This is the original German poster for the release of the 1988 fantasy comedy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which was co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam. Based on the tall tales that the real-life 18th century German Baron Münchhausen allegedly told about his wartime dealings with the Ottoman Empire, the film is a riotous exploration of the power of storytelling and imagination. Gilliam plucked the veteran actor John Neville, in his early sixties at the time, from near obscurity to play the titular Baron who teams up with a young girl and a whole host of bizarre characters to save an unnamed European city from defeat by a besieging Turkish army. 

Actress (and recently director) Sarah Polley appears in her first screen role as Sally Salt, a member of a theatre troupe that has been touring the country showing farcical reconstructions of Munchausen’s supposed adventures. At one show the real Baron arrives into the theatre just as a Turkish army appears outside the city walls and begins to attack. What follows is a madcap mix of improbable, recollected tales and daring adventures as the Baron takes Sally on a journey to gather together his old gang of associates, including the fastest runner in the world (Eric Idle), a giant strongman and a dwarf able to expel powerful gusts of wind that can knock tens of people over. Their journey takes them to the moon where they encounter the eccentric King of the Moon (a memorable cameo from Robin Williams), into the crater of an active volcano where they meet the Roman God Vulcan (Oliver Reed) and his wife Venus (one of Uma Thurman‘s earliest film roles) and inside the belly of a giant sea monster, before they head back to the besieged city to rescue it from certain defeat.

Featuring a number of notable actors, often in dual roles that reflect the film’s clever play on the idea of fantasy and reality, the story is never anything less than entertaining and the action on screen completely belies the ridiculous behind the scenes travails that Gilliam went through to bring his vision to life. The film suffered a number of setbacks during its production, including a budget that more than doubled and a change of management at the studio that almost saw the film cancelled entirely (production was shut down for several weeks). The film was eventually practically dumped into cinemas in the States with a limited release that saw a corresponding lack of box office takings, and this was despite strong critical reception. It faired better in Europe but was unable to recoup its reported budget of over $45 million.

The poster was designed and painted by one of my favourite artists, Renato Casaro, 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.

Casaro also worked on the international one sheet for Munchausen in collaboration with the British designer Vic Fair and that can be viewed 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.

This is the American one sheet for Weird Science, the bonkers 1980s comedy from the late, great director John Hughes. Producer Joel Silver bought the rights to a 1950s EC Comics magazine of the same name and Hughes wrote the screenplay himself. Anthony Michael Hall, a regular colaborator with the director (he appeared in Breakfast Club the same year as Weird Science) stars alongside Ilan Mitchell-Smith as Gary and Wyatt, a pair of high-school nerds who are struggling to be accepted by their peers.

One evening the pair decide to try and create their perfect woman, inspired by a viewing of the classic Frankenstein film and using their computer coding skills. Following a series of improbable incidents, including a lightning strike and the pair’s successful hacking into a government mainframe computer (classic 80s nonsense), the gorgeous Lisa (an unforgettable appearance by Kelly LeBrock) steps out of their bathroom and asks “So, what would you little maniacs like to do first?” The rest of the film sees Lisa using various supernatural skills, including memory manipulation and reality warping to help the boys lose their inhibitions and gain the friendship of their school peers. The film features several madcap sequences, including the moment a bunch of psychotic bikers led by Vernon Wells (of Mad Max 2 fame) crash a house party, and Bill Paxton appears in a memorable turn as Wyatt’s brother Chet.

This one sheet was art directed by the American designer and artist Tom Jung who is perhaps most famous for his work on the posters for Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back but has been working on film advertising for over 50 years, as well as storyboarding for a number of films. The artwork (Lisa’s body appears to have been painted, and the title too) was apparently done by an artist and designer called Duane Meltzer who worked at Universal Studios at the time of the film’s release. According to the about page on his official website he also worked as a creative at Twentieth Century Fox studios before forming POV Entertainment Design in 1988. He has continued to work on key art for films, as well as home entertainment packaging and more since then.

This is the international one sheet for the release of the 1988 fantasy comedy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which was co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam. Based on the tall tales that the real-life 18th century German Baron Münchhausen allegedly told about his wartime dealings with the Ottoman Empire, the film is a riotous exploration of the power of storytelling and imagination. Gilliam plucked the veteran actor John Neville, in his early sixties at the time, from near obscurity to play the titular Baron who teams up with a young girl and a whole host of bizarre characters to save an unnamed European city from defeat by a besieging Turkish army. 

Actress (and recently director) Sarah Polley appears in her first screen role as Sally Salt, a member of a theatre troupe that has been touring the country showing farcical reconstructions of Munchausen’s supposed adventures. At one show the real Baron arrives into the theatre just as a Turkish army appears outside the city walls and begins to attack. What follows is a madcap mix of improbable, recollected tales and daring adventures as the Baron takes Sally on a journey to gather together his old gang of associates, including the fastest runner in the world (Eric Idle), a giant strongman and a dwarf able to expel powerful gusts of wind that can knock tens of people over. Their journey takes them to the moon where they encounter the eccentric King of the Moon (a memorable cameo from Robin Williams), into the crater of an active volcano where they meet the Roman God Vulcan (Oliver Reed) and his wife Venus (one of Uma Thurman‘s earliest film roles) and inside the belly of a giant sea monster, before they head back to the besieged city to rescue it from certain defeat.

