When the posters were better than the films…
In the days before focus groups and digital enhancement, from the late 1940s into the 1970s, movie posters– “one sheets”– were the film business’ barkers, luring viewers into theaters. The creators of these enticements were unsung (as their work was unsigned)– except, of course, within the industry they served. A number of illustrators– Bill Gold, Frank McCarthy, Howard Terpining, and yesterday’s honoree Saul Bass, among others– earned insider prominence. But the undisputed champ, the granddaddy of the poster artists’ Golden Age, was Reynold Brown.
In 1952, Brown, who’d been a commercial illustrator, delivered his first poster…
… thus kicking off a string of some of the most famous movie posters of all time. From the epic…
…through the dramatic…
… and the terrifying…
… to the titillating…
… and the just plain trivial…
… Reynold Brown “put butts in seats.”
See more of Brown’s wonderful work here, here (from whence, images above) and here. And watch this charming documentary on Brown and his work:
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As we salt our popcorn, we might recall that this is the Feast Day celebrating the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (as observed by the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, and Byzantine Catholic churches and the Church of England, (including many national provinces of the Anglican Communion).
“Salome and the Apparition of the Baptist’s Head” by Gustave Moreau (the Reynold Brown of the mid-19th Century)