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Thank you very much. Nice to nice to see. Nice to see you all again. Nice to be here.
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Thank you for having me again. Afternoon everyone. I've got another film posters to show you.
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Once we get into it, you're going to see a lot of images from me. So this might be the only bit you get to see at me at the beginning and end.
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We might just stay on images on the screen for a big chunk of this. Why am I going to talk to you?
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About film posters. Why is it an interesting topic in itself? I think the film poster much like film itself as a topic of study exists at this really interesting meeting of art.
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And commerce. It is a film industry and they do want your money. They do want you to go and see the films.
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So film posters have always played a massive role in in getting you into the cinema and attracting you into the films often it's the first thing you see of a movie you see a poster or wonder what that is Hmm.
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And so they've become a really important part of marketing a film. They also, when you track them over the last 120 years or so, They sort of accidentally become a really interesting way of tracking the changes.
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Particularly in Hollywood of what's important in a film, how do we market a film, what kind of things do we tell the public about a film to get them to get them through the door?
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So it has that historical element to it which is which is absolutely crucial. Some of them are just plain lovely.
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Some of them are just plain, great examples of visual art and I'm definitely going to chuck a few of those in for good measure.
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Some of them are also highly collectable in that 120 years of cinema, some things, some film icons, some film objects have become hugely collectable.
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Big money spinners and, we'll see. Shortly some posters that have changed hands for ridiculous amounts of money, some which may send you scurrying to your lofts if you think you've if you think you've got one.
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Let me know if you do. Some of them, some posts that we'll look at are just playing weird, just playing weird and wonderful.
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So it's a bit of a rogue gallery, but there's, but there's plenty here for everybody.
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I want to jump in before I do too much explanation. I'm going to jump in. With a an image of the very first, the very first poster.
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For an individual film. That ever existed. So let me share my screen. Once I've shared this, we'll probably just stay on the images and I'll cycle through them.
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I've got over a hundred to show you. So we probably won't come back out and see me again.
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Until the end. But obviously put your questions in the in the chat like Fiona said and will and I'll definitely make time for them at the end.
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So if I share this first image. This is. This is the very first poster ever made for a specific film.
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Interestingly the name of the film isn't even on the poster. The name of the film is Arossay, which translates to the sprinkler sprinkled.
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If you look at the, the image on the screen within a screen. You can see what the film is it's a very short Lumiere Brothers film it's from 1,895 It's Lumia Brothers.
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It's a very short movie. It's a 1, a one shot gag. The, the kid stands on the hosepipe.
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The water stops coming out, the gardener looks down the hosepipe, the kid steps off the hosepipe and the gardener sprays himself in the face with water.
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It's the oldest, it's the oldest, the oldest trick in the book. The film is 45 s long, but this is 1,895.
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And although it's, You know, although although it's that old. It's still, it's still advertised in the same way that a modern film.
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It's with a poster. What's so interesting about about the about the poster to me is it doesn't so much advertise The film.
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Well, in that it does advertise the film, it totally spoils the film. It totally spoils the one gag of the film, which is that the, that the garden is going to get sprayed in the face.
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So it ruins the gag. But more than the film The poster is advertising. The experience of going to the cinema.
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At a time when the experience of going to the going to the cinema was new. Was novelty.
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Early film is so much about spectacle. It's so much about the experience of sitting in a room and seeing, talking pictures on the, on the screen.
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So you can see there's even a sort of, a sort of commissioner standing on the left of the screen.
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Even he's even he's enjoying seeing the film. If there really was a commissioner where the film was screened, it's only 45 s long.
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So probably see it several 100 times a day. I doubt it's still a doubt to still actually be laughing at it.
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But it's a crowd of well to do Parisians in 1,895. They've got top hats.
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They've got dressed up and they're enjoying the actual experience of cinema and that's such a crucial thing quite a lot of early film advertising becomes about advertising the experience and this carries on quite a lot quite a long way we'll see that we'll see ghosts of this going into the into later film.
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The posters by commercial artist, Marcelin Ozol. You can just about see his, signature there.
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Of course, there wasn't in this, in this early. Early days that wasn't some people someone's job wasn't just to make film posters as it were.
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It's so commercial, poster artists who did other types of we get, would get involved.
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Although this is the first the first poster to advertise. Broadly. A specific film. There is a poster that predates it by a year.
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And this is again for the cinematograph, Lumiere. This one is painted by, Henry Brisbane, who was a fine artist and painter from the same era.
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Again, for a Lumiere Brothers screening in Paris. And because this one doesn't Advertise a specific film this one just advertises the screening itself so it could be reused it's less specific but the same feeling is there where advertising the experience of cinema, that they're even having to turn someone away.
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It's so busy, people have got top hats on. This is, it's basically saying cinema isn't, it isn't trash.
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This is't, this isn't something, this isn't throwaway entertainment, this is something you put your top hat on to do or your special hat for the ladies.
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This is proper entertainment. This isn't just something rubbish. So it's it's treating cinema with a certain degree of reverence as a as an entertainment form.
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From the very beginning.
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Which is something sort of quite endemic actually of the of the French film industry in particular to begin with.
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So those 2 are really early. They're as early as we can get there as early as film posters will be, 1895 and I think they're both 1895 actually but I think this one might be starting the earlier.
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Should give you some introduction. Really. To film posters in general and what we say when we mean a film poster because Since about the eighties, film posters have pretty much been one size and shape.
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Until the eightys there were locked and lots and lots of different formats of film posters and for collectors the formats are really really important.
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What survived in the days of the multiplex was survived is what's called the one sheet. So in America it's about 40 inches by about 27 inches.
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It's the size of poster. That you would see. Outside of cinema.
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Now, it's the same as a what in UK we call it a UK quad. It's about 40 by 30 inches.
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And these are the ones outside the cinema and pretty much every film poster is designed to fit that format now.
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But Prior to the eighties, film posters would be all sorts of shapes and sizes and would be advertised all over the place.
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Some of them were, were enormous. You would get in the US, you would get, I think the biggest one might be a US US 6 sheet.
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So it's the 6 times the size of a 1 sheet which would be for the side the side of a building or there'd be, and we still have these, they'd be bus posters and posts on the tube and stuff.
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For collectors for people that collect posters in the modern age obviously the ones that have been outdoors in the elements.
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The really collectable ones because very few of them have survived in any in any meaningful way. Mostly they got they got trashed being out in the elements, only ones that would have been preserved under glass are under plastic or really the Holy Grail unused ones so ones that turn up in an office somewhere that's they're the real collectors things but but really the really huge ones the 6 sheets and so forth they are
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They are to collectors, collectors gold. The other reason why collectors love them is because Originally, posters were distributed and this happened on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Created and distributed, on a per cinema basis, distributed to the specific cinemas by an organization called the National Screen Service that had branches in in UK and US.