Featuring a number of notable actors, often in dual roles that reflect the film’s clever play on the idea of fantasy and reality, the story is never anything less than entertaining and the action on screen completely belies the ridiculous behind the scenes travails that Gilliam went through to bring his vision to life. The film suffered a number of setbacks during its production, including a budget that more than doubled and a change of management at the studio that almost saw the film cancelled entirely (production was shut down for several weeks). The film was eventually practically dumped into cinemas in the States with a limited release that saw a corresponding lack of box office takings, and this was despite strong critical reception. It faired better in Europe but was unable to recoup its reported budget of over $45 million.

This poster’s creation saw the pairing of two not inconsiderable talents in the shape of the British designer and artist Vic Fair and the prolific designer/artist Renato Casaro. More details of each of them can be found in the two exclusive interviews I carried out with each for the website: Vic Fair interview and Renato Casaro interview.

In his interview Vic talks about working with Gilliam (and the interview also features a concept illustration by the artist):

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What was it like working with Terry Gilliam?
‘It could be quite frustrating sometimes as he’d get me to do loads of work and then at the very last minute he’d change his mind and ask someone else to do it. He had this team of artists and designers always on call and often they’d end up taking over, so it often felt like a waste of time.

He was really good at making you feel like you’d solved all his marketing problems though. He used to say things like ‘That’s it! You’ve done it! It’s perfect!’ and he’d kick the bloke off the chair sitting next to him and usher you to take his place at the table. You’d have all these other chaps on his team looking enviously at you, but you knew that it wasn’t over and that there’d be more designs to come. A couple of days later you’d discover that he’d changed his mind and wanted to see some more ideas for the design.’

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In his interview, Renato recalls working with Vic on this poster:

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‘One other thing that’s important to say is that I was generally not beholden to an art director and usually I was the designer and the artist on every film poster I worked on. One exception was a pleasant collaboration that I had with the British designer Vic Fair for a poster for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. He had designed a one sheet intended for international use and I worked on the painting for it. I would always make sure to watch the film first, or if that wasn’t possible receive stills from the production, or in some cases even visit the set whilst they were filming, as I mentioned. But I was never working to someone else’s design direction – at Studio Casaro I always made sure I had complete creative control on movie jobs.’

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There’s nothing quite like Barbarella! A French/Italian co-production, this kitsch sci-fi adventure is one of the downright silliest films ever committed to celluloid and was unquestionably the defining role for Jane Fonda, who plays the titular ‘astronavigator’. Based on the landmark ‘adult’ comic by Frenchman Jean-Claude Forest, the film was helmed by Roger Vadim, the French director, screenwriter (and occasional actor), who was also Fonda’s husband at the time of production. Vadim would spend most of his life dating or being married to several of the most beautiful women in film, including Brigitte Bardot, Annette Stroyberg and Catherine Deneuve.

You don’t watch Barbarella for the plot, especially since there’s not much of one to speak of, but the film is set in the 41st century and sees our heroine dispatched from an Earth without war and violence (only love) in search of the missing scientist Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea) who has apparently built a weapon called the Positronic Ray that threatens peace across the galaxy. After crash-landing on an icy planet, Barbarella is kidnapped by a pair of strange girls who subject her to an attack by evil dolls. She’s rescued by ‘The Catchman’ Mark Hand (Ugo Tognazzi) who she rewards with sex before he points her in the direction of Sogo City, the realm of The Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg).

The story and script may be nonsense but the film is never less than gorgeous to look at, with brilliant production and costume design throughout, whilst the music by Charles Fox is also memorable. The film also features several other cult actors, including Marcel Marceau, John Phillip Law and David Hemmings (Suspiria). 

This poster is for the 1977 re-release of the film which saw the film edited to achieve a PG rating and re-released with the subtitle of ‘Queen of the Galaxy’, which was done to capitalise on the success of Star Wars. The original 1968 one sheet had been painted by Robert McGinnis and for this release the distributors turned to Boris Vallejo, a Peruvian painter who emigrated to the US in 1964 and was acclaimed primarily as a fantasy and erotica artist. Vallejo started out painting paperback covers for the likes of Tarzan and Conan the Barbarian and this work would lead to him being commissioned by various studios to paint the posters for films including Knightriders, Q (the Winged Serpent) and two posters for the National Lampoon series.

Vallejo continues to paint alongside his wife Julie Bell, also a fantasy artist, and the pair’s official website can be viewed here and features extensive galleries of work. To see the other posters I’ve collected by Vallejo click here.

Note that this is the international one sheet because it was printed without the PG-rating box seen on the US version.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, Licence to Kill, the sixteenth James Bond adventure, marked the end of an era in the franchise. Whilst certainly not in the running for best Bond film, it’s nevertheless a solid entry with excellent use of locations (actually forced due to budgetary constraints), a memorable bad guy in Robert Davi‘s drug kingpin Sanchez and a number of impressive stunt sequences. Fans of the original Ian Fleming novels often rate Licence to Kill as the film that’s closest to the original source material’s harder-edged action. Licence to Kill marked the last Bond film for director John Glen who had been involved in the series since 1969 and also saw legendary producer Albert R. Broccoli effectively retire from the reigns of a franchise he had begun with producing partner Harry Saltzman back in 1958. 

The story is significantly darker and grittier than anything that had come before in the series, particularly those films released during the Roger Moore era. It opens with Bond and old friend CIA agent Felix Leiter on the way to the latter’s wedding ceremony in Key West (Florida) when they’re informed that Sanchez, a wanted drug lord, has been spotted in the area. The pair manage to apprehend the kingpin after an exciting chase that ends with them parachuting out of a helicopter and landing in front of the church, just in time for the ceremony. After the title sequence (with the excellent Gladys Knight theme tune) things take a dark turn as Sanchez escapes and takes revenge on Felix and his new bride.

