s Run. Brit director Michael Anderson, perhaps best known for 1955’s The Dam Busters, helmed this loose adaptation of a 1967 novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. The cast also features a number of British actors, with Michael York appearing as Logan and Jenny Agutter as Jessica, as well as the late Peter Ustinov showing up during the film’s second half. Logan’s Run is noted for its award-winning special and visual effects with some ground-breaking technology in use as well as some excellent model work that still stands up today. It also made liberal use of several locations in Texas, where it was predominantly filmed. 

Set in the 23rd century, earth has been through some unspecified event that has wiped out most of the population, whilst those that remain live inside a vast city covered with glass domes. Inside, a computer controls every aspect of life in the city, with the humans free to enjoy all the pleasures on offer without worry. Unfortunately, life inside the city does come with a cost and that is the rule that each human must submit to a ritual upon reaching their 30th birthday, during which they are ‘renewed’ and supposedly start their lives again with the aim of preventing overpopulation. Each person has a tracking device, or ‘life clock’, fitted into their hands that tells them when their time is due and they all wear different colours of clothing to mark their age range too.

Logan (York) is a Sandman, the equivalent of a policeman, whose job it is to round up anyone who doesn’t accept this ritual and attempts to escape from the city (dubbed Runners). After killing a Runner one day he finds a strange metallic pendant amongst the man’s possessions (actually an Egyptian ankh symbol) and when later scanning it into the computer he is given a mission to find out more about a secret group of people who are offering ‘sanctuary’ outside the city. After having his life clock forwarded by four years so that he’s near to ‘rebirth’ Logan is forced to go on the run to try and track down the secret group. Jessica (Agutter), a woman whom he met earlier, initially tries to lure him to a place where he can be assassinated by members of the group who want their secret kept, but when she realises he genuinely wants to reach sanctuary she agrees to go on the run with him.

The pair are being pursued by Logan’s Sandman colleague Francis (Richard Jordan) who is determined to apprehend them. They eventually arrive at an exit from the city that is opened using the ankh, and after escaping through an ice cave guarded by a silver robot called Box (Roscoe Lee Browne), the pair find themselves outside in the ruins of Washington DC. There they eventually come across and old man (Peter Ustinov) in the crumbling remains of the Senate chamber who makes them realise that it is possible to grow old and that the renewal ritual has been a lie all along. However, it’s not long before Francis catches up with them and Logan and Jessica must make a fateful decision.

The film was met with strong box-office returns and a reasonable critical reception, which greatly pleased the backers at MGM studio. A TV series followed a year later but was cancelled after only 14 episodes.

I’ve struggled to find much in the way of biographical information about Charles Moll but I do know that he only worked on a handful of film posters and is predominantly known for the many book covers he created for science-fiction novels. RaggedClutches.com features a page with a number of his covers and more of his work can be seen on the artist’s own DeviantArt page. In 2011, Adrian Curry’s Movie Poster of the Week column on Mubi.com featured this poster and also showcased several of the other film posters Moll worked on, which includes an excellent alternative style for The Sting. If anyone has any more information about Moll please get in touch.

Note that this is the international one sheet, which means it was printed in the USA for use in English-speaking international territories. Note the lack of an MPAA rating box and the fact that it has no NSS number. I also have the US advance one sheet in the Film on Paper collection, which features some of Moll’s art.