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And the idea was after each booking of each film you were supposed to take the posters, roll them up and send them back to the studio.
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They won't they weren't ever supposed to loiter around or get taken home or go into public hands.
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So they were supposed to be returned to the studio and destroyed or saved until that film was reissued.
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So that's another crucial thing for collectors. You're, if you're buying old film posters and collect them, you're trying to find ones that have escaped that.
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Escaped that fate. And escape having to go back to the to the national screen service. So that's have a look at some early posters from the, from the silent era because they're, this is a, this is very much the sort of the birth of the industry.
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We'll jump in about, 1,917 because I think they reveal really interesting things about how the industry, what they wanted to sell you and how they wanted to attract you into the cinema.
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We've seen the Lumiere Brothers idea of cinema as a real sort of destination.
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It's up there, it's up there with the opera, it's up there with going to see a play.
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It's not, this isn't, this isn't uncivilized. Yes, it's, yes, it's mass entertainment, but it doesn't have to be uncivilised.
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Once we get thicker into the into the world of advertising specific movies. We start to get posters like this.
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So this is a good one to start with. 1917. Cleopatra, sine theta barr.
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Theedbarra was one of the, well, probably the first proper named film star. Prior to this, not many film stars would be known to the public by name.
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It took quite a few years of the film industry for them to realize that actually the public might want to know who these people are.
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Of course, their name wasn't really The Dabara. Her name was Theodosia Goodman and she was from Pennsylvania, but the studio made up the name .
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And made up a whole pretend past for her to make her sound exotic and cast her in a lot of sound exotic and cast her in a lot of kind of early costume and sort of sword and sandal films, Cleopatra and the and the like.
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Almost her entire body of work, Advara, is lost. 85% of all silent film or their about is lost.
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So the 15% we have got is not necessarily a representative 15% and it's sometimes just includes the entirety of the work of someone who is huge in the silent era and Theeder Barra was enormous.
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Little scraps keep turning up for films. We've got more posters and we do films.
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But it's important, I think, to see. The first film Star being presented as such. And there's a real, on this poster there's a real hierarchy of data down there at the bottom.
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William Fox, his name is at the top because it's Fox Studios. But she's the star and then the film.
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And then the director down at the bottom staged by Jay Gordon Edwards. So the studio is the most important thing, then the star.
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So we're getting this early hierarchy of who's important in Hollywood. And we've got a very, you know, it's a very stylized image.
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It is a photo, but it's a photo that's been painted over. To make it to make it more colorful and more lovely.
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Don't forget this is the Arab and films of black and white so the posters can show much more color than the films than the films ever can.
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So that's. Barra, who Oddly, among early film stars actually had a happy life, retired at the top of fame and retired back into relative obscurity.
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But like I say, all her films are lost.
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Here's another data bar from around the same period. You see at the moment, at this period, there's no real standardization yet.
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Different cinemas are advertising the same film in really different ways. Here we've got a big, a big sort of strap of data at the top.
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The wear and the wind. That would be left blank. Sinemas to put that in.
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But then we've got the same Rocky at the bottom. William Fox, Theeder Barra, Cleopatra at the Vampire Supreme.
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How lovely is that? And then, you know, very stylized image justify. So those 2 are really interesting combination, I think, how different they are.
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Wings this a little bit later this is 1927 this is wings won the very first best picture Oscar at the very first Academy Awards making it the only silent film ever to win best picture because it's really the end of the silent era but it was an absolutely enormous film wings huge budget So we've got a poster that kind of tries to make that Try to make that point for you. This is going to be big.
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There's going to be aerial photography, dog fights. There's some stars that we that we know, although they're not they're not named on the poster where recognizing we're depending on the public recognising their faces, which is interesting.
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It's Clara Bow in the middle. But it's just it's a very stylized image, a very big title.
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You can't miss the name of the film from, no matter how far away you see that. So that's a, that's a, a fascinating poster I think.
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Do I have another, another wings one? Yes, I do. This one makes more of the presence of Clara Bow, which again I think a an overpainted photo or a painting done very closely from a from a publicity photo of the time but very evocative you know really Like I say, a lovely use of colour.
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I love leaves of color that you can't get in the film in the film itself, which is really important.
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And another one. Again, no consistency, but the promise of action. People falling out of planes, things on fire.
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And there is plenty of that in the film. It's quite action packed. It's quite it's quite a good early early drama and also the promise of a bit of romance and a human story at the middle of it and that is pretty much what you get.
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Interestingly, modern, actually, that one wins with with the slightly art deco looking. Device framing the actors in the middle it looks almost almost later than it is that that's more of thirty's designed than a twentieth design.
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So this one's a little better ahead of its time. The big parade, 1,925, did the best box office of any silent picture is the most commercially successful film made during the silent period.
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It's about the First World War. This is a very A lot of space given over in this poster here for that for text and information and then a not necessarily a representative image.
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Just a nice image of the 2 stars, John Gilbert and Rene Adairy. This one, it doesn't pump up the film quite as much as wings does, even though this became the best.
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The most commercially successful film of the of the silent era. Now, we're getting into the transition to sound at this point.
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So this is going to be crucial. How are we going to power we're going to press this idea of sound?
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Don One is one of the first films that has a sort of semi synchronized sound It's got a microphone desk that goes with it.
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There's no synchronized dialogue, but there is synchronized music and synchronized sound effects, which they don't really make a very big deal about on this particular poster.
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This is just This is just pushing the swashbuckling aspects of a very big. Very big John Barrymore and the text and a very small Mary Asta which is quite funny.
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Quite typical of the period. And again, a bit of a hodgepodge of what's in important, the director, the studio, big Warner Brothers in the top left.
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Studio power at this, at this point. So the first vitaphone sink, we're not making much fuss about it.
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Again, this is the same film. Presented in a really in a really different way. It's fascinating how how broad the presentations are at this point and again no no fuss made of the of the vice phone business that's happening.
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But when we get to the to the jazz singer i think everyone even even nonfilm buffs I think kind of know still that the jazz singer is the first film that has synchronized synchronized sound in it.
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It's not it's not all synchronized. It's not all all talking.
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It has it has silent stretches as well, but it's it's it's the first have actual synchronized lip movements and speaking on on screen and they present it here what about the supreme triumph Al Jolson in the jazz singer but it doesn't the post doesn't tell us why we're left with it's 1,927 we should know why we
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should be following the film press and we should know why this is one of other supreme triumph it's interesting how much this doesn't press the idea of it being a talking.
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It completely relies on us already on us already knowing. But then gradually the films are going to go for broke.
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So lights of New York. I'm sorry about the quality of this one. It's not as high quality as the previous one.
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Lights of New York is the first all talking picture. It's the first film with no subtitles.
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Everything is spoken on screen. And Warner Brothers are quite happy to put that on the poster.
