I’m sure you’ve spent hours wondering whether movie posters have become more blue. Wonder no more-here’s an analysis of the color of movie posters since 1914, and yes, they’re more blue.
This poster (click to embiggen, it’s worth it) is from the early 70’s B-movie The Loners, headlined by Dean Stockwell on his way up and Gloria Grahame on her way down. I saw it hanging on the wall at a restaurant the other day. It typifies the kind of movie I remember going to see at the drive-in when I was a kid. Stockwell plays “Stein, a half-blood Indian”. Let that soak in for a minute.
In addition to the facial expressions on the poster, which are priceless, you can tell that a producer is pinching every penny when he decides that a full color poster is too expensive and instead goes for two cheesy spot colors overprinted on black and white. That’s a technique that you don’t see much anymore.
In case you can’t tell, I’m tired of politics.
El Tiburon
Movie posters and album art – will either be around in 20 years,
Also we’re movienposters for black and white films in color?
Wag
@El Tiburon:
I really miss album covers.
kd bart
So Mitch Daniels had Presidential ambitions all along. They were just limited to Purdue University.
RAVEN
Lear jet song the byrds
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_UWfthPEjQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
RAVEN
If you have not seen A Decade Under the Influence about the movies of the 70’s, run, don’t walk to get it!
beltane
@kd bart: Maybe Sarah Palin will also one day be a university president.
Punchy
Half-blooded Indian? Is his other half Pakastani?
bootsy
Gotta disagree on the idea that two-color posters are bad: It’s one of those restriction that usually makes for better art. Example: http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/movie-poster-of-the-week-the-american
Of course the one you showed above isn’t that great, though I’d still contend it’s a little more charming than most blockbuster posters today.
beltane
This is good news for Mitt Romney: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120618194952.htm
geg6
Heh. Saw many, many of these cheesy films in my teenage years where the drive-in was the best party in town.
And like you, mm, I really hate silly season in a presidential election year. After the Sandusky verdict has been determined, I’m checking out on any news whatsoever (with the exclusion of weather reports). I’ll be back to obsessive news watching/reading soon enough and I just want to enjoy the insanely fine weather we’ve been having, our beautiful garden, and helping my niece get ready to go off to college in August.
shpx.ohfu
More on the insidious plague of orange&blue.
RAVEN
@shpx.ohfu:
Hail to the orange
Hail to the blue
Hail alma mater
Ever so true
So true
We love no other
So let our motto be
Victory
Illinois
Varsity
kth
“After the Gold Rush”, the Neil Young perennial, was inspired by a never-produced Dean Stockwell screenplay, so naturally this film’s title made me think of the song from Neil’s first LP.
mistermix
@bootsy: That’s a good example.
El Tiburon
@Wag:
Half the enjoyment of a new album purchase was exploring the album cover. I must have spent a year of my youth mesmerized by the KISS double live album cover. Before MTV and the Internet tubes this was the only connection to your rock and roll gods.
Same with movie trailers and posters. It was always a mystery when the theater darkened as to what new movie was coming out. I’m talking about the 70s when information traveled at a much slower pace.
Mino
I am gobsmacked by that sweater vest.
Edit: Was this film a parody?
Scott S.
This just reminds me of this great short horror story I read years ago by David Morrell called “Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity.” And dang, I don’t think I have the collection that story was in anymore… :(
Schlemizel
@El Tiburon:
The ones I have seen were in color only if they were “colorized” by the print shop. I have seen some that were post painted and a few that had touches of gold or silver but by-and-large I have never seen any I would call ‘color’ posters. But then again I have not seen a ton of them either so anyone else care to weight in?
Schlemizel
@Mino:
Sadly, no, it was not a parody. Its an example of very low-budget quasi-independant film making. Think Kormann or Woods. They didn’t have the cash to spend on good scripts or elaborate shooting. These things were below even the “B” level of Hollywood although some were quite entertaining.
By the 50’s most of this stuff was destined for the drive-in where teens could afford to go. They were more excited by the thriller aspects and much more intent on the in-car entertainment than by what was on the screen.
Female on the Beach
from appearances alone, looks like MST3k missed the boat on this one.
Villago Delenda Est
You flew your Lear Jet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun.
Another Halocene Human
@shpx.ohfu: Parents, don’t let your kids grow up to be Gators.
cmorenc
@mistermix:
Speaking of 70s B-Movies with a heroic or anti-heroic purported half-blood Indian in the lead role, the classic of this genre was Billy Jack, which developed something of a blue-collar cult following, even though the hero was defending what amounted to a bunch of DFHs against reactionary knuckle-dragging townfolk.