When Bond discovers a badly mutilated Leiter and his dead bride he vows revenge, but when his superiors deny his request and order him on another mission to Turkey, Bond flees and has his licence to kill revoked. With the help of one of Leiter’s friends, he follows a trail leading him from the Bahamas to the fictional Republic of Isthmus where Davi’s plan for global drugs domination is revealed. The film ends with a thrilling chase involving several tanker trucks along a dangerous highway, which is easily one of the most memorable action sequences in the series’ history. The film was Welsh actor Timothy Dalton‘s second appearance as 007 and would ultimately prove to be his last after a protracted legal wrangle meant that no Bond film was put into production until 1995’s Goldeneye, by which time the actor had moved on and was replaced by Pierce Brosnan.

The marketing of the film went through a number of iterations, designers and artists and, crucially, marked the first time that painted artwork gave way to a photographic montage. Despite some initial sketches and concepts by the legendary artist Bob Peak, MGM decided to commission a number of designers and artists to work on the posters, including American Steven Chorney who designed this particular advance one sheet, and British design firm FEREF (led by Robin Behling) which designed a montage that was used on the international one sheet, the British quad and for some other posters around the globe. Although initially produced under the title ‘Licence Revoked’, MGM feared that American audiences wouldn’t understand the second word and changed it to the title we know today. Note that there was some wrangling over whether to go with the American spelling ‘License’ or the British-English ‘Licence’. Eventually the latter won out, but not before these posters had been printed with the American spelling (the same poster also exists with ‘Licence’ too).

This is the scarce Japanese B1 for the release of the 1988 fantasy comedy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which was co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam. Based on the tall tales that the real-life 18th century German Baron Münchhausen allegedly told about his wartime dealings with the Ottoman Empire, the film is a riotous exploration of the power of storytelling and imagination. Gilliam plucked the veteran actor John Neville, in his early sixties at the time, from near obscurity to play the titular Baron who teams up with a young girl and a whole host of bizarre characters to save an unnamed European city from defeat by a besieging Turkish army. 

Actress (and recently director) Sarah Polley appears in her first screen role as Sally Salt, a member of a theatre troupe that has been touring the country showing farcical reconstructions of Munchausen’s supposed adventures. At one show the real Baron arrives into the theatre just as a Turkish army appears outside the city walls and begins to attack. What follows is a madcap mix of improbable, recollected tales and daring adventures as the Baron takes Sally on a journey to gather together his old gang of associates, including the fastest runner in the world (Eric Idle), a giant strongman and a dwarf able to expel powerful gusts of wind that can knock tens of people over. Their journey takes them to the moon where they encounter the eccentric King of the Moon (a memorable cameo from Robin Williams), into the crater of an active volcano where they meet the Roman God Vulcan (Oliver Reed) and his wife Venus (one of Uma Thurman‘s earliest film roles) and inside the belly of a giant sea monster, before they head back to the besieged city to rescue it from certain defeat.

Featuring a number of notable actors, often in dual roles that reflect the film’s clever play on the idea of fantasy and reality, the story is never anything less than entertaining and the action on screen completely belies the ridiculous behind the scenes travails that Gilliam went through to bring his vision to life. The film suffered a number of setbacks during its production, including a budget that more than doubled and a change of management at the studio that almost saw the film cancelled entirely (production was shut down for several weeks). The film was eventually practically dumped into cinemas in the States with a limited release that saw a corresponding lack of box office takings, and this was despite strong critical reception. It faired better in Europe but was unable to recoup its reported budget of over $45 million.

This psychedelic design is unique to this Japanese B1 and is markedly different to the equally trippy B2 poster.

A great piece of artwork by Chris Achilleos on this UK quad for the release of Heavy Metal, an animated film based on stories from the magazine of the same name, which was known for its blend of science fiction, fantasy and erotica. Developed over a period of three years, the film is an anthology of tales connected by a framing story, with each one being based on a segment from the magazine or created specifically for the film. Like its source material it contains plenty of graphic violence and sexual imagery, although the film is somewhat softer in comparison to the tales seen in print. Several different animation houses worked on the segments, which is how it was able to be completed in a relatively short period of time. The voice cast included John Candy, Eugene Levy and Harold Ramis.

Chris Achilleos is one of the foremost British sci-fi and fantasy artists and has been working for over 40 years, creating some of the most celebrated artwork in the genre. Born in Cyprus, Achilleos and his family emigrated to London in 1959 and he went on to study illustration at Hornsey Art College where he learned the skills of technical illustration and became proficient with the airbrush in his final year. The artist would go on to create illustrations and painted work for album covers, book covers, magazines and would publish a series of books showcasing his skills. In addition, Achilleos also worked on concept designs for films including Willow (1988), King Arthur (2004) and the Last Legion (2007). This portrait of the heroine Taarna and her faithful steed was influential on the creation of the segment in the film, although the level of detail in the animation doesn’t quite match up to his skills!

Sim Branaghan, author of the brilliant British Film Posters, interviewed the artist for his book and notes that Achilleos’ film work often ended in frustration and disappointment. His first contact with the film industry came with a call from Julian Senior, a marketing executive at Warners at the time, who invited Achilleos to produce some concepts for Greystoke (1984). These were swept aside for an urgent job to produce three big illustrations for posters for Supergirl (1984) that ended up being scrapped when the distribution of the film changed and the work went to the FEREF agency.