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And now they're beginning to advertise Vitaphone down the bottom. Vitaphone is their sound technology.
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It's sound on disc, so the film comes packed with a little record that you play at the same time.
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It's it's it goes really wrong and they they swap it eventually for a different technology but they are pioneers at this point.
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Here's another for lights of New York, the first all talking picture. The post doesn't really give you much information what's going on.
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There'll be some dancing girls, there's going to be a club. But it's basically it's it's all talking and it's vitaphone and you want to see it is what the post is saying.
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We don't really need to tell you much more than that, which I think is, is, also, of how confident they were that sound was going to bring people in.
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There's another one. Lots of New York. Again, a completely different presentation for the same, for the same film.
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But phone and movie tone. First 100% all talking eyes of New York. Streak is a is a very early RKO picture.
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And again, 100%, 100% all talking sensation. Look at where they as they sort of press on with advertising.
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This one doesn't get much away. But as they get on with advertising on with the show. Which, sorry, on the show came out with the same, it comes out at the same time as a streetcar.
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The first 2. The of Warner Brothers. On with the show is presented as the first 100% natural color talking, singing, dancing picture.
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It doesn't tell us anything about what the film is actually about. It's just a dancing girl.
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There'll be some dancing and the title kind of gives away some of it on with the show. At the bottom we're told a chorus of 100 dazzling beauties, but the poster only shows us one.
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So it's vitaphone and it's technical and it is technical as well although the technical aversion doesn't entirely survive.
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But this poster is far more about what you're going to see. 100% natural colour talking singing dancing it's the content of the film is at this point unimportant compared to the technologies they've gone from being quite blase about the technology to really really pushing it.
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This is also quite typical of musicals during this period, which are huge, which just advertise themselves in very, very generalized way. They'll just be, there's going to be dancing.
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I mean, look, there's another post to put on with the show that does away with all that text and just shows.
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A girl with a ruffle skirt who's obviously gonna do some in a decent dancing that's a very stripped-down version of the of the same.
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So this is all you would going for broke to get you through the door, advertising all these technologies. The studio system at this point is so tied up with the technologies and the things they're inventing.
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The studios own the cinemas and in most cases they own the new sound technologies as well.
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So there's a lot of money. Riding on them getting the transition to sound right. And making it happen in a commercially successful way.
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In Europe, that's less important. There's less the studios have less of a hold over European film and sound doesn't come for an extra couple of years in Europe.
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So some of the posters that come out of Europe during this period Do it slightly differently. Creative in a very different way.
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So it's a metropolis post. It's even a creative shape. It's tall and thin.
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This is a this one is by a German graphic artist called Heinz Schultz Newdam.
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The, the international version of Metropolis, which I don't, no, I don't have to show you.
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But this is the international, this is the German one. The international version of Metropolis. One copy of that sold at Sotheby's in 2,005 for the best part of $690,000.
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The rumor at the time was that it, sold to Leonardo Dicaprio.
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Maybe it did. I don't think he'll ever tell us. So we're entering, we're kidding to enter the realm of collectable film posts.
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I mean, I think that most of the poster treatments for Metropolis are quite beautiful.
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Is really art deco stuff you know it's not those aren't strictly images representative of the film that they are partially but they are much more representative of the feel of the film and the subject matter rather than anything specific.
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That happens.
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Elsewhere in Europe, there's some really creative things happening. So Not with films that aren't quite as big.
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This is a film called The Green Spider. 1916 not much note about this one it's lost i just loved the poster and i wanted to show it to you posted by a theatre designer called Vladimir Igorov.
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I just, I just love it. The Green Spider, the poster could have been green, but it's not.
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Who knows what that was about, but it's a brilliant, very eye catching. Very much of its era.
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Battleship attempting this is one is interesting this is from 1,926 this is the Dutch release of battleship attempt and the poster is by I showed you this one because it's by poster artist called Dolly Rudman.
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Who was the only woman working in the industry at the time in the poster art industry. It's like a lot of Hollywood.
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It's, it was a bit of a boys club, but Dolly Rubin, so she was Dutch, so they've done the post this poster specifically for the Dutch release of the film.
00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:37.000
But it's very striking, isn't it? Very, Minimalist on the on the text like a lot of European posters are and you know striking with one big solid color image very very expressionist in a way that Hollywood posters aren't.
00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:38.000
And have a look at these 2. Passion of Joan of Arc in 1,928.
00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:43.000
I've got 2 of these here. Rene Peron, it was a prolific post artist in France.
00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:51.000
This red one Is a French 4 panel. It's 94 by 126 inches.
00:23:51.000 --> 00:24:12.000
So it's enormous. It's the biggest format that the French had for film posters and it's it's fantastic that none of the you know none of the spaces is is is wasted it's all but it's all used up with this you know it's very striking kind of expressionist graphics and then all the text is squeezed into the bottom.
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:13.000
But it's so big that that text wouldn't feel small if you saw it in real life.
00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:18.000
And again, big Great use of color, but color is like a big sort of shot in the middle of it.
00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:28.000
I think that's fantastic. And that's 1 of my favorites. Almost prefer the purple one.
00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:39.000
The pop one is a double grand or we should probably more probably call it a duple. 63 by 94 inches, same artist who's done something strikingly different.
00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:52.000
I like the text treatment on that one, but it's a little bit hard to read. So hugely creative and expressionist in a way that the Hollywood posters weren't necessarily going into this going to this period.
00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:58.000
As we go into the 30, s if we go back to Hollywood, they become much more about post has become much more about Dlama.
00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:11.000
And spectacle. But some of them begin to get a little bit formulaic. Nevertheless. This is where the thirties, this is where the big money is for poster collectors who are into buying and selling posters now.
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:13.000
So Have a look at these 2. This is for, it's the first Fred and Ginger picture flying down to Rio.
00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:26.000
1933. This is painted by RCO art director Harold Seroy. The 2 sheet on the left.
00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:41.000
Sold for $26,290. In 2,008 in the same year the one sheet on the right sold for $239,000.
00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:50.000
Interesting, the one sheet isn't signed and it's probably not By Ceri, it's probably done as a copy of the one on the left.
00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:59.000
But then spiced up a bit with a bit more action and a few more girls to make the film look even more even sillier than it is.
00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:09.000
But it went for much more at auction because it's the rarer of the 2. I prefer that I think I personally prefer the simplicity of the, the original 0 1 on the, on the left.
00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:13.000
But it goes to show that originality isn't always the thing collectors are looking for. Sometimes it's rarity, often it's rarity, with proper collectors.
00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:22.000
The one on the right is just this, this almost too much to say in, isn't it?
00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:28.000
Almost too much visual, visual data. Like I say, it's the first, it's the first Fred Fred and Ginger picture.
00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:35.000
It's not, it's not, promoted as such at the time because no one had any idea that they'd become this on screen pairing.
