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Poster of the Week – For a Few Dollars More (1965)

27 Monday Oct 2014

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For a Few Dollars More

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

The sequel to Sergio Leone’s surprise hit, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), had several interesting posters designed for it at the time of its release, but this one is interesting for a couple of reasons.

The first thing to realise is that this is very much a poster that follows on from its predecessor, both in terms of design and reference.  The image of Clint Eastwood is taken from the poster for A Fistful of Dollars (though just what’s going on with his left eye is a little strange), and the third tag line below the title is an updated version of a similar tag line from the first movie – that one read, “It’s the first motion picture of its kind! It won’t be the last!”  It’s not often you see that kind of continuity in movie posters, but it’s a nice touch (even if it is bragging a little).

The principal tag line is urgent and attention grabbing, a bold statement of intent, and promising a showdown that will be exciting and dramatic.  However, the description of Lee Van Cleef’s character – the man in black – is undermined by the poster’s image of him in very obviously brown coat and trousers and red waistcoat (though perhaps the artist was working from an early character or costume design).  Van Cleef’s horse, clumsily included behind him, is there to show off the range of his arsenal, giving a clear indication (despite its positioning) of the danger facing the Man With No Name, and adding to the sense of threat in the main tag line.

There are other elements that don’t work as well – the gold coins dotted around, the slightly awkward second tag line – and at first glance it’s not as bold or inventive as some other posters for Westerns, but its warm tones and straightforward imagery work well enough to draw the eye more than once, and in its way, proves unexpectedly evocative.

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.

Poster of the Week – The Polar Express (2004)

20 Monday Oct 2014

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Polar Express, The

The Polar Express (2004)

Widely regarded as one of the quintessential Xmas movies, The Polar Express is a breath of digital capture fresh air, its sense of childlike wonder easily transporting its audience into a snow-filled fantasy land that should make even the coldest heart glow with wonderment.  Even if this early example of the animation format still looks a little too artificial in places (and faces), its charm wins out every time.

This particular poster gives a great sense of the astonishing journey ahead of the small boy who stands in front of the titular locomotive, his awestruck gaze held on its snow-flecked lamp and the searching, probing, powerful beam of light that bursts out from it.  It’s a light that points the way to an incredible journey, and heralds the trip of a lifetime.  For the boy, standing there with (no doubt) wide-eyed fascination, it’s an amazing dream come inexplicably true, and his stance reflects his amazement at the sight of the enormous, magnificent train in front of him.

The size of the train is, perhaps, deliberately exaggerated to enhance the fantastical nature of things, a way of highlighting the magical experience that lies ahead.  Its prominence is a powerful statement and oddly reassuring as well: whatever happens, and wherever it’s going, the Polar Express will get its passengers there no matter what.

But the train isn’t the whole of the image.  There’s the snowman, one arm thrust out as if in presentation of the train, its countenance both knowing and mysterious.  He’s saying, “Go on, step aboard, you won’t regret it”.  There’s the backdrop of the houses, all dark and pensive, waiting for the dawn to bring them to life.  And lastly there’s the tall tree on the left hand side, its branches reaching out to the falling snowflakes as if to catch them and thereby make itself beautiful.

With so many impressive, beautiful elements, it’s the tag line that caps everything off with perfect, heartfelt simplicity: “This holiday season… believe.”  It’s no wonder then that over the last ten years, so many people around the globe have done exactly that.

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.

Poster of the Week – The Wild Bunch (1969)

19 Tuesday Aug 2014

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Wild Bunch, The

The Wild Bunch (1969)

One of many used for the movie’s original release, this poster for Sam Peckinpah’s seminal Western, is both powerful and sobering at the same time, its elements combining to provide an elegiac, mournful reflection of the movie itself.

A lot of it has to do with the use of space within the frame, as well as the way light and dark blend into each other: it’s quite a simple effect but it has such a resonance that you’re drawn to those nine men without even realising it.  With their facing a bright light, and seemingly heading towards it, the symbolism is obvious, but the way in which their shadows play out behind them, merging into darkness, it adds a further, fatalistic aspect to the image (there’s also the uncertainty of which “destination” they’ll end up in).

