Unpacking a large shipment of posters brings back memories. When I was a young boy there was not a lot on television in The Netherlands with only two channels and what was on offer wasn’t what you call “exciting”. Of course there was Paul Verhoeven’s knight series FLORIS with the irrepressible Hans Boskamp as the pirate Lange Pier (Tall Pete) uttering the cry “Hoe Gravinnevlees! (Hey, countesses meat!)” before giving Countess Ada (Diana Dobbelman) a little spanking when her disguise as a page boy had failed. Enough to make a young boy blush and I’m sure it did. (If you are curious and understand Dutch you will find the sequence between minute 13 and 15 on this link.)

For some serious loin stirring though I had to wait until the Angelique series was being broadcast in the early seventies. I don’t recall a lot of details, haven’t seen any of it for over 30 years. I remember there was a lot of traveling. Angelique was always going places, running in either a figurative or literal sense to escape the men who were lusting for her. The combination of action, foreign locale and shapely Michele Mercier was irresistible, well for a ten year old boy anyway.

I already have two posters from the series, but they are a bit so-so.

ANGELIQUE, MARQUISE DES ANGES (1964, 120x80 cm, Germany)

ANGELIQUE ET LE ROY (1965, 60x80 cm, France)

Of course these posters have nice portraits of Mercier and they do highlight Angeliques hair colour. As I watched it in black and white, I always thought she was Bardot blond, not this fiery reddish blonde. Anyway there’s something not quite right. The posters are a bit tame, Michele looks too goody, she might as well be Sissi.

That’s why I’m so happy with my new Italian posters. They portray the movies like I remember them and why I adore Italian posters. Here are full on Angelique posters, bold and sexy, a strong woman every man would like to conquer, but can’t.

ANGELIQUE, MARQUISE DES ANGES (1964, 100x140 cm, Italy)

MERVEILLEUSE ANGELIQUE (1965, 100x140 cm, Italy)

INDOMPTABLE ANGELIQUE (1967, 100x140 cm, Italy)

ANGELIQUE ET LE SULTAN (1968, 100x140 cm, Italy)

The posters remind me of two other aspects of the series stuck in my memory. In the first place, if Angelique was not running, she was either laying on bed half naked or put to display for roving eyes of men.

The other thing is the man of mystery, Jeoffrey de Peyrac (played by Robert Hossein). He sure brought something sexy to the mix as well, the beast. The concept that he was ugly, due -but only due- to this enormous scar, is very clever. Romantic pulp fiction at its best. And what do you know the Italians picked up on that, with large scar-faced heads on their posters, though looking at INDOMPTABLE ANGELIQUE and ANGELIQUE AND THE SULTAN their art men did not need too many designs of a male head with a scar.

In the spirit of this entry I just watched a few examples of Angelique on YouTube. Here’s the trailer for the first film:

Pretty much as I remembered and enjoyable, but I don’t think I will re-watch the series in its entirety.

It takes more than a pretty redhead to keep me interested in a romantic action flic nowadays. Having said, there was another trip to memory lane when I opened my package. A few years after the Angelique series I discovered even older movies with sharp witted heroes and stunning heroines. One of my favorites was and still is SCARAMOUCHE. Again it it set in Paris, the perfect decor for any swashbuckling hero, especially when you are allowed to wear these spectacular trousers. STEWART GRANGER is perfectly cast for this one, his finest role. I don’t think any other actor could quite fill these trousers as he did. I’m sure the Prince Regent in Blackadder the Third would approve. MEL FERRER is excellent as well as the evil and perfectly wigged adversary. Last but not least SCARAMOUCHE has two great actresses. JANET LEIGH was pretty, but did not have the effect ELEANOR PARKER had on me. Some words of LORD FLASHHEART from Blackadder II spring to mind: “Lenore, you’re sexy, WOOF!” And what a great actress to boot. Click here for one of the best swashbuckling scenes and look below for one of my best recent acquisitions. It’s the Italian quattro foglio.