Achilleos was also asked to work on posters for Blade Runner that ended up being rejected by the clients who decided to go with the photo montage of the UK quad. There were other frustrating no-gos with designs for Clash of the Titans, Twilight Zone (1983) and an illustration for Batman (1989) that was caught up in a knotty legal wrangle. Some posters designs did make it through, including Riding High (1979), this artwork for Heavy Metal that was used on the UK quad as well as the US one sheet and Japanese B2, plus a quad for Jackie Chan vehicle The Protector (1986).

An excellent portrait of action legend Charles Bronson by Eric Pulford features on this British quad for the 1984 thriller The Evil That Men Do. One of several collaborations between the star and director J. Lee Thompson, the film sees Bronson star as a retired hitman known as Holland who is living a relaxed life on a West Indies Island when he is approached by former associates who persuade him to take on one last job. The target is the sadistic torturer, Dr. Clement Molloch, a Welshman who is often hired by political regimes to help them keep dissidents in check and has consequently left a trail of enemies in his wake.

Holland discovers that Molloch has killed his old friend Jorge Hidalgo at the behest of the Surinamese regime and he agrees to set off to Guatemala, the last known location of his target, with Hidalgo’s wife and daughter agreeing to pose as his family to protect his cover. Holland uses his old skills to take out various criminal associates as he works his way up the chain to exact revenge against Molloch. The film was released to weak reviews and it’s definitely not Bronson’s finest hour, or the best collaboration with J Lee Thompson.

As Sim Branaghan notes in his must-own book British Film Posters: An Illustrated History, Eric Pulford was one of the most important figures in the history of UK film marketing. Born in Leeds in 1915, Pulford was encouraged to develop his drawing abilities at school before he left, aged 14, to join a firm that manufactured electrical goods where he designed light fittings. After a year he left there to take up an apprenticeship at Gilchrists, a blockmakers in Leeds city centre, whilst also attending evening classes at Leeds Art College and painting in his spare time.

It was during his time at Gilchrists that Eric’s skills were spotted by Leslie Whitchurch, a partner in design firm who had an arrangement with the British film company Rank to produce film posters for Leeds cinemas. Pulford began working on illustrations for the posters around 1940 and eventually left Gilchrists to join Format (Whitchurch’s agency) in 1943. The most important move happened in 1943 when Pulford was invited by Rank to relocate to London and set up a design agency to specifically handle their marketing, which saw the birth of Pulford Publicity.

Over the next decade Eric designed and illustrated hundreds of posters for British and Hollywood films, and this meant him working with many of the most important producers and directors in the industry. As Downtons, the parent company to Pulford Publicity, grew Eric started to illustrate less and take on more of an executive role, dealing with clients and liaising with distributors but he still managed to keep his hand in designing posters, including for some of Rank’s most important film properties like the Carry On series.

Eventually he took over Downtons completely in 1965 and this is when he hired designers like Vic Fair and John Stockle who would often submit competing concepts for film campaigns that were then sifted and selected by the client. Pulford also hired a number of young artists that included Brian Bysouth and would often give them his own take on how to achieve the best illustration results. Eventually, at the start of the 1980s, Eric began to plan for his retirement and began handing over the reins of Downtons to a new management team before eventually moving to the south coast in 1984.

This quad for The Evil That Men Do marks a milestone as it’s the last printed quad that was both designed and illustrated by Pulford, but other design and layout jobs followed over the next few years. His last assignment was, rather aptly, The Last Emperor in 1987 after which he started to enjoy his retirement fully. In 2005 Pulford passed away shortly after suffering a fall at his home, just shy of his ninetieth birthday. Sim notes that Pulford is believed to have designed at least 500 posters over a 50 year period for some of the best British films and his contribution to the field cannot be underestimated.

A View to a Kill, Sir Roger Moore‘s last outing as James Bond was definitely not his finest hour, although it is memorable for a few reasons, including Christopher Walken‘s turn as the psychotic bad guy Max Zorin, Duran Duran’s great title theme and the appearance of the incomparable Grace Jones as Mayday, Zorin’s accomplice. She may not be the greatest actress but she’s never anything less than a striking presence and is definitely not a lady to mess with, as British chat show presenter Russell Harty infamously found out.

The film features a climactic fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which sees Bond and Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) face off against Zorin and his henchmen in the Zorin Industries airship. Special effects supervisor John Richardson filmed a series of sequences featuring stunt performers on top of the actual bridge that were later matched up against green-screen shots of the actors. This was the first Bond film to have its premiere held outside the UK; it opened on the 22nd of May, 1985 at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

The excellent artwork depicting an action scene on the Eiffel Tower in Paris (which is not exactly accurate in terms of events in the film) is by the American poster artist Dan Goozee who was also responsible for the other ‘legs’ advance and the final US one sheet which features another action-packed scene. He also worked on the posters for a few other Bond posters, including Moonraker and Octopussy, as well as several other classic posters designs from the 1980s. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

Unique artwork features on this UK quad for the release of the 1976 version of the Disney comedy Freaky Friday. Based on the novel of the same name by Mary Rodgers (who also wrote the screenplay), the film focuses on the Andrews family in which the mother and daughter (played memorably by Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster) are constantly at odds with each other and struggle to understand why they behave the way they do to each other. On Friday the 13th they both happen to say “I wish I could switch places with her for just one day” at the same time and their wishes come true as their minds swap places. The pair then must cope with being in each other’s bodies as they realise the pressures and expectations they both have on them.

