Here are two very different posters for both versions of Cape Fear, 30 years apart. The first is a Belgian poster for the Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum 1962 version. Cape Fear is a taut noir-style thriller about an upright lawyer tormented by a recently paroled psycho he helped put in jail. The French title “les nerfs…
Reality Bites
This is a Japanese “chirashi’ I bought recently as a birthday present for my wife. “Chirashi” are doubled-sided B5 flyers which were printed in limited runs to be handed out in movie theatres in Japan upon a movie’s release. They are relatively cheap to collect and being small are easy to store and display. …
Whispering Smith / The Americano
Here are two very old rare posters for relatively obscure Westerns that I own. These are Spanish posters from 1948 and 1954 respectively for the movies Whispering Smith and The Americano. I think I bought these together from the same vendor, and not sure why as I do not know either of these movies and I…
Blade Runner
I love Blade Runner, but this is one movie that somehow has never seemed to be truly finished! Lots of films change significantly before release during the editing process, but Blade Runner is an example of the relatively recent habit of film-makers going back and tinkering with their movie after release. Steven Spielberg started something…
Bullitt
Before today’s Fast and Furious style CG-enhanced, gravity-defying car mayhem there was the car chase in Bullitt. It is rare that a movie’s reputation rests on one scene – but I think that’s very much the case with Bullitt. The first/only thing people remember about it is the iconic car chase around San Francisco, for…
Twins of Evil / Hands of the Ripper
This double bill poster is for two of the more memorable latter-day Hammer horrors. Twins of Evil had Peter Cushing and twin lesbian vampire sisters to recommend it, but skimming through it again recently on You Tube it all looks rather cheap and style-free. I’ve not seen Hands of the Ripper in years but…
The Outlaw Josey Wales
I’ve always been a big Clint Eastwood fan. This is my favourite Clint western, and one of my favourite poster images from his films. The movie is a redemption story, some say a Vietnam war allegory, of a farmer who becomes an outlaw when his family is murdered. He then makes a long journey…
Point Blank / Payback
These two hard-boiled thrillers make for an interesting movie pairing. Point Blank was released in 1967, starring Lee Marvin, directed by John Boorman, and is held up as something of a ‘noir’ classic. It is basically a revenge story. In it, a double-crossed career criminal, shot and left for dead, works his way up through…
The Seven Year Itch
I recently bought this great poster. It is for the German 1966 re-release of this 1955 movie and is, I think, the most striking original Marilyn Monroe movie poster design I have ever seen. This poster was designed by the German artist Dorothea Fischer-Nosbisch and is reminiscent to some degree of the Andy Warhol Marilyn…
Ben Hur / King of Kings
‘Sword and sandal’ movies are probably one of my least favourite genres. But they do make for spectacular posters! I will make exceptions for Gladiator and Spartacus, but in general these lengthy quasi-historical Roman/Biblical epics bore me to tears. They were however hugely popular in the 60s (and hugely expensive too – the excesses involved…