To finish off mob week, I figured we should go right to the top dog by featuring cinema’s most notorious gangster, Al Capone.
Several biopics have tried to capture the killer Capone, but I would pick out DeNiro’s performance in The Untouchables and Boris Grinsson’s French affiches of Rod Steiger as the best in the lineup — even though John Solie’s one-sheets of Ben Gazzara do make him look like a pretty badass version of the 1920’s kingpin…even if he is wearing spats!
Contemporary film fans were gunned down by Chicago gangster, John Dillinger, last summer with Johnny Depp’s dead-eye portrayal in Public Enemies. But there have been plenty of other pics profiling the charming Depression-era bank robber over the years…
Everybody’s favorite Scarface or, at least, the most popular is Al Pacino. But a lot of different actors have tackled the part of the notorious gangleader, or some B-movie bastardized version of the character.
So say hello to my little friends, which were created by the likes of such notorious poster artists as Osvaldo Venturi (bottom, left), Michel Landi (top, 4th on right), Rinaldo Geleng (top, far right), and Constantin Belinsky (bottom, middle).
Although the trailer looks more like a remake of the Blake Edwards’ Bo Derek-starrer, 10, the new Adam Sandler-Jennifer Aniston-Brooklyn Decker movie, Just Go With It, is actually based on the late 1960s Walter Matthau-Goldie Hawn film, Cactus Flower.
By the way, the Cactus Flower one-sheet below was done by Bond designer legend, Robert McGinnis; and the voluptuous 10 by American beauty, John Alvin. (via ImpAwards)
It’s another movie poster matchup: Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967) vs. the race-reverse casting of Guess Who (2005).
I came across this 1957 French actioner, Nathalie (which was later re-titled in the USA as The Foxiest Girl In Paris) while looking up stuff on Clement Hurel whose tell-tale style is recognizable in a few of these French poster versions. (via Moviecovers)
Have no idea what the film is about, but if the movie posters are any indication, it could be ripe for a kickass remake with Angelina Jolie.
ImpAwards has up the new character posters for Little Fockers…
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.
Movie Poster Museum 