Can you spot the stealth Golden Arches?

This is the US one sheet poster for David Lynch’s 1990 twisted road trip Wild at Heart. Based on Barry Gifford’s 1989 novel of the same name, the film is arguably the most conventional film that Lynch has ever made, but it’s no less weird and wonderful than the rest of his output. Nicolas Cage turns in one of his career best performances as Sailor Ripley, a young man sent to jail for killing a knife-wielding attacker in North Carolina.

Upon his release, he is met by his girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) at the prison gates and the pair decide to run away to California to escape her domineering mother Marietta (a memorable performance by Diane Ladd). Marietta is a twisted bully and totally disapproves of Sailor and Lula’s relationship. It’s revealed that she sent the knife-wielding killer after him to begin with and when they disappear she hires both a private detective and a dangerous mobster to track them down.

The lovers end up in Texas where they meet an old friend called Perdita Durango (Isabella Rossellini) who they hope will be able to help them, but also encounter the psychotic gangster Bobby Peru (a terrifying Willem Dafoe) who leads Sailor astray with terrible consequences. The film is full of Lynch’s trademark surreal sequences and shocking moments of violence, including one involving a shotgun that is hard to forget. Apparently the film tested badly upon completion and Lynch recalls that over 100 people walked out during one screening. It received a pretty mixed critical reception but it did win the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was a moderate financial success in the US and internationally.

Despite the phenomenal ratings success that David Lynch and Mark Frost‘s Twin Peaks TV series had enjoyed during its first season, the viewing figures dropped sharply in the middle of the second and the show was put on hiatus by ABC. After a letter-writing campaign by fans, dubbed COOP (Citizens Opposed to the Offing of Peaks), the studio relented and agreed to show the remaining six episodes. The biggest problem the show faced was that halfway through the second series the killer of Laura Palmer had been revealed, which had been the main storyline focus up until that point, and the following episodes failed to hold viewer interest as much.

When ABC revealed they were not planning to make a third series the show’s cancellation was confirmed. Only a month after this happened, Lynch announced that he was planning to make a Twin Peaks film in conjunction with French company CIBY-2000, which ended up being both a prequel and an epilogue to the original show. Working without Mark Frost, Lynch was able to assemble most of the original cast, with the exception of Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn and Richard Beymer. Kyle MacLachlan had been reluctant to return as FBI Agent Dale Cooper and is only featured briefly in the film, which lead Lynch and his co-screenwriter to change the focus of the film, with another murder case and the life of Laura Palmer being key facets of the plot.

In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Chris Isaak plays FBI Agent Chester Desmond who, along with his new partner Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland), are sent to investigate the murder of Teresa Banks in the town of Deer Meadow. After finding an important clue, Desmond mysteriously disappears and the film then cuts to one year later in the town of Twin Peaks, picking up the story of homecoming queen Laura Palmer whose eventual murder has a direct link to that of Teresa Banks.

Despite the cult following of the TV series, the film was both a critical and commercial flop and was greeted with boos and jeers at the Cannes Film Festival, with Quentin Tarantino confessing “After I saw Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me at Cannes, David Lynch had disappeared so far up his own ass that I have no desire to see another David Lynch movie until I hear something different. And you know, I loved him. I loved him.” It also saw poor box-office takings in the USA after the ratings drop of the second series and the unforgiving plot for people unfamiliar with the Twin Peaks universe.

This US one sheet features a portrait of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and the split necklace. Notably this one sheet is double-sided and will have been one of the first to be printed in this way.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

Despite the phenomenal ratings success that David Lynch and Mark Frost‘s Twin Peaks TV series had enjoyed during its first season, the viewing figures dropped sharply in the middle of the second and the show was put on hiatus by ABC. After a letter-writing campaign by fans, dubbed COOP (Citizens Opposed to the Offing of Peaks), the studio relented and agreed to show the remaining six episodes. The biggest problem the show faced was that halfway through the second series the killer of Laura Palmer had been revealed, which had been the main storyline focus up until that point, and the following episodes failed to hold viewer interest as much.

When ABC revealed they were not planning to make a third series the show’s cancellation was confirmed. Only a month after this happened, Lynch announced that he was planning to make a Twin Peaks film in conjunction with French company CIBY-2000, which ended up being both a prequel and an epilogue to the original show. Working without Mark Frost, Lynch was able to assemble most of the original cast, with the exception of Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn and Richard Beymer. Kyle MacLachlan had been reluctant to return as FBI Agent Dale Cooper and is only featured briefly in the film, which lead Lynch and his co-screenwriter to change the focus of the film, with another murder case and the life of Laura Palmer being key facets of the plot.

Chris Isaak plays FBI Agent Chester Desmond who, along with his new partner Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland), are sent to investigate the murder of Teresa Banks in the town of Deer Meadow. After finding an important clue, Desmond mysteriously disappears and the film then cuts to one year later in the town of Twin Peaks, picking up the story of homecoming queen Laura Palmer whose eventual murder has a direct link to that of Teresa Banks.

Despite the cult following of the TV series, the film was both a critical and commercial flop and was greeted with boos and jeers at the Cannes Film Festival, with Quentin Tarantino confessing “After I saw Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me at Cannes, David Lynch had disappeared so far up his own ass that I have no desire to see another David Lynch movie until I hear something different. And you know, I loved him. I loved him.” It also saw poor box-office takings in the USA after the ratings drop of the second series and the unforgiving plot for people unfamiliar with the Twin Peaks universe.

