A superb portrait of the late, great John Wayne on this British quad for the release of The Duke’s last film, 1976’s The Shootist. Directed by Don Siegel, the film depicts the last days of a legendary gunfighter named J. B. Books and it actually begins with a montage of clips from Wayne’s earlier cowboy films. In the early 20th century, at the ‘end’ of the wild west, Books arrives in Carson City, Nevada and, after seeking an audience with a doctor, is told that he has terminal cancer and has only a couple of months left to live. He rents a room from the widow Bond Rogers (Lauren Bacall) and her son Gillom (Ron Howard) with the intention of planning a quiet and dignified end to his life, but his mere presence in the town sets of a chain of events with various characters keen to take advantage of Books’ predicament. Before long, the legendary shootist realises that he’s going to have to end his life with bang, not a whimper.

This British quad was designed at the London advertising outfit Lonsdales by a gentleman called John Raymer and was painted by the freelance artist Roger Coleman. Unique to the UK campaign, the intimate portrait of a grizzled Wayne was commissioned by Paramount Pictures UK as they felt that the original US poster, painted by Richard Amsel, had contributed to the film’s poor domestic box office performance.

As detailed in Sim Branaghan’s superb British Film Posters book, John Raymer was born in 1933 in South Norwood, South London, and went on to attend the nearby Croydon School of Art where he gained a National Diploma after specialising in book illustration. After completing his National Service he returned home in 1955 and was taken on by a design agency called Greenly’s situated on Berkeley Square in central London. The agency had held the Paramount account since 1922 and Raymer was finally given the opportunity to work on it in 1967, which was a year before the designer Frank Pickford, who had been on the account since day one, retired from the agency.

By the mid 1960s Richard Lonsdale-Hands had taken over the agency and there was clear recognition that the traditional model of adapting a US campaign for the UK market was no longer working. Sim’s book features a fascinating account from Raymer on the way Lonsdales dealt with being given more freedom to create publicity better suited to UK audiences. In 1975 the designer moved to the rival agency Downton’s where he apparently found the change of pace quite difficult to adapt to initially, with the requests for multiple designs per week being quite a change from his experience at the more sedate Lonsdales. When the illustrated cinema poster work began to slow down in the 1980s he started, like many other designers and artists, to work on video covers as well as a handful of quads, often in collaboration with the illustrator Brian Bysouth. He finally retired in 1993, and at the time of the publishing of Sim’s book was painting local scenes that were being sold in local galleries in his native Surrey.

Roger Coleman, one of several freelance illustrators used by Lonsdales, was born in South Wigston, Leicestershire in 1930 and studied painting at Leicester College of Art before winning a national portrait competition in 1952. He then went on to study at the Royal College of Art in London and eventually joined the editorial staff of Design magazine where he wrote about art and design and organised several exhibitions. In 1960 he was taken on by the agency Artist Partners and thus began several years of working on film campaigns, which included posters for films such as Catch 22 (1970) and Bad News Bears (1976) as well as concepts for the posters for Kubrick’s 2001. The Shootist is probably Coleman’s most famous printed poster, which the artist recalls was painted in six days, and the striking image of Wayne undoubtedly helped the film to success at the UK box office.

Excellent artwork on this UK one sheet for the release of Ron Howard‘s 1988 fantasy film Willow, which was conceived of by George Lucas. British actor Warwick Davis features as the eponymous hero and the part had been written specifically with him in mind after he appeared as an Ewok in Lucas’ Return of the Jedi. The story begins as the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) hears of a prophecy that a newborn child will bring about her downfall and sets about imprisoning all pregnant women in her castle’s dungeon.

When a child is born and identified as the one in the prophecy, the child’s mother manages to convince the mid-wife to secret her daughter out of the castle. When Queen Bavmorda discovers what has happened she sends her daughter Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) and leader of her army General Kael in pursuit. Before being caught, the midwife manages to put the child on a raft on a river and the child ends up being found by Willow Ufgood (Davis) a a member of a race of hobbit-like people called the Nelwyns. Initially caring for the baby with his wife, Willow is persuaded to take it away from their village and back to the Daikinis (humans) when it becomes clear that there are people hunting for it. As the adventure begins, Willow and his companions soon realise they’re in for more than they bargained for.

Featuring a great performance by Val Kilmer as a selfish, reluctant hero the film still stands up today as a fun and engaging fantasy adventure with several memorable sequences and a brilliant score by James Horner. Despite being critically derided on release and not fairing too well at the box- office it has nevertheless grown something of a cult following and is notable for its use of ground-breaking special effects by Industrial Light and Magic that were used for a sequence involving a morph between several animals and a human.

This one sheet was created by the British designer and artist Brian Bysouth who I interviewed for this site in 2012, There is also a quad for Willow featuring the same artwork. Brian is one of my favourite artists and worked on multiple classic posters from the 1960s to the 1980s, including the final painted poster for a James Bond film, The Living Daylights. The other posters I’ve collected by Brian can be seen by clicking 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.