Above them is the tag line, a further intimation of the movie’s probable outcome, its regretful tone at once sad and forlorn, a doleful proclamation that endorses the foreboding image below it.  It’s a great combination of words and pictures, a forceful statement that things can’t – and won’t – end well for these men, even with all their firepower.

And then, as if to reinforce that view, we have a collection of stills from the movie, action beats that show some of the violent imagery the movie contains, and featuring the Wild Bunch themselves, though not as typical gunslinging heroes, but with their pain and confusion and terror made evident from the faces of Warren Oates and Ernest Borgnine.  The more you look at them, the more you realise how effective they are at highlighting the movie’s often brutal content.  The yellow tint used is important too, representing the fading of time and the passing of an era.

All in all, this is a great, and perhaps, initially deceptive movie poster that gives a clear representation of the movie’s nature, and makes a powerful statement of intent, much like the movie itself.

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.

Poster of the Week – The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

11 Monday Aug 2014

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Best Years of Our Lives, The

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

One of the best – if not the best – post-World War II dramas was a triumph for all concerned, a seven-time Oscar winner that showed the difficulties of servicemen returning home and facing a range of difficulties in readjusting to “normal” life.  It’s a powerful movie, and thanks to an unusually subtle screenplay (for the time) by Robert Sherwood, matched by astute direction from William Wyler, has remained as impressive a movie experience today as it was then.  Not that you’d guess from the poster…

First off, it’s not the greatest of posters.  It’s fairly typical of the time the movie was made, and in some respects – the embracing couple, the bold assertion at the top – it’s content and approach aren’t dissimilar from many other posters.  Even the image of the “good-time girl” (representing Virginia Mayo’s character) isn’t unusual.  And then there’s the two quotes, from two of the most respected journalists and critics of the time, and which prove to be the only clues – albeit as vague as possible – as to the movie’s content (unless you’ve read MacKinlay Kantor’s novel).  But then there’s that tag line, that bold description of the movie’s merits, and if you’ve seen the movie you’ll know: “The screen’s greatest love story” is pushing it a bit too far.

In truth there are several love stories in The Best Years of Our Lives, and they are all “heart-warming” to one degree or another, but they’re not the movie’s focus, and nor are they the “engines” that drive the various storylines.  There’s much more going on than just a love story, and the movie’s various themes were more dramatic than audiences were used to – just the word ‘divorce’ caused a furore at the time – but again you wouldn’t guess that from the poster, which instead advertises what seems like a grand romantic experience.  It’s a lie, a deliberate falsehood designed to bring people in to see a movie that often reflected uncomfortably their own lives and their own problems in putting the war behind them.

Here then is an example of a movie poster that has a different agenda to the one the movie it’s promoting.  Here is a poster that undermines it’s own movie’s message: that  even the worst difficulties in Life can be overcome, and that life itself is something to be treasured above all.  It’s a shame then that RKO, the releasing studio, couldn’t see that, and create a poster that supported that ideal.  But if you think a movie might be a tough sell…

(For an intelligent, well thought out appraisal of The Best Years of Our Lives, by my fellow blogger Rachel T, please click here.)

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.

 

Poster of the Week – Westworld (1973)

28 Monday Jul 2014

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Westworld

Westworld (1973)

When I first saw Westworld it was on a double bill with its sequel Futureworld when that movie was released in 1976.  At the cinema where I saw them both, there was only the poster for Futureworld on display, so I didn’t see this particular gem until quite some time after.  Given the disparity between the two movies – and an audience that consisted of myself and three others – maybe my hometown’s long-defunct ABC cinema should have gone with this poster instead.

There’s a lot going on here, from the faceless man at the control panel with all its futuristic dials and buttons, to the monitor screens that show images of Richard Benjamin and James Brolin, a saloon, and what looks like the Gunslinger (Brynner), this glimpse of what happens behind the scenes at Westworld is intriguing for its combination of humans and technology, and gives rise to the question, which one is in control?  For standing over the control panel is the Gunslinger, a figure that bears ominous signs of damage and proves itself to be a robot, Brynner’s face slid aside to reveal the circuitry beneath the façade.  It’s an arresting visual conceit, and one that is reinforced by the bullet wound in the robot’s torso, the combination of blood and wiring adding to what is already amiss about the character.