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:48.000
They only do one dance, they're not on screen together very much in this. But as the thirties progress we do get into the era of Fred and Ginger and we get post is like, well, let me show you a couple, top hats.
00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:56.000
And follow the fleet. I mean It's almost the same poster, isn't it? We get there's a real formula for advertising fret and ginger.
00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:02.000
You stick them together, you have them doing some dance moves and you create some sort of faintly art decoish.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:11.000
Stuff and and a sort of big icon whether it be a hat for top hat or an anchor for for follow the fleet.
00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:15.000
Slightly formulate as much as I love the Fred and Ginger pictures. They did it.
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:23.000
They did quite a lot in quite a short period of time. And so the advertising is It's a little bit cheap and cheerful.
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:30.000
It's a little bit churned out, I think. You know exactly by the, by the second or third friend gender picture, you know, you know whether you want to see it or not.
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:37.000
You know exactly what you're what you're expecting. So there's there's a kind of reason for the advertising to be a little bit formula.
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:41.000
What about this one from the same era? This is a Ken Gong of course, 1,933.
00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:58.000
This is the this is a style A. Style A 3 sheet one of these sold at auction in 1,999 for $244,500 this is the more collectable .
00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:08.000
And it's, I mean, it's a fantastic poster in that it It promises more than the film can deliver, I think, to some degree.
00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:19.000
Although Although Kong does climb to stop the end by state building and he does fight some bioplanes and he does take Fay Ray up there with him, it's never quite as exciting as it looks in the poster, although it is, it is great.
00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:20.000
Personally, I prefer the style B. Poster. I think it's much more, it's much more iconic.
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:41.000
And even less like the like the like the film itself is a fantastic con, isn't it? This one in the poster is not, not the, not the slightly, the slightly sort of stilted gong of the picture, although, you know, although I love it.
00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:47.000
So that's the less collectable version of adventure, but for my money, not the better one.
00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:58.000
The era of the horror film as well, the 30. Horror pictures coming out of universal. So the first Dracula this, a 2 sheet.
00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Of this. Of this first Dracula picture from 1,931, sold in 2,009 for $310,700.
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:13.000
It had belonged to Nicholas Cage of all people. I guess he just decided he was sick of looking at it and decided to part with it.
00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:18.000
So, Dracula if you've got one of these tucked away in your off somewhere these universal horror posters are highly collectable.
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:30.000
Even though to my eyes they're a little bit hokey in places. They don't always capture the slightly baroque feeling of the films.
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:35.000
They're a bit more lurid. The big money though is the mummy. 1932.
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:46.000
The most expensive in the collectors market the most expensive US film poster ever sold. 435 US film poster ever sold, 435,000 in 1,997.
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:57.000
Second only to the, to the metropolis post which sold in Europe. So we should more probably say the most expensive US poster sold at a US auction.
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:06.000
Which is funny because I really don't like this poster. I think it's very unflattering of Zeta Johann on the right, the depiction of her faces, I think awful.
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:12.000
I think if I was her agent, I'd be very annoyed on her behalf they've made her look so wonky.
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:19.000
It's not a brilliant poster that lay out of the tech stuff is all a bit uneven but The collectors want today.
00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:27.000
And so, and so it sold. So that disparity between, I think, what is, what is sort of most visually.
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:41.000
Please, and what sells at auction is that is I find that I find that really interesting and of course it's about rarity as with all collectors mentalities it's about having things that a lot of people haven't got I think to some degree.
00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:47.000
We've looked at some things here that the OVER Promise. As we go to the fortys, it's interesting to look at something.
00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:56.000
Let's mildly scandalous on its own. On its own merits. The Outlaw, 1,943.
00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:06.000
How are you, by Howard Hughes? The poster. Is racier than the film and I use the term racy advisorly I suppose.
00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:16.000
The film itself is a reasonably okay retelling of the Billy the Kids story and it's black and white.
00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:29.000
How would he was for somewhat obsessed with with Jane Russell? And I think Makes that quite clear in the poster the story, which may be apocryphal that Howard Hughes being an engineer that he built her.
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:38.000
He built our metal bra to wear in the film to boost up her cleavage and she pretended she wore and threw it in the bin.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:51.000
I'm not sure if the story is popular or not, but it speaks to this idea of, of Hughes being obsessed, but also not being afraid to push the angle of sex on the public.
00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:57.000
Think about the outlaws. It was, its release was date was date was delayed.
00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:03.000
For 5 years because Howard Hughes couldn't get a production code, certificate on the film to say that it was suitable for all.
00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:12.000
And he himself deliberately stirred up the controversy about whether it was too rude to be showing because he knew.
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:21.000
That if people were calling for it to be banned without ever having even seen it, it would just mean that when it was released, it would be an absolute money spinner.
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:27.000
So, you know, Hughes was a, he was a businessman, he knew exactly what, exactly what he was doing.
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:39.000
What's interesting is when you see the When you see the the photos that this that this poster is based on the picture that couldn't be stopped.
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:46.000
And you look up that image of Jane Russell, which the poster artist has obviously. Used an image from that same session and redrawn it.
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:55.000
She's wearing much more in real life. Hi, post artist has made our clothes much more revealing than they actually are.
00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:56.000
It's, it's, you know, it's not an accident. It's a, it's a marketing.
00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:05.000
It's a marketing tool. To make her look more undressed than she actually is. And there's nothing salacious in the film at all.
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:11.000
The film is very much a you now, there's nothing in it that would shock a contemporary audience or even I think much of an audience at the time.
00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:18.000
It's a deliberately, it's a deliberately whipped up, controversy and the poster plays a huge role in doing that.
00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:25.000
And Hughes learns from that a few years later, when he presents, Jane Russell again in the French line.
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:47.000
Which is in 3D like a lot of so they, It's from, 1,953, sorry, the French line, which is the era of 3D movies as a big gimmick to get people to to not stay at home and watch their TVs which are tiny and black and white but come to the cinema where we've got widescreen
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:58.000
and color and threed. So of course he has great fun. Sort of punning on this idea of Jane Russell in 3D and it will knock both your eyes out.
00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:07.000
It's really torturing, but there's loads of posters from the production of the release of the French line.
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:12.000
That sort of keep making that same gag. Hughes has just learned that this kind of stuff is going to, it's going to sell.
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:17.000
It's stuff you can't get at home on your TV.
00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:34.000
It's it was released the French line was released without a production code seal and the studio had to take a $25,000 fine and the Catholic legion of decency rated its C for condemned and it was banned in several states and only released in a truncated form and several others.
00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:42.000
It's just she does a little dance at the end in that in that costume. And it's a bit suggestive, but again, it wouldn't, it's nothing that wouldn't be a PG now.
00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:51.000
But he's using the poster again to spin up this idea of scandal and make it make more out of it than is actually there.