This is the British quad for the original release of the third film in George A. Romero‘s ‘Dead’ series, Day of the Dead. In a similar situation to Dawn of the Dead (released 7 years earlier) this film had no returning characters from the previous entry due to rights issues, so it’s set in the same universe after the zombie outbreak but shares no continuity with the earlier films. Romero’s original vision for the ‘Day…’ was scaled back to due to budget constraints, but the director has since said he’s very happy with the final product. It’s a notably darker, bleaker effort than the fan favourite ‘Dawn’ but features a unique setting, memorable characters and some of the best special effects of the entire series, courtesy of the legendary Tom Savini.

The story follows a group of survivors who have holed-up in a military bunker in Florida and make regular trips around the area looking for survivors. Underground a small group of scientists and technical specialists, including Dr Sarah Bowman (Lori Cardille) and Dr Logan (Richard Liberty), known as ‘Frankenstein’, are working to discover the cause of the outbreak and discover if anything can be done to make the zombies more docile. An uneasy truce is maintained by the scientists and other specialists like helicopter pilot John (Terry Alexander), with a group of soldiers ostensibly there to protect them and deliver them test subjects from a fenced off area of the base. The soldiers are led by the psychotic Captain Rhodes (Joseph Pilato) who discovers that Dr Frankenstein has been secretly carrying out experiments using dead soldiers, including training a zombie known as Bub (Sherman Howard) to follow commands. At this point the truce is shattered and a series of events see the base overrun with the undead, forcing Sarah and the others to try to escape the carnage before its too late.

This image of a wall of zombie faces is (with thanks to a site reader) actually a photograph of the back wall of the film’s production makeup room. It features a close up of some of the 100+ zombie masks that were created for the film during a break in filming (when they were waiting to be applied to the extras playing the zombies). This explains why the faces are distorted and without eyes. The same imagery also featured on one of four Japanese B2s. The US one sheet is markedly different and an iconic horror film poster in its own right.  Note that the tagline references the alternate international title for Dawn of the Dead, ‘Zombies’.

Unique artwork features on this Polish B1 poster for the release of Ron Howard‘s 1988 fantasy film Willow, which was conceived of by George Lucas. British actor Warwick Davis features as the eponymous hero and the part had been written specifically with him in mind after he appeared as an Ewok in Lucas’ Return of the Jedi. The story begins as the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) hears of a prophecy that a newborn child will bring about her downfall and sets about imprisoning all pregnant women in her castle’s dungeon.

When a child is born and identified as the one in the prophecy, the child’s mother manages to convince the mid-wife to secret her daughter out of the castle. When Queen Bavmorda discovers what has happened she sends her daughter Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) and leader of her army General Kael in pursuit. Before being caught, the midwife manages to put the child on a raft on a river and the child ends up being found by Willow Ufgood (Davis) a a member of a race of hobbit-like people called the Nelwyns. Initially caring for the baby with his wife, Willow is persuaded to take it away from their village and back to the Daikinis (humans) when it becomes clear that there are people hunting for it. As the adventure begins, Willow and his companions soon realise they’re in for more than they bargained for.

Featuring a great performance by Val Kilmer as a selfish, reluctant hero the film still stands up today as a fun and engaging fantasy adventure with several memorable sequences and a brilliant score by James Horner. Despite being critically derided on release and not fairing too well at the box- office it has nevertheless grown something of a cult following and is notable for its use of ground-breaking special effects by Industrial Light and Magic that were used for a sequence involving a morph between several animals and a human.

The artwork on the poster is by Wieslaw Walkuski who was born in 1956 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Since 1981 Walkuski has worked as a graphic designer and artist for publishing houses and theaters, as well as for the Polish film organisations Polfilm and Film Polski. He’s worked freelance since 1987 and has painted over 200 film posters. He continues to live and work in Warsaw. Walkuski’s official website features galleries of many of his designs and images of his other work.

He’s responsible for some incredible designs and two of my favourites include those he painted for Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves and the Dustin Hoffman comedy Tootsie.

Excellent artwork by John Alvin features on this US one sheet for the release of Ron Howard‘s 1988 fantasy film Willow, which was conceived of by George Lucas. British actor Warwick Davis features as the eponymous hero and the part had been written specifically with him in mind after he appeared as an Ewok in Lucas’ Return of the Jedi. The story begins as the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) hears of a prophecy that a newborn child will bring about her downfall and sets about imprisoning all pregnant women in her castle’s dungeon.

When a child is born and identified as the one in the prophecy, the child’s mother manages to convince the mid-wife to secret her daughter out of the castle. When Queen Bavmorda discovers what has happened she sends her daughter Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) and leader of her army General Kael in pursuit. Before being caught, the midwife manages to put the child on a raft on a river and the child ends up being found by Willow Ufgood (Davis) a a member of a race of hobbit-like people called the Nelwyns. Initially caring for the baby with his wife, Willow is persuaded to take it away from their village and back to the Daikinis (humans) when it becomes clear that there are people hunting for it. As the adventure begins, Willow and his companions soon realise they’re in for more than they bargained for.

Featuring a great performance by Val Kilmer as a selfish, reluctant hero the film still stands up today as a fun and engaging fantasy adventure with several memorable sequences and a brilliant score by James Horner. Despite being critically derided on release and not fairing too well at the box- office it has nevertheless grown something of a cult following and is notable for its use of ground-breaking special effects by Industrial Light and Magic that were used for a sequence involving a morph between several animals and a human.