The extended tag line is well constructed too, with its underlining of the word anything, the implication all too clear, and the clever misspelling and debasement of the last word, an expressive augury of what will happen in the movie, and how anything can and will become too terrible to imagine.  It supports the central image of the implacable Gunslinger, and adds a further layer of threat – not that’s it really needed.  And then there’s the title,  bold and expressive in red, cutting across the image with authority, actually drawing attention away from the imagery and the text, the strongest component of a poster that draws the eye to it with calculated ease.

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.

Poster of the Week – Casablanca (1942)

24 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Casablanca

Casablanca (1942)

What I like most about this poster is its simplicity.  It tells you as little as possible.  There’s the three main stars, the name of the film company, the title, the supporting players, the director, and the producer.  From this, the potential viewer doesn’t have a clue as to what the movie’s about, or where it’s set, or if it’s a period piece, or more contemporary, or if it’s a drama – though with that cast it’s unlikely to be a comedy – or if it’s even the latest “screen sensation!”

Even the main image, of Bogart and Bergman huddled together, doesn’t give anyone a clue.  He looks pensive and sad, but as to why, well, it could be anything.  And she is looking off into the distance, apprehensive, worried perhaps, at what she sees.  Together they’re a couple who could be facing any number of problems, but until you see the movie you’ll never know what they are, or how much those problems will affect them.

In many ways, the poster is a bit of a gamble, using the stars’ brand-name recognition to entice an audience into seeing a movie that they don’t know anything about.  And the title could mean anything: the place where the movie is set, a character’s name perhaps, or even a code name (that’s a bit of stretch, admittedly, but from the perspective of ignorance, it could even be the name of a company or a product).  And back in the days when there was generally one poster created per movie, the deceptive brilliance of this particular poster has got to be admired.  It’s lack of artifice seems to be saying, “Bogart, Bergman, Henreid, Casablanca – what else do you need to know?”  (Well, nothing – obviously.)  And to cap it all off, it’s clear that, in this instance, the movie’s title is also it’s tag line.  Just genius, sheer genius.

Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know.

 

Poster of the Week – The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

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The first in a (hopefully) regular series, Poster of the Week is an idea borne out of my searching for movie posters to add to each of my reviews.  I often try and root out some of the more unusual versions that are out there, and often I see other posters that look great but which I’ve never seen before.  So… I thought I’d share some of those posters with everyone.  Feel free to make requests, and I’ll endeavour to include them as often as I can.

Incredible Shrinking Man, The

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

I like this poster for many reasons.  First there’s the comic strip approach that, while giving away most of the story, also piques the interest quite a bit: if all this is in the movie just how well is it going to be done?  (And who wouldn’t want to see a little man fight a giant spider?)  And then there’s the couple in the bottom left hand corner who seem to be looking up at the comic strip in amazement – one of them has to be saying, “Honey, we’ve gotta go see this movie!”  The type face in the top left corner is great too, with the words getting smaller and smaller at first and then getting bigger to show how exciting it’s going to be.  In these days of simple tag lines that often need to be clever at the same time – e.g. There Is No Plan B, The A-Team (2010) – it’s good to see a poster that’s really trying to sell the movie rather than just make you smile.  And then there’s the colour scheme, a selection of muted pastel colours that shouldn’t work, especially the blue, but somehow does, and it doesn’t “hurt” the eye to look at it.

Most movie posters these days have a single image with the ubiquitous tag line added, so it’s nice to see a poster that tries to cram as much in as possible.  I like these old posters, they always try to make the movie sound like a major event, even if it’s a studio ‘B’ movie.  They’re a bit of a lost art now, though, which I think is sad.  True, times have moved on, and we may like to think that movie posters are more sophisticated now, but for me there’s a special attraction in a poster that gives you so much to look at and take in.

Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know.