00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:05.000
So in the right hand, or you might consider it the wrong hands in many ways, but in the right hands the poster is an amazing marketing tool to get more more bums on seats than would necessarily have been on seats for just any other picture.
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:14.000
It's going to the fifties, we definitely get this idea of spec spectacle. I've talked about how I've mentioned how, a spectacle.
00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:18.000
I've talked about how I've mentioned how cinema artists were dwindling after the Second World War, dwindling after the Second World War artists were dwindling after the Second World War.
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:21.000
People were staying at home. 1,946 were dwindling after the Second World War. People were staying at home.
00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:24.000
1,946 is the best year the cinema industry ever has. Going to the fifties people are staying at home and watching TV.
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:28.000
And the thing that lures them Back to the cinema, it's going to be things like.
00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:34.000
Super wide screen cinema scope and colour and things that your TV at home can't do.
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:40.000
So of course the advertising and the posters are going to make a big deal about it. So There's another the French line.
00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:41.000
Sorry, for too much French line. I haven't made that big to that balance. What about this then?
00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:56.000
The robe from 1953 is the first film released in cinema scope. It's not the first film made in cinemasco but it's the first one released because they wanted a big a big epic picture to be the first one that comes out in cinemas.
00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:08.000
Cinemascope is not a curved screen, it's a flat screen. But the, the poster is trying to slightly trick you into thinking that it's that the screen has the curved effect.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:17.000
That's, that's cinerama, which the different technology. Cinemascope is trying to, by having that sort of curved device in the middle of the screen, they're slightly tricking you.
00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:22.000
The modern miracle you see without glasses, because audiences would have been going to see 3D films with polarizing glasses.
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:28.000
And of course this isn't threed, it's just a wide screen, it's just a big wide screen.
00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:33.000
It is a fantastic looking film and when you see it on a TV screen, on a small TV screen, it does look a bit rubbish.
00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:38.000
You do, it is one that you should watch on the big screen. So they're right about that.
00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:44.000
But as you can see, the word cinema scope is as big as the title of the film.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:54.000
They're making, we're kind of back to these days of the, of the twentys again when they were pushing the idea of sound, but now we're pushing the idea of cinema scope and you know come and see it in the cinema.
00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:07.000
Another interesting element. On this film that you may not notice at first glance is that The the 3 stars are Richard Burton, Victor Mitchell and Gene Simmons there in the middle.
00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:15.000
But that's not Gene Simmons's face on the poster. Initially another act called Gene Peters was cast in the role.
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:24.000
She became pregnant and had to drop out, but not before they'd finished creating the poster. So her face remains on the poster.
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:40.000
I guess twentieth century fox thought it was too much hassle to change her face for Jim Simmons's face and they're just sort of interchangeable heroines, but it's not very, very cool, that she remains there and Gene Simmons doesn't even get on the poster.
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:47.000
Now I mentioned this, it wasn't the first film finished in cinemasco, the first film finished in cinemas scope was how to marry a millionaire.
00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:54.000
But it doesn't have this doesn't have the scope or breath of a of the robe.
00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:06.000
So it's pushed, it's pushed to second. It's still a great looking film and you still You still want to see it on the big screen, but the lure of seeing 3 women in her apartment in New York.
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:17.000
In widescreen is less than the idea of saying you know the crucifixion in widescreen for example it's a start it's a different scale of topic of subject matter.
00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:31.000
The same period how the West was one this is Cinerama the mightest adventure ever filmed Cinerama was a technique that used 3 a curved screen and 3 projectors to show an ultra wide image and I think they make the most of it on the poster here.
00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:37.000
They absolutely go for it on the poster showing how wide the image will be. And again, that's that's all about spectacle.
00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:52.000
No one from the same era that's really interesting. Is Cleopatra I mean a big a huge a huge money pit for twentieth century Fox at the time Interesting to look at the comparison between how it's advertised in the states and how it's advertised in the UK.
00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:59.000
So this is the, this is the American poster which has got a few frames from the film down the bottom and that, and that lovely.
00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:09.000
Painting in the middle the the european poster looks like this this is a French version of the, all the European post has always used this image.
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:21.000
What's lovely about this as a footnote to the Cleopatra story is that when the when the production of Cleopatra moved to Italy, they abandoned loads of costumes and loads of sets, leaving them behind in the UK.
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:23.000
And that's how we get carry on Cleo because the carry on team were able to go in and use all the abandoned costumes and abandon sets, which is why Carry on Cleo looks so good.
00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:42.000
Sid James is basically wearing Richard Burton's costume. And the carry on team absolutely send that up in the in the poster for carry on clear which is basically a pastiche of the of the, poster.
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:49.000
So they're having fun at the expense of that. Again, we've gone into the sixties now.
00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:50.000
An interesting, an interesting example is 2,001 a space odyssey on its initial release.
00:39:50.000 --> 00:40:08.000
It's considered to be, it's considered to be a Sort of a quite sterile, hard science fiction story about astronauts, very realistic, very Kubrickian and cold.
00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:16.000
But they realised after it's first released is that the hippies in the States are going out in the intermission.
00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:22.000
And dropping acid and coming back and enjoying the second half of the film on asset when it when it gets quite psychedelic.
00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:28.000
So when the film is reissued the following year It gets a new poster. The ultimate trip.
00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:33.000
So they absolutely lean into that idea and to represent the film, not as this cold sterile thing.
00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:34.000
But as something that you're going to want to watch, chemically, chemically altered.
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:49.000
If at all possible. So they lean into that without ever saying it. So it's interesting to look at those 2, the sort of double release of those films.
00:40:49.000 --> 00:41:02.000
That takes us into the seventies where things change quite rapidly in the seventies with much more of a trend for single strong images on Seventies poster and there's some very stark images that come out of the seventys.
00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:11.000
I love this one. Philip Gipps, does this poster. He also does alien, which we'll see in a moment.
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:17.000
You know, very strong sort of single or double image with the texts that have quite sort of artfully shrunk.
00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:27.000
Down there. This, you know, this leads to all sorts of quest of iconic sort of single image not not quite as depictive.
00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:33.000
Post it from around the same area like your main streets. Jaws of course, I mean it's basically one image, isn't it?
00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:38.000
It's basically just a shark. But it's very striking and it sticks in the memory.
00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:49.000
It's a film post that that everyone can certainly remember and likewise Philip Gibbs again. Doing alien, just a terrifying alien egg, which you don't even understand until you've seen the movie.
00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:59.000
So again, the trend in the seventies is for a single striking sort of sticks in the, sticks in the memory kind of image.
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:07.000
Then Star Wars comes along, which is an homage to classic Hollywood in so many different ways, not least in the poster.
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:14.000
This looks like a sort of classic film poster. And it leads the way in posters going for more painterly art again.