The late American designer and artist John Alvin was responsible for over 135 film poster designs over a thirty year period. Alvin painted many unforgettable pieces of artwork, including Blade Runner and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. The gallery of his posters on IMPAwards gives you an idea of the range of his work. Alvin sadly passed away too early, just shy of his 60th birthday (in 2008), but his fantastic designs will live on for generations to come.

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

This is the scarce UK one sheet for the release of the 1982 sci-fi film Android, starring the infamous German actor Klaus Kinski. Set in 2036 aboard a remote space station, Kinski stars as a scientist named Dr. Daniel who lives alone except for the company of a human-looking android assistant named Max 404 (Don Keith Opper). It is revealed that androids have become outlawed on earth thanks to an incident referred to as the ‘Munich Revolution’, and Dr Daniel and Max are performing illegal research into their development.

Max has started showing signs of insubordination and has developed an interest in sex and reproduction, which has worried Dr Daniel and triggered him to develop what he hopes will be a better android, and which just happens to be in the form of a beautiful blonde woman. Life onboard the space station is interrupted by the arrival of a hijacked prison ship with a trio of escaped convicts, including a female convict called Maggie (Brie Howard), who Max allows onboard much to the doctor’s consternation. Max quickly becomes infatuated with Maggie and a dangerous situation develops between the convicts and Dr Daniel, which becomes even more dangerous when galactic police trace the convicts back to the station. The ending has a neat twist which I won’t spoil here.

The artwork is unique to the UK campaign and also featured on the quad (centred with a crimson background to the left and right). It was put together by the British designer and artist Tom Beauvais whom I interviewed in 2012 and the resultant article can be read here. Beauvais designed the poster and illustrated the figures at the bottom, whilst one of his colleagues, an illustrator named Keith Fowles, used an airbrush to paint the head, background and arm.

Below is the excerpt from the interview with Tom Beauvais in which he mentions his work on this poster:

———————–

You also worked on a poster for the science-fiction film Android [1982]?
Yes, that was actually in conjunction with a chap called Keith Fowles who used to work with us. He was very skilled with an airbrush and he modelled up the head of the main character, as well as the arm and the background. I then painted in the figures along the bottom.

————————

To see the other posters designed and/or illustrated by Tom Beauvais that are in the Film on Paper collection click here.

‘Jaws with boars’, Razorback was the debut feature of Australian director Russell Mulcahy, probably best known for the 1986 fantasy classic Highlander. Prior to shooting the film Mulcahy had been working as a successful music video director for several years and is credited with the first video ever to air on MTV (Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles).

Set and filmed in the Australian outback, the story sees American Carl Winters (Gregory Harrison) traveling there to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a reporter who was looking at the illegal hunting of outback wildlife. Carl soon discovers that she was attacked by an oversized Razorback boar and teams up with a local hunter (Bill Kerr), whose grandson was killed by the beast, and his friend Sarah (Arkie Whiteley). They set out to track down and stop the creature before it can kill again but have to contend with a pair of deranged locals intent on covering up their part in the death of Carl’s wife.

Mulcahy’s direction and Dean Semler’s award-winning cinematography elevate the film above the usual low-budget horror fare. The special effects used to realise the titular beast aren’t particularly great but there a handful of scenes that are well done, including some long shots of the rhino-sized animatronic monstrosity. The ending feels notably rushed and an interview with Alan Jones (critic, and friend of Mulcahy) on the DVD makes it clear that the director was forced to film the last few minutes against his wishes; Mulcahy having planned an alternative ending.

I’m crediting the artwork to ace illustrator Boris Vallejo, despite the lack of his usual signature, because it’s clearly his work as seen on this signed Belgian poster (image taken from emovieposter). It could be that Boris worked on a landscape layout, but It’s likely that a British designer was tasked with adapting his original artwork to the quad format. It’s equally possible that a British illustrator was asked to ape his style with a new layout. Regardless, it’s only fair that he is given the credit.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

Actor turned director Ivan Dixon helmed Trouble Man, a blaxploitation thriller from 1972, starring Robert Hooks and featuring an original soundtrack by Marvin Gaye. Mr T (Hooks) is a former hustler turned private eye who has allies on both sides of the law and operates out of a pool hall where he sharks during his spare time. One day he is approached by Chalky (Paul Winfield) and Pete (Ralph Waite), two former pimps who have been running illegal dice games around the local neighbourhood which they claim have been robbed several times by a gang of masked men, despite them having changed the location several times.

Mr T agrees to help the pair discover who’s behind the heists for a price, but what he assumes to be a routine assignment soon turns out to be nothing of the sort when Chalky and Pete double cross him and leave him caught between a gang led by the kingpin Big (Julius Harris) and the local police captain. T must fight to survive and clear his name whilst getting even with Chalky and Pete before its too late. Often compared favourably to perhaps the best known blaxploitation feature Shaft, the film has something of a cult reputation today which is helped by the memorable Marvin Gaye soundtrack.

This Japanese B2 features a photo of Mr T in front of mirrors that is similar to the American one sheet, although this poster is obviously more violently explicit.

The excellent original trailer is on YouTube.

