Above: French grande for EL TOPO (Alejandro Jodorowsky, Mexico, 1970). Artist: “Moebius,” aka Jean Giraud, aka “Gir” (1938-2012).
You might expect something wilder from the fecund paired imaginations of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the artist known as Moebius. But this striking yet unusually restrained poster for El Topo (courtesy of Film/Art Gallery who provided a second, that’s-more-like-it Italian poster for the film that also made the top 20) was the most popular poster on Movie Poster of the Day over the last three months by a long stretch of desert.
Collecting the posters with the most likes and reblogs yields a particularly attractive and typically diverse collection of art. There are Danish posters for French films, Polish posters for Italian films, Italian posters for Russian films and Russian posters for American films. Plenty of great artists are represented: from the Sternberg Brothers to John Alvin, from Andrzej Onegin-Dabrowski to Georges Kerfyser, from Mac and Moebius to Ferracci. (And somehow two posters designed by yours truly made the grade, which I attribute more to the allure of their subjects than to my own design skills.)
There are classics galore (400 Blows, Solaris, The Long Goodbye, Rebecca, L’eclisse, F for Fake) but there are also some gems for little known films, like the Soviet poster for 60s sci-fi Andromeda Nebula, and the French poster for the sports doc The Olympics in Mexico—two of my favorite recent discoveries, both courtesy of Posteritati.
As always, sad to say, there are the posters that I featured as post-mortem tributes: to Gene Wilder, Muhammad Ali, Mad magazine cartoonist Jack Davis, and beloved New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham.
There are also four splendid posters for new films: La La Land, The Birth of a Nation, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World and Tale of Tales, proof that there are still great new designs and great new designers out there. Below are the rest of the Top 21 of the past quarter (it’s usually 20 but the last two were in a dead heat), in gently descending order of popularity. Enjoy.
Above: Spanish poster for REBECCA (Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1940). Designer: Macario Gómez Quibus aka “Mac.” (b. 1926).
Above: Japanese 1975 re-release poster for THE NAVIGATOR (Buster Keaton & Donald Crisp, USA, 1924). Designer: unknown.
Above: Polish poster for L’ECLISSE (Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 1962). Designer: Andrzej Onegin-Dabrowski.
Above: Soviet poster for ANDROMEDA NEBULA (Yevgeni Sherstobitov, USSR, 1967). Artist: Shulgin.
Above: US one sheet for THE ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES’ SMARTER BROTHER (Gene Wilder, USA, 1975). Artist: John Alvin.
Above: US teaser one sheet for LA LA LAND (Damien Chazelle, USA, 2016). Designer: LA.
Above: Danish poster for THE 400 BLOWS (François Truffaut, France, 1959). Designer: Benny Stilling.
Above: 1974 Italian 4-foglio for SOLARIS (Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR, 1972). Artist: Renato Casaro (b. 1935).
Above: Italian 4-foglio for THE GREATEST (Tom Gries, USA, 1977). Artist: unknown.
Above: Teaser poster for THE BIRTH OF A NATION (Nate Parker, USA, 2016). Designer: TBD.
Above: French affiche for F FOR FAKE (Orson Welles, France, 1973). Designer: Rene Ferracci.
Above: 1926 Soviet poster for SCRAP IRON (Charles Ray, USA, 1921). Designers: Stenberg Brothers.
Above: US one sheet for THE LONG GOODBYE (Robert Altman, USA, 1973). Artist: Jack Davis (1924-2016).
Above: 1973 Italian 4-foglio for EL TOPO (Alejandro Jodorowsky, Mexico, 1970). Artist: De Seta.
Above: US one sheet for THE LAST MOVIE (Dennis Hopper, USA, 1971). Designer: unknown.
Above: US one sheet for IRMA VEP (Olivier Assayas, France, 1996). Designer: Adrian Curry.
Above: US one sheet for BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK (Richard Press, USA, 2010). Designer: Adrian Curry.
Above: US one sheet for TALE OF TALES (Matteo Garrone, Italy, 2015). Designer: Adrian Gio Lopez.
Above: US one sheet for LO AND BEHOLD: REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD (Werner Herzog, USA, 2016). Designer: Steven Smith.
Above: French grande for THE OLYMPICS IN MEXICO (Alberto Isaac, Mexico, 1969). Designer: Georges Kerfyser.
Poster sources are all credited on Movie Poster of the Day; click on the titles above for more information.
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