Mr Andrews (John Astin) is a real-estate developer preparing for an important launch in which mother and daughter are meant to be playing their different parts and hilarity ensues as the pair attempt to cope with the situation. The film is classic Disney family entertainment and definitely harkens back to a more innocent time. Both Harris and Foster bring a great energy to their parts and it’s easy to see why the latter would go on to catch the eye of many a Hollywood casting director.

This quad was created by the British designer and artist Brian Bysouth who I interviewed for this site in 2012. He 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.

One of the best films of the 1980s and certainly one of the Austrian Oak‘s finest roles, Predator is a film I’ve seen more times than I care to remember. Directed by John McTiernan, who would go on to helm Die Hard the following year (arguably the greatest action movie ever made), the film is an excellent mix of gung-ho action and sci-fi horror with a truly iconic monster that has gone on to appear in several (not so great) sequels and spin-offs.

The story sees Schwarzenegger’s team of single-monikered, rough-neck commandos dropped into a dangerous South-American jungle ostensibly on a rescue mission. When they discover a series of butchered and skinned corpses it soon becomes clear that they’re dealing with more than just a bunch of gun-toting guerrillas and someone, or something, is following them through the jungle. The film features several memorable characters, including Native American Sonny Landham‘s Billy, a man-mountain with much-needed tracking skills and the first one to realise they’re not alone, and Bill Duke‘s Mac who memorably leads the charge with a mini-gun when one of his comrades is killed. Like many of Schwarzenegger’s films, Predator is eminently quotable and features countless memorable lines spoken by several of the characters – ‘If it bleeds, we can kill it!’

This is the scarce international one sheet that was likely to have been printed in the USA for use in English-speaking international markets. I’m unsure who is responsible for the design but it does feature the same photo of Arnie that features on the UK quad that was put together at the London design agency FEREF.

This is the original Thai poster for the release of legendary Hong Kong director John Woo‘s landmark action-fest The Killer, which was the film that launched both him and lead actor Chow Yun-Fat onto the international stage. Although Woo had garnered acclaim for A Better Tomorrow (1986) and its sequel, both featuring Yun-Fat, it was The Killer’s perfect blend of hyper-kinetic violence, well-written characters and action spectacle that set it apart from Woo’s earlier films. The film would be followed by the spectacular Hard Boiled (1992), after which Woo’s career in Hollywood was launched, to somewhat mixed success. The Killer’s impact on other Western filmmakers cannot be denied, with the likes of Luc Besson clearly borrowing plot points and action beats for both Nikita and Léon: The Professional (1994), whilst both Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Desperado) and Quentin Tarantino were clearly huge fans.

Chow Yun-Fat stars as a hired assassin who accidentally blinds a nightclub singer called Jennie (Sally Yeh) during the course of a hit, and after the pair strike up a relationship he decides to take one last job to pay for an operation to restore her sight. After being double-crossed by his Triad clients Ah Jong manages to escape from a group of hired guns, but not before coming to the attention of police detective Li Ying (Danny Lee). At first the hot-shot cop aims to take Ah Jong into custody but when he realises that he’s no ordinary hitman and sees the predicament he’s in, Detective Li decides to team up with the killer to take down the mobsters. This was the first film in which Woo used his trademark white doves taking flight in the middle of action scenes.

This Thai poster was painted by the artist Tongdee Panumas (he signs his posters with just his first name) whowas an incredibly prolific Thai film poster artist during the 70s, 80s and 90s but I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947. If anyone has any more information please get in touch. A knowledgeable collector of Thai posters told me that the artists would rarely if ever see the film they were creating the poster for and would instead paint images based on still photos or posters from other countries. This led to some wild designs and even some artwork with characters and elements that didn’t even appear in the actual film!

The artwork for this Thai poster was actually re-used (and slightly cropped) for the US one sheet when the film was released there. The sniper rifle-toting gunman also features on the UK quad.

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.

Directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Seconds) The Challenge is a 1982 action film that was an American/Japanese co-production and is largely set in the latter country. Scott Glenn stars as Rick Murphy, a down-and-out boxer who is hired to transport an ancient sword (one of a pair called ‘The Equals’) that had been stolen during WWII back into Japan and into the hands of a Hideo (Atsuo Nakamura), a member of the Yoshida family. On arrival in Japan, Murphy discovers that the sword is a fake and he’s inadvertently landed himself in the middle of a feud between the ruthless businessman Hideo and his more traditional Samurai brother Toru (Toshirô Mifune).

At first Murphy sides with Hideo and attempts to steal the real sword from Toru, but he soon realises which man is more honorable and eventually asks Toru to train him in swordsmanship and the ways of the samurai. Eventually he strikes up a relationship with Toru’s daughter Akiko but Hideo still wants the sword and will stop at nothing to steal it. Murphy must team up with Toru and his daughter and put his training to the test.

The film’s martial arts choreography was organised by non other than Steven Seagal six years before his own career in front of the camera began. The film was later released in the US in a cut-down form as Sword of the Ninja. Despite being something of a box-office and critical success The Challenge has never been released on DVD and is frustratinly hard to see at the moment. Fingers crossed for a HD release sometime in the future.

The artwork on this one sheet is by an American artist called C. Winston Taylor, about whom very little can be found online. The Lost Video Archive blog has a post on the artist that features images of some of his other posters and video covers. In the 1990s the artist was hired to paint the covers for a Quantum Leap comic book series and a gallery of those images can be viewed on this site, which also features three images of the artist himself. Comicbookdb.com features a small profile of Taylor with the following mini-biography:

C. Winston Taylor always knew from a young age that he would communicate through his drawings. Fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, where he earned two Bronze Stars, helped solidify this vision. After graduating with honors from the Art Center College of Design, in Los Angeles, he quickly became a well-respected illustrator. His work has received numerous awards and he served as the president of The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles. 