An appropriately lurid design on this UK quad for the release of infamous independent studio Troma Entertainment’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High. The film was directed by Richard W. Haines and Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman (under the pseudonym Samuel Weil) and the story centres on the Tromaville High School in New Jersey, which is located close to a dodgy nuclear power-plant that continuously suffers leaks of hazardous material. The Cretins are the school’s anarchic gang (who feature heavily on this poster) and are responsible for peddling drugs to the other pupils. When they inadvertently buy a marijuana plant that has been contaminated by nuclear waste things start to get very messy indeed. Of particular note is the parasitic offspring birthed by Chrissy (Janelle Brady) under the influence of the toxic weed, which mutates into the spiky monstrosity seen at the top of this poster.

Criticising a Troma production is a bit like tearing down a school production; this is amateur entertainment at best, with acting that is hilariously awful across the board, choppy editing and a total lack of atmosphere. With that being said, if you go in expecting the usual Troma mixing-pot of gore, guns, girls and explosions you won’t leave too disappointed. Some of the effects are actually well-realised on what I can only assume was a minuscule budget.

The montage on this quad was designed and painted by one of my favourite British artists Brian Bysouth, whose wonderfully detailed illustrations featured on hundreds of posters over three decades. Some of his most famous posters include the withdrawn one sheet for A View to a Kill, Highlander, Big Trouble in Little China and The Living Daylights. In 2012 I was lucky enough to meet and interview Brian and the resultant article can be read by clicking here.

An unusual design on this poster for 11 Harrowhouse, a British heist thriller from 1974 that was helmed by Aram Avakian. The American director had gained notoriety for the ground-breaking indie film End of the Road (1970), which was given an X-rating for its graphic depiction of an abortion and other scenes considered shocking for the time. 11 Harrowhouse stars Charles Grodin as a diamond merchant who is blackmailed into pulling a heist at a London jewel-exchange known as The System, which is located at the titular address. Candice Bergen features as his girlfriend who joins him on the heist, along with various ingenious ‘tools’ that include the cockroach depicted on this poster.

The initials FMA can be seen on the right of the poster (see picture 8) but I’m unsure who they belong to. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch and I’ll add the credit.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

Excellent artwork by Victor Gadino on this style B one sheet for the cinema release of the feature-length pilot for Buck Rogers in the 25th century, a sci-fi TV series that ran for two seasons on the US channel NBC between 1979 and 1981. The series was developed by legendary TV producer Glen A. Larson who had earlier worked on the first Battlestar Galactica TV series and later went on to produce the likes of The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider. Based on the character created by Philip Francis Nowlan, Buck Rogers first made an appearance in 1928 in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories and he would later go on to be adapted into a successful comic strip, a radio show, a 1930s 12-part film serial and a 1950s TV show.

The 1979 revival starred Gil Gerard as Captain William “Buck” Rogers, a US Air Force pilot who is in charge of a space shuttle called the Ranger III that is launched in 1987 and, following a freak accident, winds up frozen and floating through space. Buck is eventually revived 504 years later in the 25th century to discover that the forces of Earth were united as the Earth Defence Directorate following a devastating nuclear war soon after he left the planet. A new threat to earth looms as the armies of the planet Draconia plan to invade and Buck must work with the E.D.D. and starfighter Colonel Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) to put a stop to their plans.

As featured on this poster he is aided by a comic sidekick robot called Twiki (voiced by Mel Blanc) who carries around a disc-shaped sentient computer called Dr. Theopolis (voiced by Eric Server). Twiki’s infamous excalamation of ‘biddi biddi biddi’ would often precede a 20th Century catchphrase or piece of slang that had been taught to him by Buck.

Victor Gadino is a prolific and award-winning artist who has an incredible roster of commercial clients as well as an impressive amount of portrait work to his name, including ones for the likes of George Lucas and Clint Eastwood. He painted several music album covers as well as a handful of movie posters. Another one that is clearly signed by him is the artwork that appears on the UK quad for Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977). If you know of any other film posters that Gadino worked on please get in touch. His personal website features a biography and several galleries of his art.

The sex-spoof Flesh Gordon was released within a few months of Star Wars in Japan and that probably accounts for the name change to a title so similar there can be no doubting the canny local distributors were hoping to cash in on some of the success of George Lucas’ sci-fi classic. Based on the original Buster Crabbe-starring Flash Gordon film serials of the 1930s, which were themselves based on a comic strip created by Alex Raymond, the film parodies many of the names and situations seen in the originals.

In this version Emperor Wang the Perverted, the leader of the planet Porno, points his mighty ‘Sex Ray’ towards Earth, turning everyone into sex-crazed lunatics. Only one man can save the planet; football player Flesh Gordon. Along with his girlfriend Dale Ardor and the (brilliantly named) mad Professor Flexi-Jerkoff, they set off towards the source of the Sex Ray determined to put a stop to Wang.

Entertaining and unremittingly trashy, the film does an excellent job of being just reverential enough to the original source material whilst adding it’s own brand of madcap humour interspersed with sex scenes. The effects are particularly decent for such a low-budget film and that’s because several of the effects specialists who worked on it were either established experts or men who would later go on to become leading artists in the field, including Mike Minor, Greg Jein, and Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London).