However, the film was a commercial success in Japan where David Lynch and Twin Peaks are held in very high regard, and where this B2 poster hails from. It features head-shots of the principal cast members, including David Bowie who actually only appears in a short cameo role as an FBI agent.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

It took me many years to track down a rolled copy of this poster but I finally managed to locate one and I’m very happy to be able to add it to my John Carpenter collection. It’s hugely different from the US one sheets (advance and final) but it does feature the same great tagline.

The artwork is by the French illustrator René Ferracci who is responsible for the French poster, though I’m not sure if any adaptation was required to fit it to the quad format. It may be that a British artist had to make some adjustments.

It’s one of the few posters for the film not to feature the destroyed Statue of Liberty in some form.

Here’s the original trailer.

This Sporting Life was the first full-length film by the late British director Lindsay Anderson (best known for ‘If….‘ and ‘O Lucky Man!‘) and starred Richard Harris in what is now acknowledged as his breakout role. The story follows the exploits of Frank Machin (Harris) a tough, young miner in a Northern England town who finds success as a Rugby League player and must deal with his violent tendencies as he copes with his new found fame. The film also featured Rachel Roberts in a memorable turn as the widower landlady of Machin with whom he has been having a strained relationship.

This UK one sheet features artwork by Renato Fratini, an Italian painter who came over to England to work in film publicity at the end of the 1950s and is regularly cited by many of his contemporaries as one of the greatest artists ever to have worked in the business. Fratini was born in Rome in 1932 and went on to study at the city’s Academy of Fine Art before landing a job at Studio Favalli, which was part of the legendary Cinecittà studios and handled film publicity for many Italian productions. Eric Pulford, who was head of Downton Advertising in London, began to enlist the help of the Italian artists in the mid-1950s once it became clear how much talent studio head Augusto Favalli had enlisted, and, perhaps crucially, how relatively cheap the work was.

Fratini was brought over to London by Pulford and put on a retainer for Downtons in 1958. He quickly impressed with his technical ability and skilful draughtsmanship, which was often marvelled upon by other artists working at the time. Ace British designer Vic Fair recalls the speed with which Fratini was able to work – ‘He was incredible. He was like a machine – he could just bash things out overnight’. Fratini very much enjoyed his life in London and was infamous for his love of a good party, quickly gaining a reputation as a man who enjoyed the finer things in life. Despite this he was still able to turn out stunning pieces of artwork with relatively little notice.

Perhaps Fratini’s most famous work is the quad he painted for From Russia With Love (in 1963 – the same year as this poster), which is probably the best of all the James Bond quads. Later he would work on a number of posters for the Carry On series of films, known for their colourful and brilliantly stylised designs, as well as some incredibly detailed artwork on posters such as the quad for Waterloo (1970), for which he was paid a then record fee of £2000. In 1969 Fratini had a broken marriage behind him and was losing money through tax bills, so he made the decision to leave London and head for Mexico from where he continued to paint for advertising firms in America and the odd assignment for Downtons. Sadly, in 1973 Fratini collapsed whilst at a beach party and died from massive heart attack, his years of excess finally catching up with him.

He was only 40 years old at the time and, as Sim Branaghan (author of the brilliant ‘British Film Posters‘ book) described in my interview with him, his tragic end perfectly embodies the stereotypical profile of a ‘doomed bohemian genius’. Sim’s book contains a lot more information on Fratini and is an absolute must-buy if you have even a passing interest in the artists behind these great posters.

It’s worth noting that this is one of the few pieces of artwork that prominently features Fratini’s signature.

The trailer for the film is on YouTube.

A simple but effective teaser for the German release of John Carpenter’s sci-fi classic Escape From New York, released as Die Klapper-Schlange (Rattlesnake). I’d have a hard time choosing my favourite of the three (fictional) characters Carpenter and Kurt Russell created together; R.J. MacReady (The Thing), Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China) and Snake Plissken (EFNY). The latter is the gruff former war hero and convicted bank robber who is sent onto the island of Manhattan of an alternative 1997, which has been sealed-off as a lawless prison, in search of the American President whose plane crashed there after a terrorist attack. He’s arguably the coolest of the three and is a character much imitated in other lesser films featuring a reluctant hero.

The tagline on this teaser actually spells Plissken as Plessken, which is likely to have been simply an error on the copywriter’s part but may have been intentionally changed (no idea why!). A German friend translated the copy and it reads as follows:

‘Snake Plessken,  the “Rattlesnake”- he has to get in there, where nobody has yet escaped – in a city like a prison – 10 million inhabitants – everyone of them a gangster – New York 1997’

The rest of the John Carpenter posters I’ve collected can be seen by clicking here.

An excellent, stylised portrait of legendary actor Charles Bronson and the gorgeous English actress Jacqueline Bisset on this 30×40 for the US release of St Ives. Bronson stars as Raymond St. Ives, a former crime reporter and struggling author who is hired by a wealthy eccentric named Abner Procane (John Houseman) to help him secure the return of some important ledgers that were stolen from his mansion. After several unsuccessful attempts to recover them, he eventually gets his hands on the documents but then discovers that a few important pages are missing. He must then team up with Procane and his femme-fatale protege, Janet Whistler (Bisset), to track down the missing pages and St. Ives winds up caught up in a criminal plot that he didn’t see coming.

The film was the first of eight subsequent collaborations between British director J. Lee Thompson and Bronson, which included the likes of The White Buffalo (1977) and 10 to Midnight (1983).