The other posters I’ve collected with artwork by C.W. Taylor can be seen by clicking here.

A striking design features on this US one sheet for the release of the 2011 adaptation of Lionel Shriver‘s best-selling 2003 novel We Need to Talk About Kevin. The film rights were acquired by BBC Films in 2005 so it took producers several years to bring the story to screen. Scottish director Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar) was attached to the project early on and went through several script revisions before filming began, with one of the latter ones apparently used to help bring down the production budget.

With the story unfolding anachronically using flashbacks, the film stars Tilda Swinton as Eva Khatchadourian, the mother of Kevin (Ezra Miller who has committed a high-school massacre and is in prison. Eva, who was once a successful travel writer, is shown to be working at travel agents in a mall and living in a modest house near the prison allowing her to visit Kevin. The flashback sequences show how Eva struggled to adapt to being a mother and the effect this had on her son as he grows up, including some heart-rending scenes showing how Kevin cried incessantly as a baby.

The relationship between Eva and her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) and daughter Celia (Ashley Gerasimovich) are also shown to be strained, and as he ages Kevin’s behaviour becomes more worrying. Eva begins to fear that her son is taking pleasure in hurting others and the film culminates in the massacre, which is not shown in detail but is nevertheless very chilling. The film received mostly positive reviews and was chosen by film critic Mark Kermode as his best film of 2011. Swinton was rightfully nominated for several awards for her performance

The poster design is credited to P+A and Mojo. P+A stands for Percival + Associates and their official site is currently under construction, but their extensive portfolio of film and TV poster work can be seen on IMPAwards. It appears that the company has been designing posters since 2005 and I have the set of Brick posters that they produced in 2006 in the Film on Paper collection. It appears that they collaborated with Mojo on multiple posters up until 2012, as can be seen on Mojo’s IMPAwards page. No further posters have been credited to Mojo since that year and their website URL now redirects to Eyestorm Productions, which is described as a full-service creative agency, apparently focused on video work. I can only assume they no longer work on film posters as such and that P+A handle all print work now.

British director Stephen Weeks had already made a film loosely based on the Arthurian poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that was released in 1973 as Gawain and the Green Knight and starred the singer Murray Head as Gawain. Unfortunately, a falling out between producer and studio meant that the film was not properly distributed and pretty much disappeared without trace. 10 years later the notorious producers in charge of Cannon Films, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, were casting around for a new project and Weeks managed to persuade them to remake his original story with just a handful of tweaks. Quite frankly, everyone involved should have stayed away as the result is a risible mess.

Practically the only thing of note are the actors that the producers managed to persuade to join the cast, which includes the late Peter Cushing (in one of his final appearances) and Trevor Howard, as well as star of the Indiana Jones series John Rhys-Davies. Unquestionably their biggest coup was securing Sean Connery to play the Green Knight, a performance he managed to squeeze around his role in the unofficial Bond film Never Say Never Again, a task made easy by the fact that he only appears in a few scenes. But what an appearance! If you thought his costume in Zardoz was bizarre, just wait until you see him covered in bright green armour, glitter, bare-chested, covered in fake tan and wearing small antlers on his head! He certainly gives it some gusto and seems to enjoy prancing around the sets swinging his giant axe.

The story begins inside a great banqueting hall with an unhappy king (Howard) stopping a planned feast because he’s fed up with the nobles who he feels don’t have much worth. He challenges them all to prove that they’re worthy of eating from his table. Just at that moment Connery’s Green Knight bursts through the door on horseback and proceeds to taunt the people in the hall with a challenge to cut off his head in order to prove their courage. At first no one accepts, but then a plucky young squire called Gawain (a Barbie-haired Miles O’Keeffe) who was delivering the king’s new suit of armour decides to take up the challenge. Gawain swings the axe and the Green Knight’s head is removed but the whole thing is a strange ruse and only a minute later the Knight is whole again and turning the axe on Gawain.

Just before delivering the final blow he decides to spare the squire and offers him a year to solve an odd rhyming riddle. When the Green Knight has gone, the king is thrilled with Gawain’s bravery and immediately knights him and sends him off on a quest to solve the riddle. The rest of the film moves from scene to scene without much urgency and features some dreadful battle scenes and sword-fighting that make it look like an amateur production. The script is truly terrible and it’s clear that whole scenes were truncated heavily as half of it doesn’t make much sense. Perhaps worst of all is the abysmal synthesiser score that warbles in the background of every scene.

In the end, this film would also fall foul of producer and distributor problems and wasn’t given a proper release and poor reviews didn’t help much at all. Weeks would never direct again. This poster features artwork that I believe to be unique to the British quad and I’ve been unable to find out who is responsible. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch.

Check out the ridiculous trailer on YouTube.

A Coming of Angels, released in select US cinemas in 1977, is an X-rated homage to the original Charlie’s Angels TV show and proves that pornographic spoofs of popular films and TV series is not a recent phenomenon. This is the only film that Joel Scott ever directed but he managed to assemble a cast of now legendary adult stars, including the late Jamie Gillis who starred in over 400 adult pictures as well as John Leslie and Eric Edwards who were actors in over 300 titles each. There are only 6 reviews for the title on IMDb, but there’s a lengthy one by someone called Dries Vermeulen who goes into detail about the background of the film and the action it contains.