For the large monster seen towards the end of the film the production utilised the talents of Jim Danforth and Dave Allen who are both now recognised as two of the leading figures in the world of stop-motion animation. The monster was given the name ‘Nesuahyrrah’, which is ‘Harryhausen’ spelled backwards, the surname of likely the greatest stop-motion animator of all time, Ray Harryhausen.

The poster artwork is by one of my favourite Japanese artists, Seito, and is unique to this B2. To see the other posters I’ve collected by the artist click here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

This one sheet for the largely forgotten (and ill-advised) quasi-sequel to the classic 1941 film The Maltese Falcon, The Black Bird, features one of the earliest film poster illustrations by the legendary artist Drew Struzan. The film is the sole directorial effort from David Giler, who is now best known as a producer on pretty much every Alien film in the franchise, up to and including Alien Covenant (2017). George Segal stars as the son of detective Sam Spade, who was played by Humphrey Bogart in the first film. The plot is described on IMDb:

The son of famous detective Sam Spade carries on the family tradition of getting involved with the Maltese Falcon – and with the people who will stop at nothing, including murder, to get it.

The Black Bird was trashed by critics at the time of release and audiences stayed away too. Unless I’m mistaken, the film has never been released digitally and is only available if you still have a VHS player.

Drew Struzan is an artist who barely needs an introduction given that he painted many of the most iconic film posters of all time, including several for Star Wars, Indiana Jones and a slew of other beloved classics like The Thing and The Goonies. The artist’s own site features 4 pages of his work for films and Drew also worked in other areas, including product marketing, book and magazine covers, editorial and multiple paintings as a fine artist. Drew declared that he’d retired in 2008 but has worked on a handful of special paintings since then, including one to announce the most recent Star Wars film in 2015.

To see a gallery of the other posters by Drew that I’ve collected click here.

An excellent tag-line that recalls some of the best of the 1980s features on this advance one sheet for the American release of Attack the Block, a British action/sci-fi/comedy that also recalls some of the classic ‘gang of kids against an outside threat’ films of the same decade. Set on bonfire night on a south London council estate, the film starts with the mugging of a local nurse called Sam (Jodie Whittaker) by a gang of youths led by Moses (John Boyega in his first film role), which is interrupted by what seems to be a meteorite crashing into a nearby parked car. When they investigate the damage a bizarre creature jumps out and claws at one of the group before running into a nearby park. Sam runs away whilst the group pursue the creature before attacking and killing it.

After dragging the corpse back to their tower block, they take it up to the flat of local drug dealer Ron (Nick Frost) and stash it in his walk-in drug freezer, believing it has to be worth something, or at least make the gang famous. Shortly afterwards, a new shower of meteors falls over the surrounding area and the gang decides to head out to tackle the invaders. What they don’t anticipate is that the latest creatures to fall to earth are much bigger and more vicious than the first one, and the group end up fighting for their lives. Before long they meet up with Sam again and must deal with the police who are on the look out for the gang, plus the local drug kingpin and the creatures who seem to have an interest in the members of the group who attacked and killed the first creature.

The film cleverly plays with the idea of the much maligned and feared (by the middle class) ‘hoodies’ and makes them the heroes of the story. The dialogue is excellent and frequently laugh out loud, although you’d expect nothing less from Joe Cornish. The creature effects are also noteworthy and cleverly blend skilled movement choreography and full-body prosthetics with CGI to make them pretty unique movie monsters. If you’re a fan of Edgar Wright’s films I highly recommend watching Attack the Block, assuming you’ve not done so already.

This poster was created by the prolific design studio Empire Design who have been working on posters and other film marketing material for 18 years, including for the James Bond films since Casino Royale (2006). To see the other posters that were designed by Empire in the Film on Paper collection click here.

The Man in the White Suit is a satirical comedy that was made for the famous Ealing Studios in London and released in 1951. Directed by regular Ealing collaborator Alexander Mackendrick (who also helmed The Ladykillers and others), the film stars Alec Guinness as Sidney Stratton a frustrated chemist who is obsessed with creating an everlasting fibre. Sidney has been fired from several mills around Manchester because of his unauthorised use of expensive lab materials and his focusing on invention instead of the job he’s being paid to do. After starting at Alan Birnley’s (Cecil Parker) textile mill he manages to wangle an unpaid job as a researcher and is eventually afforded the space and materials to come up with his miracle fibre that resists all dirt and stays spotless.

Soon the management are aware of his invention, thanks to Birnley’s daughter Daphne (Joan Greenwood) spotting the potential, and are about to go public with the news when the trade unions and mill workers get involved. Both parties realise that such an invention will put them out of business since the public will never need to buy items made from the material again. They end up trying to bargain with Sidney but when he realises they just want to suppress the invention he tries to escape from their clutches, leading everyone on a chase around town. Unluckily for Sidney, it turns out his invention is not as robust as he’d hoped!

This British quad is from a BFI re-release of the film in 1993 (thanks to Sim Branaghan for confirmation of the exact year). It’s almost identical to the original 1950s quad but is missing the original distributor logo in the bottom left-hand corner, as well as the designer/artist credits. See this thread on the NSFGE poster forum for details and check out the image of a previous sale of the poster at Christies auction house.