SCARAMOUCHE (1952, 140x200 cm, Italy)

New Years Day now, just enough time to make one list for 2011, that of my best buys in 2011. By ‘best buys’ I don’t mean the cheapest bargains or the most expensive acquisitions. The buys I love the most are usually the ones I’ve been looking for a long time or strike some kind of personal connection. Here’s my top 10 of 2011 in no particular order.

 1.Themroc

THEMROC (1973, 16x24", French)

Themroc made in 1973 by French director Claude Faraldo  was one of my first “unusual” anarchic movies I saw and I still love it very much. This story of Michel Piccoli going caveman after years of the same old rut, making his own cave in a community flat and hunting policemen at night for dinner should be seen by anybody who likes movies. It’s not  often shown, which is a shame and Faraldo only made a handful of movies (probably an even bigger shame). Posters for this title don’t show up regularly neither, so I was very happy to find this one.

 2.Killer Shrews

THE KILLER SHREWS (1959, 28x22",US)

I’ve tried not to include the posters on which I’ve posted earlier in 2010, but I must make an exception for this one. I stayed on the scent for one and a half years until I found a copy in decent condition for not too much money. Just a short time ago I would abandon my pre-set limit and buy it anyway for too much money, but this year, for the first time, I’ve been pretty disciplined and let the various too expensive ones go.

 3.House On Haunted Hill 

THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959, 39x55", Italian)

I’ve been looking for an American half- or onesheet for this title even longer than for the KILLER SHREWS. Somehow the price of these posters recently have shot up so quickly that it isn’t funny any more. In addition to the ever climbing prices, my consequent searching for this sombre iconic US poster made me loose interest. I’ve bought this Italian one instead when the opportunity was there and am glad I did. I love the bold colours, I love the girl on the front, it is much more difficult to find than the US-posters and it’s bigger! I think I can wait a lot longer now for the US poster, hopefully the prices will drop again in the future.

 4.Rosemary’s Baby

ROSEMARY'S BABY (1969, 27x41", US)

ROSEMARY’S BABY by Roman Polanski I did not like at all when I saw it the first time. I thought it was slow and tedious. Mia Farrow’s dream sequence stuck in my mind though. It prompted me to watch it again, have done so quite a few times and what do you know I really like it now. A similar thing happened with this poster. I’ve never looked for it and never gave it a second glance. I really just bought it as I had bought other posters by the same dealer. Anyway, love the design by Stephen Frankfurt (see more: The Movie Posters of Stephen Frankfurt), especially the use of that wonderful brooding green.

5. Elke Sommer in Artis with husband Joe Hyams 1960′s

Please click the link for a short overview:Elke Sommer In Artis

Stills have become my major source of joy and surprise. I generally buy small collections or bulk lots in stead of single stills. It’s like buying yourself a present without knowing what it is. Here’s a short series of stills made by Dutch PR-agency Charles Aerts Productions. They show Elke Sommer and her husband at the time, actor Joe Hyams, visiting Artis, the Amsterdam Zoo. It happens that I spend a lot of time in Artis when I was a youngster, climbing fences to secure free entrance, collecting (of course) bird feathers or porcupine spines. I can recall these carousel- like animal enclosures that can be seen on the stills. Ah memories.

6.Carmen La De Ronda

CARMEN LA DE RONDA, 23x32", French

Wow, what can I say. Just beautiful. I think the only time last year I did not care how high the bids would stack up against me. Unknown movie, have not seen it, but had to have this poster.

7. Strangers On A Train

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN LC#7 (1951, 11x14", US)

Another favourite movie of mine. Great movie. This is the best lobby card you can get. Spotlight on psychopath Robert Walker with his hands loosely around the neck of Ruth Roman, fiancée of hero Farley Granger. A scene that won’t be seen in the movie.