The artwork features the signature ‘August’ but I’ve been unable to determine who this belongs to and Robin Bougie, the author of the excellent Graphic Thrills (a book about adult movie posters) was also unable to track the artist down. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch.

Brian De Palma‘s horror classic Carrie still stands up today as a perfectly paced thriller and a powerful portrait of the torment suffered by a social outcast on the receiving end of a bullying campaign. Sissy Spacek delivers a breakout performance as Carrie White, the teenager who is picked upon by her teachers, peers and her domineering, abusive mother Margaret (played brilliantly by Piper Laurie). What nobody knows is that Carrie has discovered that she has a latent telekinetic power that flares up when she’s upset or angry. The film also features memorable turns from several young actors who were relative unknowns at the time, including John Travolta, Nancy Allen and William Katt as Tommy.

The unforgettable prom night sequence that sees Carrie’s destructive powers fully unleashed was clearly seen as the marketing cornerstone for the film, as evidenced by the images at the bottom of this Turkish one sheet. A still from the scene features on the brilliant Japanese B2. An image of Sissy Spacek drenched in blood is often used to promote the film and has been used for multiple DVD covers and other marketing materials. This artwork only appears on the Turkish poster but my friend Sim Branaghan confirmed that it was originally used by the UK publishing company NEL on the cover of the paperback reprint of Stephen King’s novel as early as 1975. Here’s a link to it on a later 1978 edition, also published by NEL. I’ve searched but am unable to find an artist to whom I can credit it.

A typically detailed and action-packed illustration by Brian Byouth on this 1976 re-release poster for the 1960 Disney adaptation of the 1812 novel The Swiss Robinson by Johann David Wyss. The story had already been filmed once by RKO pictures in 1940 and was a commercial success so another adaptation was considered a sure bet. Filmed on location in Tobago as well as at Pinewood studios in the UK, the film was directed by the late British director Ken Annakin who worked with Disney on a number of pictures. Legendary Brit actor John Mills plays the father of a family that is shipwrecked on a remote tropical island whilst en-route to New Guinea and the film deals with their adventures as they make a new home and try to cope with marauding pirates who are roaming the waters around the island and are causing havoc for ships that enter its waters.

The film differs significantly from the novel and the changes are detailed on the Wikiepdia page for the film. Happily for all involved it was well received by critics and audiences and went on to be the highest earning film of 1960 (beating Hitchcock’s Psycho and Kubrick’s Spartacus). Adjusted for inflation the film made over $427 million which makes it one of the biggest hits of all time. 

British artist Brian Bysouth worked on many Disney posters during the 1970s and early 1980s, including several for re-releases of earlier films from the 1950s and 60s like this one. Brian is one of my favourite artists and worked on many classic posters from the 1960s to the 1980s, including the final painted poster for a James Bond film, The Living Daylights. In 2012 I was fortunate to meet and interview Brian for this site and the article can be read here. The other posters I’ve collected by Brian can be seen by clicking here.

This is one of two posters that were printed for the release in Poland of Roman Polanski’s 1968 horror masterpiece Rosemary’s Baby, which didn’t take place until 1984. The film, based on a 1967 novel of the same name by Ira Levin, stars Mia Farrow as the titular young housewife who moves into Bramford, an opulent but fading apartment block, with her actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes). At first all seems well, despite Guy struggling to find work, but when another young resident dies in strange circumstances the pair meet elderly neighbours Minnie and Roman Castevet (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) and are invited for dinner.

Soon afterwards Rosemary begins to have strange dreams and hears weird noises from inside the building, whilst Guy begins to spend more time with the Castevets. When Rosemary falls pregnant she begins to suspect that all is not as it seems and a friend of hers called Hutch (Maurice Evans) confirms that the building has a shady history and is concerned for her health. Soon after warning her of the possibility that a satanic group are active in the building Hutch falls into a coma and later dies. When the baby is due to arrive, Rosemary comes to learn the truth and sees that Guy had betrayed her to the satanic group for the sake of his acting career. The ending, which is one of the most infamous in horror film history, is still as disturbing today as it was in 1968. 

The film was a huge critical and commercial success, earning over $30 million in the US alone, which wasn’t significant considering it had a budget of around $2.3 million. Polanski had already been lauded for Repulsion (1966) but it was this film, his first Hollywood production, that really shot him to international stardom. Sadly, a year after its release his wife Sharon Tate and four others were murdered by the psychotic Charles Manson and his gang and it would be three years before his next film was made.

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.

A detailed painting on this Thai poster for the release of John Boorman‘s adventure film The Emerald Forest. Bill Markham (Powers Boothe) is an engineer working on the construction of a dam in the jungles of Brazil who has brought his wife and young children with him to live there. One day his son Tommy disappears and the family discover that he has been kidnapped by an indigenous tribe called the Invisible People. Markham spends years searching for his son and it’s not until a decade later that he finally locates him, only to discover that he’s now fully assimilated into the tribe. The dam is nearing completion and Markham decides to help his son’s adopted tribe before their way of life is totally destroyed. Tommy/Tomme is played by Charley Boorman, the director’s own son.