The original 1951 quad was one of two that featured on the cover of Sim Branaghan‘s must-own British Film Posters, the definitive reference for those interested in the history of the subject. As detailed in the book, the poster was designed by man called Sydney John Woods who Sim notes was ‘more or less single-handedly responsible for the Ealing poster success’. Born in 1915, Woods trained as a graphic designer and painter and was also an art critic. He also design posters for theatres, including the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells before starting to work for the film industry with a role in Fox’s publicity department.

Woods joined Ealing in 1943 and worked there until the studios’ demise in 1959. Sim notes that Woods ‘revealed perhaps his greatest skill as an impresario, marshalling, encouraging, and exploiting to best advantage the talents of other artists’. He built up an impressive stable of artists that he could call on to produce illustrations for the studios’ output. This included the cartoonist Nicolas Bentley (for Passport to Pimlico, 1949) and Ronald Searle, creator of the St. Trinian’s cartoons (for The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951). The same year he would commission the artist A. R. Thomson to paint this portrait of Alec Guinness.

Thomson was born deaf and dumb in India in 1894 to a civil servant father who later brought the family back to London where Alfred attended the Royal School for Deaf Children. He became known as the ‘deaf and dumb artist’ and would go on to work on commercial advertising for the likes of Daimler, and also became the RAF’s official war artist in 1940. Interestingly, he was also the last person to win a gold medal for painting at the 1948 Olympic games in London (the last year that artists were allowed to compete). Thomson passed away in 1979. The ArtUK site features a gallery of his work.

Featuring great art by Arnaldo Putzu, this is the UK quad for the 1980 action film The Sea Wolves, which is based on real events that occurred during the Second World War. As mentioned on the poster, the story is based on the exploits of ex-members of the Calcutta Light Horse, a cavalry regiment of the British Indian Army that was formed in 1872 and was disbanded a couple of years after the end of WWII. The plot sees British intelligence discovering that a Nazi radio ship is broadcasting the coordinates of allied ships from a harbour in Portuguese Goa, which was neutral during the war, so an all out assault cannot be launched by the Navy because of this.

British Intelligence officers Col. Lewis Pugh (Gregory Peck) and Capt. Gavin Stewart (Roger Moore) lead the operation and covertly enlist retired officer Col. Bill Grice (David Niven) of the Calcutta Light Horse & some of his former soldiers. The gang sneak into Goa and arrange a diversion on the evening of a planned raid, before making their way to the radio ship carrying enough explosives to sink it and put a stop any more transmissions. The film reunited much of the creative team behind an earlier OAPs on a mission film, 1978’s The Wild Geese, including director Andrew V. McLaglen, screenwriter Reginald Rose, producer Euan Lloyd and several of the stars.

Arnaldo Putzu was born in Rome in 1927 and began painting from a very early age and in 1948 he got involved with the world of film publicity under the guidance of the famous artist Enrico De Seta. Eventually Putzu would gain enough confidence in his abilities to set up his own agency and it was this move that saw him getting involved in work for the British studio Rank. Eric Pulford was so impressed with his work that he brought him over to London to work at Downtons in 1967.

The artist worked on many quads whilst over here and also gained notoriety for lending his talents to the popular children’s magazine Look-in, for which he painted almost every cover during its publication lifetime. His best-known quad is undoubtedly the one he painted for the Michael Caine gangster classic Get Carter in 1971. My friend, and author of the must-own British Film Posters, Sim Branaghan met Putzu during the making of his book and describes it as a very memorable experience in the interview I published in 2012. Putzu sadly passed away the same year, aged 85, and Sim wrote an excellent obituary for The Guardian newspaper, which can be read here.

The poster was designed by the British designer and artist Vic Fair who is one the most important people 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.

Arriving at the tail-end of the 1970s, a decade that saw the release of a number of successful disaster movies like The Towering Inferno and Earthquake, Meteor ended up as an all-star clunker and is easily one of the worst entries in the genre. Helmed by the British filmmaker Ronald Neame, who had seen success with 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure, the film focuses on the outcome of the eponymous lump of rock barrelling towards earth after being knocked off course by a comet. Sean Connery plays Paul Bradley, a scientist who masterminded the creation of a space-based weapon named Hercules that was originally intended to protect earth from such a threat, but was instead taken over by the military and aimed at the Soviet Union due to escalating Cold War tensions.

The plot sees the US and Russia agreeing to work together after much (dull) handwringing and Paul Bradley works with his opposite number from the CCCP Alexei Dubov (Brian Keith) to ensure the Russian’s own weapons platform can combine forces with Hercules and fire both payloads at the rock. Meanwhile, fragments of the asteroid begin hitting earth in some unconvincing sequences featuring uniformly awful special effects. Eventually, and improbably, a large chunk hits Manhattan, which just happens to be where Paul Bradley and most of the other characters are located, leading to some sequences of mild peril that end up with Connery covered in mud and a few dead background characters. The special effects are truly, inexcusably awful and I can’t think of one well-executed sequence. The rock hitting New York is mostly done with what is clearly red-tinted stock footage of buildings being knocked down by controlled demolition.

The biggest problem with the film is that most of the actors look bored and, with the exception of a crazy-eyed Martin Landau, like they’d rather be somewhere else. It doesn’t help that the Cold War machinations, whilst maybe more relevant in 1979, are totally boring today and way too much of the film is spent focused on discussions to try and resolve differences between the two nations.

