Sometimes a movie poster should simply be appreciated as a work of art, irrespective of the qualities of the movie itself.

I have never seen either Gunfight in Abilene nor Incident At Phantom Hill and am highly unlikely to ever do so. They are both obscure Westerns from the mid-60s. But I am writing about them here because both feature art by one of my favourite French movie poster artists: Guy Gerard Noel. He has a distinctive style and signature and his art graced 100s of French movie posters in the 50s and 60s.

In addition to these Westerns, he illustrated my current favourite poster in my collection, The Curse Of The Werewolf. This is probably his second best known work for Hammer horror movies, and in terms of collectibility probably outranked only by the posters he created for Hammer’s Dracula. The grande featuring Christopher Lee is at the very top of my poster wish list – and given copies rarely appear, and when they do command prices of $5000 or more, it is likely to stay there sadly.

These two Western posters are not in the same league in terms of value, but I do think he did a great job with the illustrations. The Abilene one in particular (under the French title “Le Sherif Aux Poings Nus”, or The Bare-fisted Sheriff – which would probably have made for a better English title) makes great use of colour and is such an iconic image of a Western showdown.  

Both of these posters are available to buy here.