The painting was done by the Thai artist Tongdee Panumas and elements of it were based on the design and illustration that was done for the British poster by Vic Fair and Brian Bysouth (notably the faces at the top and the figures running away in the bottom left). The art was one of several collaborations between the two immensely talented British designer-illustrators Like the withdrawn A View to a Kill UK one sheet, Vic was on design duties and is responsible for this brilliantly clever composition that juxtaposes the face of Powers Boothe with that of a tribesman, using the device of the multi-stranded leaf. Brian executed the final illustration in his typically detailed style with the use of careful brush strokes and airbrush techniques to give the whole thing a nice texture.

Vic and Brian were unquestionably two of the greatest talents ever to work on British film posters, which make collaborations like this even more special. For more information on the pair I highly recommend picking up a copy of ‘British Film Posters‘ as it features sections on both men. Here are the posters I’ve collected so far by Brian Bysouth and those by Vic Fair (with more to add over the coming months). In December 2012 I met and interviewed Brian Bysouth and this poster was discussed.

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 but I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947. If anyone has any more information please get in touch.

This is a special teaser poster that was created in advance of the release of John Milius‘ swords and sorcery classic Conan the Barbarian. It was an important film in the career of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger since it effectively launched his Hollywood career. The producers had seen Arnie in his documentary Pumping Iron and both felt he had the right quality for the role of the eponymous warrior. Based on the pulp novels of the 1930s by Robert E. Howard, the film sees the young barbarian Conan seek revenge for the death of his parents at the hands of Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), the leader of a snake cult. 

This poster was commissioned by producer Dino De Laurentiis in 1980, ahead of the film going into production, and the artwork was taken from a cover of a Conan paperback that was painted in 1974 by the late, great Frank Frazetta. As mentioned on this emovieposter.com auction page, it’s likely that Schwarzenegger had not yet been cast so the art was perfect as a tease for the forthcoming film.

Frazetta is much admired for his unique style and was a strong influence on many other illustrators over the years. He worked on illustrations for comics, as well as album and book covers and a handful of film posters. Some galleries of Frazetta’s work can be seen here. A selection of comic covers and other film posters can be seen on this site. Frazetta sadly passed away in 2010 but there is no question that his legacy lives on through his wonderful artwork.

Note that there is a version of this poster with a dark yellow background and I’ve never been sure why there are two versions that exist.

A great photograph of James Woods looking his devilish best alongside Brian Dennehy on this US one sheet for the 1987 crime film Best Seller. Directed by the late John Flynn (Rolling Thunder) and written by the prolific Larry Cohen, the film stars Dennehy as Dennis Meechum, a police officer who is wounded during an attempted robbery on an evidence locker in 1972. He writes a memoir of his experience which is published to great success. Years later he is shown to be struggling with writer’s block whilst raising his daughter alone after being made a widower.

During a research visit to a court room, one of the suspects escapes the court and Meechum chases after him along with a man called Cleve (Woods). The suspect nearly kills Meechum but Cleve intervenes, shooting the suspect before disappearing. Later Cleve meets with Meechum and trues to persuade him to write a new book about his work as a hitman for a shadowy company called Kappa International. The pair travel around the country gathering proof of the hits that Cleve carried out, but David Madlock (Paul Shenar), Kappa’s founder, understandably wants to keep this sordid history under wraps and the pair are soon in grave danger. Madlock even goes after Meechum’s daughter and the stage is set for a final showdown.

I’m unsure who designed this one sheet so if you have any ideas please get in touch.

Unique artwork features on this poster for the Hungarian release of David Cronenberg‘s sci-fi classic, The Fly. Loosely based on a 1957 short story of the same name by George Langelaan, which was first adapted for the big screen in 1958, the screenplay was written by Cronenberg himself and based on an initial draft by Charles Edward Pogue. The director rewrote most of the characters and dialogue and added themes of identity, sexuality and body horror with which he’d become synonymous.

Cronenberg cast Jeff Goldblum as the gifted but eccentric scientist Seth Brundle who has secretly been working on teleportation of objects from one place to another instantly. He works for Bartok Science Industries but has been working on a pair of ‘telepods’ at his home laboratory. When he’s introduced to the journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) at a ‘meet the press’ event he decides to risk taking her to see his work, which he demonstrates by teleporting inanimate objects. Impressed, Veronica agrees to keep quiet in return for exclusive rights to the story.

Soon afterwards the pair start a romantic relationship as Brundle continues to work on the pods. He decides that he wants to have the pods teleport living tissue and eventually manages to do so successfully with a baboon he’s borrowed from his company. Flushed with success Brundle begins drinking and starts to get paranoid that Veronica has rekindled her relationship with her editor and former lover Stathis Borans John Getz. He decides to try teleporting himself but unbeknownst to him a housefly gets inside the pod with him.

He emerges in the other pod seemingly fine and initially feels he’s come out of the pod an ‘improved’ human with higher strength and stamina. However over the following weeks Brundle’s mood becomes highly erratic and he begins a bodily transformation that starts out with unwanted hairs and fingernails falling out but begins to progress into something much more destructive as he realises his pod had been contaminated. The transformation into ‘Brundlefly’ sees the scientist scrambling for a cure before it’s too late, desperately imploring a pregnant Veronica to help him.

Goldblum’s performance was rightly celebrated and it remains one of his most memorable roles to date. The special effects depicting Brundle’s deterioration were executed by Chris Walas‘ company and ended up rightfully winning an Academy Award. The film is as impressive as it was 30 years ago and is definitely one of Cronenberg’s best.

The artwork on this poster depicting a malevolent creature with fly eyes was painted by an unknown artist and also features the telepod that appeared on the US one sheet (though minus the fly’s leg). If anyone has any ideas who was responsible for it please send me an email.

Here’s the film’s original trailer.