Whilst the film is a stinker, the same can’t be said for this moody artwork showing an obliterated Manhattan that was illustrated by Noriyoshi Ohrai, my favourite Japanese artist and certainly in my top five greatest film poster illustrators of all time. He’s responsible for a number of other posters in the Godzilla franchise, some of which can be seen here. He also worked on a number of Star Wars related posters, including this lovely 1982 B2 to celebrate the release of the Japanese dubbed version of the original film. In March 2014 a retrospective exhibition was held in Japan of Ohrai’s work and I made the trip over to Miyazaki to see the exhibition. I’m very glad I did as it featured most of his original artwork and a whole array of posters and book covers. A full report will follow soon.

The posters I’ve managed to collect by Noriyoshi Ohrai can be seen by clicking here.

This is the art-style Japanese B2 for the 1980 action film The Sea Wolves, which is based on real events that occurred during the Second World War. The story is based on the exploits of ex-members of the Calcutta Light Horse, a cavalry regiment of the British Indian Army that was formed in 1872 and was disbanded a couple of years after the end of WWII. The plot sees British intelligence discovering that a Nazi radio ship is broadcasting the coordinates of allied ships from a harbour in Portuguese Goa, which was neutral during the war, so an all out assault cannot be launched by the Navy because of this.

British Intelligence officers Col. Lewis Pugh (Gregory Peck) and Capt. Gavin Stewart (Roger Moore) lead the operation and covertly enlist retired officer Col. Bill Grice (David Niven) of the Calcutta Light Horse & some of his former soldiers. The gang sneak into Goa and arrange a diversion on the evening of a planned raid, before making their way to the radio ship carrying enough explosives to sink it and put a stop any more transmissions. The film reunited much of the creative team behind an earlier OAPs on a mission film, 1978’s The Wild Geese, including director Andrew V. McLaglen, screenwriter Reginald Rose, producer Euan Lloyd and several of the stars.

This Japanese poster features artwork painted by Seito that is unique to the Japanese campaign. Seito is one of my favourite Japanese artists who was responsible for several fantastic illustrated posters during the 1970s and 1980s. Little is known about the man himself, even in his native country.

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

Featuring great art by Arnaldo Putzu, this is the UK one sheet for the 1980 action film The Sea Wolves, which is based on real events that occurred during the Second World War. As mentioned on the poster, the story is based on the exploits of ex-members of the Calcutta Light Horse, a cavalry regiment of the British Indian Army that was formed in 1872 and was disbanded a couple of years after the end of WWII. The plot sees British intelligence discovering that a Nazi radio ship is broadcasting the coordinates of allied ships from a harbour in Portuguese Goa, which was neutral during the war, so an all out assault cannot be launched by the Navy because of this.

British Intelligence officers Col. Lewis Pugh (Gregory Peck) and Capt. Gavin Stewart (Roger Moore) lead the operation and covertly enlist retired officer Col. Bill Grice (David Niven) of the Calcutta Light Horse & some of his former soldiers. The gang sneak into Goa and arrange a diversion on the evening of a planned raid, before making their way to the radio ship carrying enough explosives to sink it and put a stop any more transmissions. The film reunited much of the creative team behind an earlier OAPs on a mission film, 1978’s The Wild Geese, including director Andrew V. McLaglen, screenwriter Reginald Rose, producer Euan Lloyd and several of the stars.

Arnaldo Putzu was born in Rome in 1927 and began painting from a very early age and in 1948 he got involved with the world of film publicity under the guidance of the famous artist Enrico De Seta. Eventually Putzu would gain enough confidence in his abilities to set up his own agency and it was this move that saw him getting involved in work for the British studio Rank. Eric Pulford was so impressed with his work that he brought him over to London to work at Downtons in 1967.

The artist worked on many posters whilst living over here and also gained notoriety for lending his talents to the popular children’s magazine Look-in for which he painted almost every cover during its publication lifetime. His best known poster is undoubtedly the one he painted for the Michael Caine gangster classic Get Carter in 1971. My friend and author of the must-own British Film Posters book, Sim Branaghan, met Putzu during the making of his book and describes it as a very memorable experience in the interview I published in 2012. Putzu sadly passed away the same year, aged 85, and Sim wrote an excellent obituary for The Guardian newspaper, which can be read here.

The poster was designed by the British designer and artist Vic Fair who is one the most important people 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.

I also have the quad poster for the film which can be seen here.

Unique artwork by the Thai artist Tongdee Panumas features on this Thai poster for the release of Superman in 1978 (although the release date in Thailand was likely later). Whilst there had been several other superhero films released over the preceding decades, including three Superman ones, this is often considered to presage the hugely popular franchises of today, including Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and DC’s new crop of films. The Superman character had been invented in 1933 by two high school students, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who would go on to sell their creation to the original incarnation of DC Comics (then called Action Comics) in 1938.

The first Superman film appeared exactly 30 years before this one and was actually a 15 chapter serial that dealt with the character’s origin story, from his birth on the dying planet of Krypton to his eventual assumption of the guise of mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent in the city of Metropolis. The 1978 film tackled the same origin story and was in development for around four years after Alexander and Ilya Salkind, a father and son producing team, negotiated the rights from DC in 1974. The Godfather scribe Mario Puzo was hired to write the script and the hunt for a suitable director took almost three years before Richard Donner was eventually selected. The producers decided to film Superman and its sequel back-to-back, but tensions during the production saw the latter’s production put on hold to focus on the first film. Puzo’s script was apparently completely retooled by Donner and an uncredited Tom Mankiewicz.

