I’ve been down with Saul Bass tributes for so long they look like up to me. The man with the golden arm (or the golden eye or pen of what-have-you) was born 100 years ago today, and passed just over 24 years ago at age 76. My three favorite Bass-designed title sequences remain the same (and in this order): Ocean’s 11 (’60), North by Northwest (’59), The Man With The Golden Arm (’55). And one of best tributes ever, I feel, was the decision to go solely with the crooked-arm visual on the marquee of Times Square’s Victoria theatre. That was enough, United Artists believed.