8. Taxi Driver (restricted version)

TAXI DRIVER (1976, 27x41", US)

Now I get to the part of favourite people. I’ve written quite a bit about Martin Scorsese last year and I’m still wrestling with a project inspired by him. I haven’t made the progress I would have like to have made. TAXI DRIVER is very important for me, it marks the beginning of my passion for movies. Maybe this poster is the talisman for success in 2011. It’s not particularly beautiful, but it certainly catches the mood. Added bonus is the description “Restricted” on this poster with it’s adult movie sign in black and white.

9. Human Desire

HUMAN DESIRE (1954, 14x22", Belgian)

Gloria Grahame, there are not more actresses more film noir than she is. Not particularly beautiful, but a sultry blonde femme fatale with husky voice on the one hand and a screeching spoilt little brat that won’t make it ever on the other. This Belgian poster is the best for HUMAN DESIRE, Fritz Lang’s noir version of LA BETE HUMAINE by Emile Zola.

10. Jean Simmons on the verge of her breakthrough wearing Musketeers in 1946

JEAN SIMMONS (1946, 8x10", UK)

Apparently swashbuckling Stewart Granger saw Jean Simmons in BLACK NARCISSUS (by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger) and fell in love with her on the screen. I second that emotion. Jean Simmons as Kanchi alone is enough to watch BLACK NARCISSUS over and over. Never thought a film about nuns would have that effect. Jean Simmons’ beauty particularly shows well on the screen and on stills and not so much on poster art work. Maybe her features are just a touch too delicate for brush and pencil. This still shows Jean rather as a young girl in stead of a professional actress. She had played small bit parts in several movies in 1945 and was about to explode on the scene. Here’s the text on the snipe on the back of the still:

“All set on the holidays – lovely JEAN SIMMONS, a Rank starlet who will shortly be seen in the Cineguild production GREAT EXPECTATIONS and Two Cities HUNGRY HILL, wears these three quarter length slacks, called “Musketeers”. This outfit is in blue with pipings of white, white belt and shirt to match. JEAN will shortly be seen in BLACK NARCISSUS & UNCLE SILAS.”

Invaluable information and sound fashion advice I’m sure you will agree.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!

the Etruscan shrew

Please indulge me first to get off on the title of this entry. After long and hard deliberation I was a bit dazed and weary to use the original title. In the end I decided that “Size Does Matter” might attract too many enhancement seeking net-surfers. This entry is not about sex, it is about “the perfect poster size” and a bit about the wonderful time in cinema history in the 1950′s when you could made exploitation movies just by enlarging small creatures or adopt animal features in humans. Long live mad science and nuclear power!  In later entries I will write about other and bigger sizes. For now I will focus on halfsheets and onesheets to emphasize the effect of width-height ratios. This recent acquisition is a good example for the perfect poster size with the right dimensions. It’s the halfsheet (80×60 cm) for THE KILLER SHREWS.

The KILLER SHREWS halfsheet (22x28")

This is one of the best poster designs in its genre. The pink ladies pump, the small puddle of red blood and the blueish grey tail of the human-eating insectivore are in subtle harmony with the tagline “all that was left after…”. The poster size ratio of 4:3 width vs height zooms in on the visual message and enhances the lateral dynamic of the tail. For comparison here is the standard poster size of the onesheet (67×104 cm).

Killer Shrews onesheet (27x41")

The onesheet is almost twice as high as it is wide and now the written message takes centre stage instead of the message of the image. It loses subtlety this way. The top half of the poster is also too dark, the design loses colour. It’s still nice of course, especially when compared to the DVD-cover which totally unnecessary shows the heads of the little monsters and which colour use detracts completely of the tail-shoe-puddle combo.

Now let us have a look at the miracle of enlargment.

The onesheet is the standard US poster size. This means that an artist or ad man will focus on the onesheet for the poster campaign. As a consequence lots of designs work better for the onesheet as it is often conceived for this size. A great example for this is another monster movie based on tiny creatures, THE GIANT LEECHES from 1959.