The casting of Superman was as protracted as the hunt for a director and several A-list actors were offered the part before the production team decided to instead go with the relatively unknown Christopher Reeve. The choice would be richly rewarded, both in financial terms but also in the amounts of critical praise Reeve would garner over the months following the films release. Any doubts about the film being a schlocky retread of previous superhero films were put to bed by the casting of the likes of Marlon Brando (taking a then record salary with profits percentage totalling $19m) as Superman’s father Jor-El, Gene Hackman as the villainous Lex Luthor and Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. 

The film begins with the destruction of Krypton and Kal-El’s (Superman) parents sending their infant son off into space to land on Earth in the fictional town of Smallville in Kansas. The boy is found and raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent as their own son (whom they name Clark) and the couple vow to keep his burgeoning powers a secret. When he reaches 18, following the death of Jonathan, Clark hears a psychic call and travels to the Arctic with a crystal he finds in the craft that took him to earth. There the crystal builds the Fortress of Solitude where a hologram of Jor-El teaches his son about his origins and the extent of his powers. After 12 years of training Clark heads to Metropolis and takes a job as a reporter at the Daily Planet newspaper where he meets Lois Lane, a fellow reporter. Soon after he begins using his powers in public for the first time with heroic rescues and acts of crime prevention proving to Metropolis that there is a superhero in their midst.

The nefarious plans of Lex Luthor threaten the lives of everyone on the West Coast of America and Superman must act to stop him, however the master criminal learns of Superman’s weakness when it comes to the radioactive element Kryptonite which, as the name suggests, comes from his home planet. At the time the film was the most expensive made, with a budget of $55 million, but it ended up as a huge box-office success and earned over $300m during its cinema run. The then groundbreaking special effects were particularly praised and the film was able to capitalise on cinema audiences’ appetite for science-fiction and fantasy following the release of films such as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind a year earlier. Critics lavished the film with praise and the sequel was quickly put into turnaround by the producers, although things didn’t exactly work out smoothly for most involved.

Tongdee Panumas (he signs his posters with just his first name) was an incredibly prolific Thai film poster artist during the 70s, 80s and 90s. I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947, so if anyone has any more details please get in touch.

Note that the scenes from the film depicted towards the bottom of the poster also appear in much more detail on a series of Thai lobby posters that I plan to add to the site in the near future. Elements of this poster are of course based on the classic US poster by Bob Peak that features the Superman logo against blue sky and clouds.

A painting by the American artist Tom Jung, who is best known for his work on the style A poster for the release of the first Star Wars film, features on this one sheet for the 1972 crime-drama, Prime Cut. The film was directed by the late Michael Ritchie (Fletch, Downhill Racer) and stars two heavyweight actors of the time in Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman. The former had a string of box-office hits playing tough guys in films such as Point Blank and The Dirty Dozen, and the latter had just starred in the unforgettable The French Connection and was to appear in The Poseidon Adventure in the same year as Prime Cut. It also marked the acting debut of Sissy Spacek who would appear in her most famous role four years later in Brian De Palma’s Carrie.

The plot sees Nick Devlin (Marvin), a Chicago mob enforcer, sent with a crew of men to Kansas City to track down Mary Ann (Hackman) and recover a $500,000 debt. Previous men sent by the mob have disappeared and we witness one being ‘processed’ through Mary Ann’s meat factory, ending up as the filling in a string of sausages that are then sent to the mob boss as a taunt. After driving to Kansas, Devlin first attacks Mary Ann’s brother and warns him that the group are there to collect the debt. The following day they find Mary Ann in a barn where he is the ringleader of a white-slave auction in which young girls are being auctioned off to older men. The women are kept naked in pens like livestock and drugged up so they don’t try to escape. Devlin threatens Mary Ann and rescues one of the women called Poppy (Spacek) “on account”. The rest of the film sees him attempting to secure the missing money and avoiding Mary Ann’s gang of denim-wearing, shotgun-toting farm boys.

The film is fairly brisk at just under 90 minutes and both leads are entertaining to watch throughout. Spacek is also excellent as Poppy and it’s not hard to see why her career took off quickly following her appearance in Prime Cut. There are several memorable scenes in the film, including one faintly ridiculous one where Devlin and Poppy are chased through a wheatfield by a combine harvester, which then goes onto chew up an entire car!

As well as the iconic one sheet for Star Wars, Tom Jung is also known for the style B one sheet for The Empire Strikes Back. He was a prolific designer and illustrator for film campaigns from the 1950s through to the 1980s. IMPAwards features a gallery of his work and his Wikipedia article has a selected list of the many posters he worked on. Rather unusually, at least in comparison to other film poster artists, Jung was also a designer of his posters as well as the artist. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

Note that this is the Style A one sheet and style B is photographic. Rather unusually, the decision was taken to insert ‘A’ in next to the title at the bottom of the poster which makes it look like the title is ‘A Prime Cut’.