Email here for additions & corrections.

Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
(Preminger, 1957)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs (OOP)
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Slither
(Zieff, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Girlfriends
(Weill, 1978)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
(Petrie, 1980)
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

January 8

Bitch Slap

Waiting for Armageddon

Wonderful World

Youth in Revolt

January 15

January 22

Drool

Extraordinary Measures

The Girl on the Train

Ego of an Ad Man

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In a Film in Focus piece called "Genesis of a Poster," Andrew Percival from Mojo House, an advertising company, discusses the poster for Burn After Reading. The inspiration, he says, was the stylish design of cutting-edge movie posters of the '60s. The first example he mentions is the one-sheet for The Comedians. And yet he doesn't mention the name of the godfather of edgy movie poster design in the '50s and '60s -- i.e., Saul Bass. Why, I wonder? What's Percival's obstruction?

I wrote the following last June: "The influence of illustrator-designer Saul Bass persists and persists. Last year ThinkFilm's Mark Urman ordered up a poster for Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead that referenced the look of Bass's classic one-sheets, and this year -- now -- we have a new poster that also hums with Bassian attitude, particularly in its use of a font similar to one Bass used in the '50s and '60s -- hand-drawn, block letters -- for the films of director Otto Preminger. Before revealing the new poster, here are three Bass samples:

Saul Bass one-sheets for Otto Preminger's The Man With the Golden Arm, In Harm's Way and Bunny Lake Is Missing.

"And here's the new poster, revealed today on Cinematical, for Joel and Ethan Coen's Burn After Reading. The font is actually a mixture of Bass and Pablo Ferro's hand-drawn title design for the opening of Dr. Strangelove."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 22, 2008 at 6:14 PM

comment #1

lazarus says ...

It's a shame that few of the DVDs for the films Bass worked on actually use his artwork. Do they think generic photos of the actors are going to be more eye-catching to consumer, even today? Bass work may look retro, but it's still iconic enough compared to everything else that I can't imagine someone in a store just passing over it.

Posted by lazarus at September 22, 2008 7:40 PM

comment #2

MartinBlank says ...

Sadly, the studios probably do believe that the typical floating-heads DVD cover "design" — along with a sizable blurb from some non-entity and, occasionally, a banner announcing that the film was an "ACADEMY AWARD nominee (best sound effects)" — is exactly what does make a DVD stand out among a sea of others on the rack.

Case in point: the evocative one-sheet for No Country for Old Men vs. the floating-heads clutter used for the DVD cover art. I'd imagine that when Burn After Reading hits DVD, we'll get a floating-heads trifecta of Clooney/Pitt/Malkovich. The Coens have had a variable track record when it comes to good DVD covers; I've never understood why Fox didn't keep the great original Barton Fink poster image, not to mention the one for Miller's Crossing. Ah, well, that's what the custom-DVD-cover websites are for...

Posted by MartinBlank at September 22, 2008 9:48 PM

comment #3

dana k says ...

i disagree w lazurus's comment: i think much of the work of saul bass looks strangely new again--
i even think that next to the (newer )one for "burn after reading" that the saul bass one looks fresher--the big black letters are blockier and more fresh-punk.
i love the saul bass style, i feel the same way about most artists...i love their orig work, and i really don't like art-from-influence too much...
the coen bros poster is really cool looking; that is, until you see it right next to the real deal...

Posted by dana k at September 22, 2008 10:06 PM

comment #4

moorish says ...

You said this "last June", Jeff? You mean in June 2007?? Wow, how prescient of you!

Seriously, this ridiculous misuse of the term sucks balls.

Posted by moorish at September 23, 2008 2:07 PM

comment #5

TV Marketer says ...

Just a clarification, for the record, the one-sheet for "The Comedians" was designed by Paul Crifo, who worked alongside Saul Bass at FOX in New York during the 50's.

Crifo has over 150 posters to his credit including "In the Heat of the Night," "Tom Jones" and "The French Connection," but as an agency guy, he never received the accolades of Saul, Bob Peak or Bob McGinnis, his long-time colleagues.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will honor Crifo with a one-man show of his work from Sept-Dec, 2009.

Posted by TV Marketer at November 23, 2008 1:43 PM