Here are two very old posters for movies directed by Douglas Sirk.

Now, I must admit I am not particularly familiar with Sirk, beyond him being name-checked in the 50s-style diner scene in Pulp Fiction (where a “Douglas Sirk Steak, bloody as hell” is on the menu).

Sirk was active predominantly in the 50s and at the time was dismissed a director of sentimental ‘women’s pictures’, but (similar to Hitchcock) he underwent a critical reappraisal in the 60s, led by French critics. His work has been hugely influential on, amongst others Todd Haynes, David Lynch and John Waters, especially as a critique of American suburban life.

Summer Storm is not a particularly famous movie, despite being based on a novel by Chekov, no less. This US one-sheet poster is a great piece of marketing, however, I think. It doesn’t give much of a clue that it is a period melodrama set in Russia, but plays up the noir-overtones, especially the tag-line “She was an invitation..to murder!”

The poster for Magnificent Obsession, meanwhile, is from Belgium and simply oozes kitsch melodrama, not least a weeping Rock Hudson!

Both these posters are available to buy here.