00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:23.000
Depending just swings back, we go back to more painterly posters and more complex montages will get sort of coming into the into the eightys.
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:32.000
Although before we leave the seventys entirely The towering of Ferno is a fascinating one. It's the first example of a a diagonal billing.
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:40.000
If you see Steve Mcqueen's name is to the left, Paul Newman's name is to the right, as are their faces, but Newman is higher than Mcqueen.
00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:47.000
So who's the star? Because we read from top to bottom but also from left to right and they're agents have argued.
00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:52.000
About who's the who's film this actually is massively to get that to get to that compromise.
00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:59.000
And we end up with quite a hodgepodge of a poster. I think whoever Pope painted the original poster art which is reduced to that rectangle in the middle.
00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:09.000
Intended for that to be the poster. There's even clearly sort of space left for text at the bottom of that image, but it gets reduced in amongst all the legal wranglings about who's the star of the film.
00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:17.000
The image gets reduced. And shrunk down, which is a terrible shame. Of seeing that. Sort of properly realized.
00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:33.000
And the seventies King Kong is very much in the vein of spectacle. Again, it's, yeah, almost the past each of the original thirties, King Kong, you know, the Delorentis is that much of a sort of showman as well.
00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:40.000
It's just sort of King Kong for the modern age. There is still only one can call.
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:41.000
We should take a quick dip into the rest of the world while we're here and we've been very Hollywood and UK centric.
00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:51.000
I thought to show you some from Poland, the home of the home of great graphic arts, Poland.
00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:58.000
Most World War 2. This state-owned film, Polsky, didn't really care very much what the posters look like.
00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:02.000
They didn't really get publicity materials for when they got films to show. So they just kind of go a bit wild with abstractions.
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:12.000
So this is for a later screen of Sunset Boulevard. I mean, so you have to look, you have to figure these out to some degree.
00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:19.000
Roman holiday that one's a bit easier to figure out but again it's quite it's more sort of suggestive than depictive.
00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:29.000
Like this one, the birds. Very simple, but, It almost feels like it's made by someone that hasn't seen the film.
00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:39.000
Rosemary's baby, which is very striking. Hugely colourful not in the spirit of the film at all but a really striking image.
00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:47.000
Cabaret, sort of cleverly using the dancers legs and the swastika, pretty much on the nose that one.
00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:53.000
One for alien again feels like it was done by someone who hasn't seen the film
00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:58.000
And one for a much later ratio of the film Black Narcissus. So this is what it looks like when countries show films that they don't really know what the films are and they have the licensed at this point.
00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:11.000
They've never, they would never happen now. But to show, you know, to create posters however however they want to.
00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:19.000
We should probably do this we should take a very quick dip into the wonderful world of posters of Ghana and I show these not to take the wonderful world of posters of Ghana.
00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:26.000
And I show these not to take the Mickey out of the Ghanaian film industry because I think these are fantastically creative but again they absolutely show The posters were often done by people that hadn't actually seen the film.
00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:39.000
So brace yourself. For Ghana and King Kong. Promising much more Then we'll be in the film, I think.
00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:46.000
Thanks, these get weirder. Ghana and Mission Impossible. Not very flattering over the cruiser.
00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:53.000
They still gonna get weirder. The Ghanaian, the Godfather poster. You guess is as good as mine.
00:45:53.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Why is the cat the one smoking the cigar? Why is the cat inormous? I can't, I can't answer that.
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:06.000
The Ghanaian poster for ET. Which gets weirder the longer you look at it.
00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Magically, it includes Michael Jackson and an alien face hugger. God knows what they're what they're trying to achieve here and weirdest of all the Ghana and Mrs. Doubtfire.
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:23.000
Obviously nothing like that happens in Mrs. Doubt fire. That just having a lot of sort of unlicensed fun.
00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:32.000
With, with the poster images. Oh, and the spy who loved me, which was obviously at 1 point called The Spy Who Love You.
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:41.000
Very very odd. I thought it wouldn't be it wouldn't be a complete look at film poster art without dipping into the wonderful world of Ghana.
00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:46.000
I mentioned that we go into the world of eighties, but this is a bit earlier, but painted posters again.
00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:59.000
So Bob Peak is a big poster at start at this point. West Side Story is his first painted poster but he also has some great painter posters for Camelot.
00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:10.000
I mean that's fantastically detailed. Roller bowl. Apocalypse Now, which is both painted and has that seventys one image iconic thing happening, which is great.
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:20.000
And then he does a good start during the motion picture. And another, couple of names from that time, the eighties are Drew Strewson and Richard Amsel, who are painters.
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:27.000
We're going back to the painterly thing at this point. So Drew Strouzen does back to the future, which is, again, iconic.
00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:38.000
That's an unused back to the future. Which I quite like. And Richard I'm still radius of the lost art which is hugely iconic and very much in the spirit of the sort of thirtys swashbuckling posters.
00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:46.000
But again, you know, paint it is the crucial thing, not just a photo. Lots of the eighties painted ones are pastiches, so blazing saddles.
00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:52.000
It's a paste of Well, Rogers, the same sort of rearing horse in both.
00:47:52.000 --> 00:48:02.000
The Empire Strikes Back, which is a lovely modern painted poster, the central image of that Nicked completely from the ratio poster have gone with the wind.
00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:10.000
Hands out of Right there, Gabon, Vivian, Lee. So that's a, an absolute, an absolute lift.
00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:18.000
From, a very knowing homage. National Lampoon's vacation. This is a an absolute rep on.
00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:28.000
Conan the Barbarian and that same image gets past each blows this particular this particular look right up to sort of modern ones.
00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:37.000
Something like the breakfast club gets paste pretty hard. As the Texas Chainsaw Mask up part 2.
00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:51.000
I mean that's that's a, any leave of its photo but it's It shows by this point, film posters are so in the public and the public's mind that you can pass these to them in a way that That's the public will.
00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:04.000
Well, absolutely understand. And just to sort of bring us right up to date, what are your modern trends in film, in film poster are definitely, now look out for these when you're out and about blue and orange.
00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:12.000
Blue anions, a handy guide to good and evil or just a neat way to make a striking, sort of left-right image, born entity.
00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:21.000
Jump at these or modern term legacy. They all This idea of half the image being orange, half being blue is a really a very modern take on the film poster.
00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:27.000
But it goes right back to something like show go in Hollywood. The 2 contrasting colors have always gone nicely together.
00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:34.000
And that's why. That same picture. The loner, the loner from behind, unforgiving.
00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:36.000
The line Dark Night. That's a popular modern meme as well for your film posters.
00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:45.000
The mismatch, 2 mismatched characters back to back, will they be friends?
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:51.000
Will they be enemies? Probably both. Gets pastaged all over.
00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:56.000
So there's nothing new. Black and white for action with a splash of colour.