The GIANT LEECHES onesheet (27x41")

Here the width-height ratio works extremely well with the design. The movement of the design is not lateral as with the KILLER SHREWS but vertical. The people at the bottom are really down and out. The leeches have learned to stay upright and are towering over them. The effect is enhanced by the rain lashing down on the poor mortal humans. From a perspective view the leeches aren’t actually so much bigger than the humans, but here the bold yellow typography of the title in the middle of the poster breaks the natural perspective and tells us that these creatures are really, really big.  All these effects are diminished when the design is cropped to the ratio of the halfsheet.

GIANT LEECHES halfsheet (28x22")

Another striking example of the effect of downward motion is this other favorite onesheet in my collection, I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF from 1957.

I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (27x41")

In an earlier entry, The importance of being artist, I discussed the phenomenon that in the western world we read and visualize from  left to right and from top to bottom. The WEREWOLF onesheet is a prime example of this. The combination of these two laws of graphic design enables the combo of the girl menaced by the boy to be in full view, yet at the same time to be very much in the background. On the forefront is the claw with the blood dripping down, almost as if it is a point of view scene. The claw at the front is connected to the girl-boy combo at the back through the very much point of view title I WAS etcetera. Adding bonus of this design is the image of the boy as we, who have seen the movie, know that this is the boy that actually grew this claw. A feature which is absent in other vertical formats like the insert (14×36″) and the threesheet (41×81″).

I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF insert (14x36")

These designs are only top to down, whereas the onesheet also works left to right. Well that’s what I think anyway and why I think the onesheet is the best. The vertical design does not work on a halfsheet and the design of the halfsheet is probably for this reason very different and not nearly half as nice as the onesheet.

I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF halfsheet (28x22")

So all in all sizes do matter and it does not have to do anything with sex.

Ah alright then, maybe one Russ Meyer classic  for the top to bottom effect.

LORNA onesheet (1964, 27x41")

Pretty close to the opening of MOVIE INK. now, but I have to put in this entry first of some recent acquisitions. One of the more pleasing aspects of European movie posters is that the artist or studio responsible for the artwork often is credited on the poster. I like to know as much as possible about my posters and a known artist is an indispensable source of information. Not only can it shine a light on how a design is made, but it can also give insight in the possible meaning or idea the artist intended to convey. This is especially interesting for movie posters as these are intended to carry a commercial message. Anyway, yada yada yada, this entry is about some aspects concerning the importance of the artist: the era and person. To illustrate this my first recent acquisition.

Comment j'ai tué mon enfant (1925), 25x39 "

Frans Bosen

Frans Bosen (1891-1949) is one of the first movie poster designers from The Netherlands. He started his career as an apprentice typographer, but he really wanted to be a illustrator. He took lessons at various art colleges and discovered his passion for linoleum etching. In the early twenties he was one of the first designers in The Netherlands that took up designing movie posters. In these early times both movies and movie posters were still young, but growing vigorously. For a young artist this gave numerous challenges. Colour printing was yet to be a dependable way of producing posters. So Bosen took to his passion of linoleum etching. He had a preference for strong colours with sharp, eye-catching, combinations. For each colour he cut a separate plate which then were printed on each other. Bosen also designed the typography of his posters. He mainly made posters for mainstream American and German movies, often basing his design on single stills from the picture.

Comment j’ai tué mon enfant is not a well-known movie, made in France in 1925. In The Netherlands it had a run in six cinemas in 1925 and 1926. The dramatic title is a bit of a red herring. Apparently it is a dramatic comedy, but that certainly is not the theme Bosen went for. In stead he went for solace. Behind the dark figures and the crucifix we see the eternally flowing sea and a spectacular sunset to symbolize the circle of life. I especially love the details of the waves. Whether the design is representative for the movie I don’t know, but it makes a spectacular poster, very different from this French poster I found on the web.

