I’m always amused at how past movie poster artists emphasized certain unusual themes for specific genres, such as crime films. So what happens when you design a German movie poster (Bonnie and Clyde), a French affiche (To Trap A Spy by Roger Soubie), and an Argentinean poster (Highway Pickup by Bloise)? Shattered glass!
Category Archives: Movie Poster Smackdown
Remake Monday: Solarises
It sounds like psoriasis — but Solaris was a fairly popular sci-fi pic made in 1972. I first came upon the splendid Russian poster below on the cover of The Art of the Modern Movie Poster (second from left). The film was later relaunched in 2002 (or, some might say had a failure to launch) with George Clooney.
Chinatown Smackdown!
One of the greatest movies of all-time, Chinatown, also happens to have one of the coolest movie posters of all-time. My personal fave is the US version by Jim Pearsall, but the German version done by American artist, Richard Amsel, has its share of loyal fans, too. The French version, unfortunately, is uncredited, but I just had to feature it since this was a world class smackdown!
Movie Poster Smackdown!
Every once in a while, I like to do a poster breakdown á la Posteritati where we compare and contrast the different U.S. and International versions of a past film release. And this time up it’s Two Weeks In September (1967), starring Brigitte Bardot.
Personally, my favorite is the Argentinean version (lower left) with the UK one-sheet (lower right) a close runner-up — but you gotta admire the fearlessness of the Polish version (top, far right) for going totally abstract like those Polish beauties tend to do!
Aniston Meets Streisand!
The Internets have been on fire with pics of Jennifer Aniston doing her best Barbra Streisand for Harper’s Bazaar. Although I never thought there was much of a resemblance between the two, it’s hard not to see the similarities in the types of films they’ve both chosen to do over the years — especially when it comes to the looks of their one-sheets!
Risky Businesses
Speaking of Jouineau Bourduge, aside from doing many other 60’s, 70’s and 80’s classics, he is also credited with the French version of Risky Business (far right), as seen below in this poster comparison.
But I’m a little confused: is that supposed to be sexy or just misogynistic since the car is driving over the women (and not vice versa like in the USA and Italian one-sheets)?
Alterna-Tati
Like Hitchcock, Jacques Tati wasn’t afraid to insert himself into his movies as his Monsieur Hulot character/profile was finely cultivated and featured prominently in many of these alternative versions of posters from various countries.
Here’s a more detailed poster comparison for Trafic (of course, not to be confused with Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic).
The Terraces
In The Art of The Modern Movie Poster, Sam Sarowitz (of Posteritati fame) does a poster breakdown for a few select movie titles, comparing and contrasting the various International poster designs from each country. So I thought I’d do that here with From The Terrace (1960), a not-so-popular film adaptation of John O’Hara’s bestseller, starring then-newlyweds, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Check out the official trailer here.
My personal favorite is the French version, which was done by notable artist, Georges Kerfyser.
The Clash Is Back!
I guess this weekend’s box office numbers left little doubt that remakes make money. Here’s the innocent little original 80’s posters (by Gouzee and The Hildebrandt Bros, respectively) compared to the amped-up 2010 version.
Movie Poster Museum 