00:49:56.000 --> 00:50:06.000
Gets used all over and over and over again and blue on a tilt for disorientation. That's absolutely, that's absolutely part of it.
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:13.000
That really brings us out to date and I've gone slightly overweight I promise to go because I did promise that I would take some questions.
00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.000
So we've still not come up to date there. Comes a lot to fit in, wasn't it?
00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:32.000
Will come out of this. I've been seeing things pop up in the chat, so I'm sure there are some, some, some great questions and we've come right up to the modern day so let me dip out of this and stop sharing it so you can see my face again which you've probably missed and here I am.
00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:45.000
Yeah, thank you very much for that. We'll go straight into some questions. Okay, so firstly from David we're going right back to the start of what you showed us the very first poster.
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:55.000
And man holding his top hat is kind of in the prime position within that photograph, What does that say?
00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.000
It's interesting, isn't it?
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Can we have a little look at it again?
00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:07.000
Back, yeah, let me bring that single image back up again. There will be a second. You've caught me.
00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:18.000
You've caught me. Let me put let me bring back up here it is. So the very Yeah, the very first one, this, Hey, I want he is impromptu.
00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:24.000
I mean, it's a lovely layout. It's featured. It draws your eye right across the image, doesn't it?
00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:29.000
Right, so He is in prime position, but he's there with his family. I think it says something about cinema as family entertainment.
00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:38.000
And, he's gone in his top hat, he's well-to-do. The whole family are there.
00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:42.000
It's clever because the, the image, the image on the screen isn't central.
00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:47.000
The image on the screen is kind of at one side. So it's almost like we're in the audience as well.
00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:55.000
And what the poster is advertising is really the experience. The experience of being in the in the audience.
00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:06.000
So I, I, yeah. I don't think it's saying anything about cinema being, you know, a sort of exclusively male or exclusively sort of posh.
00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:11.000
Environment. I think it's saying far more that this is for, this is for sort of good upstanding family people.
00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:23.000
It's not, that it isn't, that there isn't anything sort of weird or salacious or odd or sort of haunted or creepy about cinema and moving pictures that this can actually be sort of family and statement.
00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:26.000
I think that's the sort of crucial message that's being sent out with this. And like I say, even the sort of concierge is sort of laughing at the picture, although, you know, it's a 45 s film.
00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:39.000
He must have seen it like a trillion times. Which I think is quite funny. But yeah, they're all there, the whole family.
00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:42.000
I think that's the, I think that's the message that's being got across there.
00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:48.000
Hmm, okay. And hope that answers your question, dude. Another question from Stuart.
00:52:48.000 --> 00:53:00.000
When you were talking about, the, and some of the earlier posters as well, the kind of first kind of proper film star.
00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Hmm.
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:04.000
Stuart's asking about Florence Lawrence. You'd always thought she was kind of right up there.
00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:05.000
At that point.
00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:11.000
Yes, Ch as you. She said about the same time Florence Lawrence, so she comes through the biograph studios.
00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:24.000
The thing about Theta Barra is that, and actually Thornton's probably does just about pred-date, I suppose the interesting thing about The Dubara is that she's not really the Debara.
00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:26.000
Her whole identity is made up. So it's in some ways it's a better example of sort of Hollywood star making than, than Florence Lawrence.
00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:39.000
Although Florence Lawrence is kind of She's, she's sort of made up as well to some degree and they It's the very beginning of the film press.
00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:44.000
So they the the biograph studios that own foreign sciences contract they make a big deal about putting stories in this contract they make a big deal about putting stories in the press. They make a big deal about putting stories in the press.
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:53.000
They're about other stories. So they're about other stories. So they put stories in going, putting stories in the press. They're about other stories.
00:53:53.000 --> 00:54:06.000
So they put stories in going, oh, there was a story that something bad happened to Florence Lauren going oh there was a story that something bad happened to Florence Lawrence don't worry it hasn't here she is and it's the sort of war of this war of press once once you get these names but yeah absolutely France Lawrence is around in the US and about the same time as the state of
00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:08.000
Barra i guess they devara becomes the more exotic proposition because they make up a whole back story for her.
00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:32.000
You know, she's just from Pennsylvania and they make up the story that has, that her, she's the offspring of an Arab prince and a, and a, and a French woman has wandered into the desert and she's, she didn't speak English and they make, they make up this whole ridiculous back so that the public absolutely They absolutely lap it up, they love it.
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:43.000
And even, you know, even though they know it's not really true, that it has that element of sort of Hollywood star making that I think is less present in the Florence Lawrence story.
00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:51.000
But Forest Lawrence is an interesting character. And, and yeah, very also very crucial part of early named stars.
00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:56.000
It's amazing that Cinema existed for so many years before somebody thought We should put the actors names on this.
00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:00.000
Like we could actually do something with this even from even as a kind of selling point, you know, it's it's a turning point.
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:08.000
And it's all at the same time. So yeah, absolutely, Florence Lawrence.
00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:28.000
Okay, right question from, I think. I'm not sure which poster, referring to, but I think quite often in some of the posters that the actors names are not necessarily with their images and they don't seem to be in the right place.
00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:33.000
Is there a reason for that?
00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:34.000
Hmm.
00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:37.000
This is a modern trend as well. You'll see this all the time. It's been especially in the modern day.
00:55:37.000 --> 00:56:03.000
It's because the your actors agents will negotiate with the studio as to the order of names. And then they'll have separate negotiations about what image to use and the order that you, would appear in the poster if it's opposed to it like an ensemble cast of 3 or 4 people so because those 2 negotiations are both important it's important where you appear in the image and it's important where your name appears at the
00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:14.000
top. They don't always match up. So you might, you know, the studio, the studio might say, Yeah, your name can be second, but then you, but then you have to be fifth in the image.
00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:17.000
And so you end up with a weird situation where the names at the top but they're not above the right heads.
00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:29.000
It really annoys me. It does my head in. But it's it's it's it's not dissimilar to the Towering Inferno thing really where it's all it's all about It's all about, it's all about agents and egos and who's and who's the star.
00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:39.000
And, yeah, it really bugs me and, it's, I find it really frustrating.
00:56:39.000 --> 00:56:42.000
When you look at a bitch and it's like, and you're like, hang on, that's not Jennifer Aniston.
00:56:42.000 --> 00:57:00.000
Why does it say Jennifer Ashton about it? And because because it just is sort of transparently about clout and who's who's more important to have their name up there and who's more important to have their face there so yeah it bugs me wildly and it's always happened to some to some degree although it's much more of a modern phenomenon.
00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:01.000
Awesome.
00:57:01.000 --> 00:57:04.000
Yeah, okay, right. Okay. A couple of questions from Mary actually, related to each other.
00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:16.000
She's asking where do these posters tend to get auction? Is it the usual big auction houses that you find these things?
00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:26.000
And what about damage posters? Do they sell? Are they worth selling? Do they?
