I’ve written before about how I don’t much care for the lazy photo-shopping of most modern movie poster designs, but this poster for The Expendables is one of the more striking images from recent years, I think. Sly Stallone’s knowing 80s action hero team-up is a lot of fun (before the 2 sequels began to…
The Lost Weekend
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Billy Wilde’s 1945 Oscar-winning movie about alcoholism. This is a super-rare Belgian poster, featuring star Ray Milland as an alcoholic writer on the mother of all benders. The movie won four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Wilder, and Best Actor for Milland. Interestingly, the liquor industry…
The Wild Bunch
This is a French poster for Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 masterpiece, one of the all-time great elegiac Westerns. The Wild Bunch is best known for its slow-motion “bullet ballets”, as featured in both the extended opening sequence and the climax, as various protagonists get ripped to shreds by gunfire. It became part of the debate about…
Up In Smoke
I’ve never seen any of the ‘stoner’ movies Cheech and Chong made in the 70s, including their first (and apparently best), Up In Smoke. Cheech and Chong were a Canadian hippie stand-up comedy team, who’s schtick basically revolved around being stoned the entire time. You probably had to be high to get the jokes in…
Lawrence Of Arabia
This is a Belgian poster for David Lean’s classic. Lean’s 1962 multi-Oscar winning movie is epic in every sense – from run-time to the vision and scale of its action sequences. It also features one of the all-time great lead performances from Peter O’Toole in the title role, and one of the most remarkable supporting…
The Gauntlet
The Gauntlet is not one of Clint’s best efforts, but it comes with a fantastic poster illustration by renowned fantasy artist Frank Frazetta. Frazetta is often referred to as the “Godfather of fantasy art”, and was one of the most renowned illustrators of the 20th century. Much of the time he worked in the sword…
Cat People
“See these eyes, so green…” Cat People has one of the greatest theme songs ever, courtesy of David Bowie, but it is buried over the end credits. (A fact Quentin Tarantino realised when he re-used it rather more dramatically mid-scene in Inglorious Basterds). Additional random fact/pathetic claim to fame: David Bowie brushed my shoulder once. (Long…
The Guns Of Navarone
The Guns Of Navarone is one of the most famous and influential “men on a mission’ war movies. As a sub-genre, it covers movies such as The Dam Busters, The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare (my personal favourite) and Inglorious Bastards. The set-up is usually: a mis-matched small group of soldiers are given a virtually…
Psycho
Here is another great little Belgian poster addition to my Alfred Hitchcock gallery. Psycho is of course one of The Master’s most famous movies, and for good reason. Knowing the plot now, its hard to imagine how audiences would have reacted back in 1960 seeing it for the first time. In the days before internet…
The Public Enemy
James Cagney was the original movie tough guy. In his time, he was the star of various gangster classics, including Angels With Dirty Faces and White Heat, but 1931’s The Public Enemy was the first and arguably best. It became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Cagney plays a bootlegger who…