PurpleGirl
@El Tiburon:
we’re means we are
I think you meant “were”
cmorenc
@geg6:
IMHO, the only likely element of suspense about the Sandusky verdict is whether the jury tries to include “hang him high” or “nail his nuts to the wall and pour salt on the wound” or both along with their guilty verdict on enough counts to put him behind bars effectively for life.
handsmile
Fortunately, a number of modern art museums (e.g., MOMA, Los Angeles County, Centre Pompidou) recognize movie posters to be an historically important and aesthetically valuable expression of graphic art, and have compiled substantial collections. MOMA, in fact, always has an exhibition of selected posters in its lower-level galleres.
Gloria Grahame is/was unforgettable, indelible, in her role as Bogart’s girlfriend in Nicholas Ray’s “In a Lonely Place.” (That Grahame’s marriage to Ray was unravelling at the time of the film’s production has always seemed noteworthy.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Lonely_Place
To escape the heatwave forecast for the urban hellhole today and tomorrow, I intend to indulge myself before the 75th anniversary restoration print of “Grand Illusion” now being screened at Film Forum, one of NYC’s last repertory cinemas.
gogol's wife
@El Tiburon:
Yes, they were. Sometimes quite lurid.
gogol's wife
@handsmile:
Yes, I would submit that Gloria Grahame could never be on her way down. She’s always at the top.
slag
@bootsy:
Seconded. More isn’t always better. A lot of times, it’s just more.
geg6
@cmorenc:
Since this case has affected me and many of the people and institutions I care about, in addition to my being intimately familiar with the social and economic makeup of that particular geographic area, I am not as sanguine as you are about the verdict. I hope that everyone does the right thing in the end, but my definition of the right thing and theirs may differ significantly.
I just want it to be over, with as good an outcome as is possible for the victims. It’s been a hellish 7 months for those of us who have been affected, through no fault of our own. Not as hellish as it was for the victims, granted, but many of us need to put this past us. It’s been exhausting, emotionally.
TaosJohn
Stockwell hangs out in Taos a lot. I saw him at a post-concert reception. Dude is really short, smokes cigars. :-)
Brachiator
@El Tiburon:
There are a view movie theaters in LA and other cities which feature foreign language movie posters for major films. Often very amusing to see how varied they are, what elements the foreign marketers decided to emphasize.
And some Criterion Collection DVDs for classic films will include some of the marketing material and posters that preceded the film.
But I wonder if much of this will go away as more movie marketing moves to TV and the Internets.
Brachiator
One more thing about the power of movie posters. I remember in Southern California the initial fear and disdain that many fanboys showed for the upcoming Tim Burton Batman movie. They hated the idea that Michael Keaton would be cast as the Dark Knight.
Then, after the trailer thrilled the shit out of many people, people started busting the glass at some bus stops and stealing the Batman posters in the side displays.
Brachiator
@handsmile:
This was recently screened in the Los Angeles area, followed by the screening of a beautiful print of Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise).
handsmile
@Brachiator:
So the City of Angels is your home! (I had wondered, but assumed, given your extensive familiarity with film-and other aspects of la vie moderne-it had to be a “major metropolitan area.”)
I believe you might enjoy this slideshow: “The 10 Most Expensive Film Posters”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2012/mar/14/10-most-expensive-film-posters-in-pictures
Brachiator
@handsmile:
Very cool stuff. Thanks very much.
Tokyokie
@El Tiburon: As others have indicated, no, most certainly not. Up until 1960s, movie posters (except for the crappy photo montages that ruled at Warner Bros.) were usually paintings, usually with some key art elements that were employed in the border of the lobby cards, etc. Only the B-movies would tend to have two-tone photos for their artwork, because that approach didn’t necessitate hiring an artist.
Each market would produce its own advertising material, so, say, the Italian poster for a Hollywood movie would be different from the American version. (Italian posters from the 1940s and 1950s are especially expressionistic.) However, by the early 1970s, most markets took their lead from the U.S. advertising campaign and started doing little more than translating the ad copy. (Although Belgium continued producing posters based on painting for an additional 10 years.)
In the Eastern bloc countries, the top artist were dragooned into producing propaganda posters for the state, and movie posters were one area in which they were able to express themselves without censorship. As a result, movie posters from East Germany, Czechoslovakia and especially Poland offer unique takes on their subject matter.
For the last 25 years, unfortunately, movies have had ad campaigns focused on logos, and the resulting posters reflect this (or offer head shots arranged in descending size depending on billing). I think virtually all of them look like crap, although the one-sheet for Fargo is brilliant.
Brachiator
If you want to have a little fun, check out the variety of the James Bond movie posters from around the world.