Comment j'ai tué mon enfant - French poster, dimensions unknown

In the early twenties poster design was much more appreciated as an art in itself and not necessarily subordinate to the objective of selling a movie. From the thirties onwards this changed when cinema became the leading form of global entertainment. Designers needed to be more pragmatic. Few Dutch designers will have been as pragmatic as Frans Mettes (1908-1984) or indeed as prolific. Mettes’ career started in the early thirties. When he died in 1984 he must have made well over thousand posters, especially commercial posters. But he did not only do posters, he also made comics and other stuff, like book covers. Basically he did everything where he could use his skills as humorous illustrator. Mettes was very much a free artist, but also the advertisers dream. He loved to make commercial work. His trademark were posters with funny, simple characters based on the products and short tag lines. Certainly not a man for over-elaborating. Maybe his love for effective, commercial design, made him a bit of an underrated artist in more arty circles in the past, but that has changed recently. An example of effective design is this Dutch poster for BLOOD AND SAND probably from 1948.

It is not his most creative work and in this respect representative of a lot of his movie posters shortly after World war II. A lot of movies distributed after World War II were titles made during the early forties. I can easily assume that it is not the most challenging assignment to make designs for “old” movies and as there were several foreign campaigns easily available no real need to be original. Obviously Mettes made good use of the existent US campaign and I think he showed his instincts for efficient commercial design.

Blood And Sand - US 27x41"

Blood And Sand - US 14x36"

The US campaign has three major elements, a portrait of Rita Hayworth and Tyrone Power, a scene depicting a bullfighter and a bull and the title in bold, blood red, letters. If you see this clip, you know right away why. The plotline is not too complicated. In reproducing the original art it would be obvious to use the one sheet as the main element of the poster campaign. However the one sheet is not very nice. The composition is off , the black and white photograph detracts from the colourful affair the picture is supposed to be and the bullfighter scene is too overpowering. In the insert the proportions are much better. Focus is on the romantic leads and the bullfighting episode is a side story as it should be.

Mettes has picked up on this, so he uses the portrait as focal point. Not only does he do this, he also reverses the image switching Hayworth to the right and Power to the left. A subtle, but crucial change. In western culture we read and visualize from left to right and from top to bottom. Effectively the switch ensures that the focus is full on Hayworth now, high and to the right. This effect is enhanced by placing the bullfighting element to the bottom left and separating the two visual elements with the title. Here he uses the more pleasing and flowing letters from the one sheet. I have no idea if this is what Mettes had in mind, but I like to think it is an example of Mettes’ designing skills.

Blood And Sand - Dutch 33x46"

There is less doubt about the intent behind the design of my last two acquisitions. SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS was a prestige production for the British studio Ealing. Before Ealing was to become a household name for top notch British comedies, it had established itself during World War II making a string of movies in different genres. SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS  was to be their signature picture for quality, their master work. It was their first picture in Technicolor and had a look as if it was dipped in gold leaf. The poster campaign needed to bring the same message across. This picture was glossy, this was luscious, this was gold quality. For this reason Robert Medley (1905-1994) was signed. Medley was not a usual choice. He was quite another kind of artist then for example the craftsmen Bosen and Mettes. No apprenticeships were in order. Medley was part of the elite. In fact, Medley was not a graphic designer by trade and rarely stepped out to this kind of assignment. He was a recognized painter and artistic director of The Groupe Theatre. In 1986 he was elected to the Royal Academy. What I like about the posters he designed for this movie is that you can see he was not a regular graphic designer. Although he clearly stuck to his brief in regards to the gold leaf, the design are very sketchy, dramatic, in a word arty. Today a design like this would be described as a design for an art house movie. That was definitely not the ambition for SARABAND, which however did bomb spectacularly as if it was one… Beautiful and unusual posters though. Very happy to acquire both the quad and the double crown.

Saraband For Dead Lovers - UK 20x30" (double crown)

Saraband For Dead Lovers - UK 30x40" (quad)