00:57:26.000 --> 00:57:27.000
Hmm.
00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:30.000
I think Collect well collectors normally want the most the most pristine ones they can find. As with all sort of collectable things.
00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:38.000
You know, any amount of damage will halve and then quarter the amount you know it won't just take a bit off the price.
00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:48.000
If they're graded like like vinyl records or books in the only the best examples are really worth the big bucks.
00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:55.000
But I think, but yeah, for something really rare, I think if you had something really rare that had a little hole in it, someone would probably still off for you a good sum for it.
00:57:55.000 --> 00:58:03.000
If there are better examples around. And yeah, they do sell through the through some of the big sales have been through Sotheby's and some of the big America.
00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:08.000
Though this in the last 20 years a bit of a sort of ecosystem of online places have sprung up in America.
00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:14.000
There's a auctioneers called Profiles in History that exist in the States that You can look on their website actually and go back through all their previous sales and a lot of Hollywood memorabilia.
00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:31.000
Has come through there. There's a couple of, there were a couple of really big Hollywood memorabilia sales in the seventys when a lot of the studios were dumping their old assets and people bought all sorts of things cheap including posters.
00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:40.000
So yeah, but they are, you know. That, you know, they're approaching half a million, some of these posters, so Sotheby's and the like, they, they absolutely want, want a bit about.
00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:46.000
Yeah, okay. Right, we've got 2 3 more questions and then I think we'll start to wrap up.
00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:54.000
No, this is from Maureen, I think, let me just try and find the question.
00:58:54.000 --> 00:58:59.000
I think it was about the posters. Did they have the designers names on them?
00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:04.000
Some of them do some of the ones we showed there have got a little designer's name sneaked in and some of them don't there's no hard and fast rule.
00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:14.000
So those those 2 matching posters for flying down to Rio, the 2 matching posters for, flying down to Rio, like the second one is not signed.
00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:15.000
So So you don't know if that's a William C or or if it's not a C, right?
00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:23.000
Is it one that you forgot to sign or is it one that, you know, that's done by another hand?
00:59:23.000 --> 00:59:30.000
So, that is unfortunately very much on a case by case basis. It's obviously it's Fantastic if artists have squeeze their signature in somewhere and you can and you can identify who's done that.
00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:46.000
You tend to get Actually, now the minor, which I was going to say, the very early ones tend to have more signatures on, but it does just really just, yeah, it just really varies my studio and it varies by artist.
00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:49.000
So being specific to the post you were hunting down, I think.
00:59:49.000 --> 01:00:00.000
Okay. And I hope that answers your question, Maureen. And, another question from Joan.
01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:06.000
The censorship of poster seems to have been much more lax than for films, I guess, at a certain point of time.
01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:15.000
Some of you out there will probably remember the lecture we had on Hayes code. But it was your last one, Christopher.
01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:18.000
So yeah, it seems it seems to have been that way, you know, looking at the Jane Russell ones.
01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:28.000
Yeah, and it's interesting because they're right there is a whole sort of slew of posters that definitely in that period that promise more than the film could ever actually deliver.
01:00:28.000 --> 01:00:36.000
Whether, whether it be something that's a bit saucy or something that's a bit horrible or a bit violent.
01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:42.000
So, you know, it's sort of the sort of schlockier 50 things like creature from the black lagoon and so forth.
01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:48.000
They often they often over promise and they often show things that aren't in the movie. And some later films do as well.
01:00:48.000 --> 01:00:59.000
But you're right, the film, the posters themselves, Yeah, they pass less stringent checks before they kind of before they reach it out to the, to the public.
01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:04.000
There's much less of a furore over whether a poster is a little bit, revealing.
01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:10.000
Otherwise, you, you could never have advertised. The outlaw, like that because Okay, there's more flash in the poster than there is in the in the film.
01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:18.000
But it's just, it's just marketing. It's just luring you in.
01:01:18.000 --> 01:01:27.000
Okay, final question. And this is from both Susie and Carolyn. They've asked the same question.
01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:28.000
May.
01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:30.000
And are you a collector of film posters? And if so, do you have a priced possession?
01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:35.000
I'm not early because I haven't really got the space for them. I do have a couple.
01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:48.000
I've got a I've got, I'm not going to go and get off the wall and show you, but I've got, a Star Trek, the motion picture, foiled poster from, the British release of that in 1,979 and that's quite nice.
01:01:48.000 --> 01:01:50.000
Not hugely, not hugely valuable, but that is quite a nice one to have. There are a few that I would love to have.
01:01:50.000 --> 01:02:00.000
But they look So good when they're big. I think you need a lot of wall space.
01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:09.000
There's the few I'd love. There's I mean, something like a once upon a time in the West, the Sergio, that has a lovely, lovely poster.
01:02:09.000 --> 01:02:12.000
I'd love to have one of those, but lovely poster. I'd love to have one of those, but you, if it's small, it just doesn't come to you and it would take up a whole wall, but probably more than a whole wall.
01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:25.000
So, It's yeah, also I'm aware that it's a once you sort of open that box and you go into it suddenly you're a collector of things.
01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:36.000
I try and avoid being a collector of things, wherever, wherever possible. So no, I would love to be in another world where I'm much richer, I would, there's a, that I would want to have.
01:02:36.000 --> 01:02:44.000
But, I suppose my tastes change as well, like, Even putting together posters to show today for this, I was looking at some of the Polish ones and thinking, oh, they're brilliant.
01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:51.000
They're brilliant bits of graphic art. It'd be lovely to have one of those. But then you've got to look at some twentys and go, oh, it would be nice to have one of those.
01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:52.000
Where do you stop?
01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:56.000
So in some ways, Yeah, I'd have to decide. I'd find I'd run out of house.
01:02:56.000 --> 01:02:58.000
But it's nice to have, it's nice to have This
01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:04.000
Yeah. Okay. Right, well, thanks again, Christophe. We have to wrap it up there and some fabulous images.
01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:10.000
And I think you've jogged the memories of quite a few people out there with some of them.
01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:16.000
Really quite fascinating to hear that you know some of those early movie posters that really weren't about the movies at all that they were depicting.
01:03:16.000 --> 01:03:18.000
Hmm.
01:03:18.000 --> 01:03:29.000
And I have to say I'd never really noticed some of those trends that you showed towards the end there of the more recent trends in terms of the blue and orange and the tilt and all that kind of stuff.
01:03:29.000 --> 01:03:35.000
So I will certainly be looking out for that when I see all the buses going past and this is the city centre with all the movie posters on them.
01:03:35.000 --> 01:03:42.000
So. I hope everybody enjoyed that. We have run on a wee bit, but I think it was absolutely worth it.
01:03:42.000 --> 01:03:46.000
And as I say, don't forget to look out for your email tomorrow with some details of some related W courses that you might be interested in after today.
