Spot the difference? This is an interesting example of movie poster artists copying each other…

Both Coogan’s Bluff and House of Cards were released in 1968. I’m unsure which one went to market first, but you can bet that one of these artists got lazy and simply copied the design of the other poster. The similarities here are beyond coincidence. The House of Cards poster is from France, the other one is from Belgium, so maybe they thought they could get away with it! 

There are a lot of instances of movie posters deliberately mimicking those of other (usually better) movies – typically to try and cash in on the first movie’s fame. There were a ton of sub-Star Wars sci-fi movies in the 70s which had similar poster designs to the originals, for example. Or often if a movie is a knowing spoof, then the poster will copy elements of the original movie. But this is the only instance I have come across where one artist so blatantly copied the design of the other poster in the same year, for two movies having nothing to do with each other.

Coogan’s Bluff I have seen several times. It is not one of my favourite Clint Eastwood movies, but it is very much a bridge between his early success in Westerns and the urban thrillers he made in the 70s, even sharing a director (Don Siegal) with the first of the subsequent Dirty Harry movies. Clint plays a Western sheriff sent to present day New York to apprehend a prisoner. House Of Cards has a decent cast, including Orson Welles, but I must admit I had never heard of it until I found this poster in a lot I had bought. It is apparently a so-so European-set thriller.

Both of these posters are available for sale here.