I love Hamilton Books and the “drops” they have each month where new merchandise is made available on the site. This outfit seems to specialize in remaindered media, and my library has grown by leaps and bounds through their discounted blu-rays and DVDs. Their prices are generally quite low, so I have also rolled the dice on some titles I would otherwise not be tempted to buy or of which I simply was previously unaware. Sometimes this pays off in a big way. Such is the case with 2016 documentary 24×36: A Movie About Movie Posters.
In a few ways, this is similar to a documentary I watched last year about all manner of things record related, called Vinyl Nation. In that film, many interviewees provide insights into various aspects of vinyl manufacturing, marketing and collecting. 24×36 does the same, except for the world of illustrated movie posters.
Appropriately, the picture begins with the invention of lithography and the resulting theatrical posters of Jules Cheret. It then goes into a brief chronological overview of the earliest movie posters up to the present era.
I especially liked Joe Dante’s comments that “when I was a kid, the first connection you would have with a movie is seeing the poster”. He later adds: “Very often the poster was more exciting than the movie”. Another talking head remarks how video stores were similar to art galleries. Similar to Dante, that person also says the resulting films were often not as good as what the cover art inspired him to think they would be.
One thing I never considered is how posters can actually change the viewer’s perception of the movie. An interesting bit concerns how many people remember Creature of the Black Lagoon as being in color, even though it isn’t. It is the vivid colors of the poster skewing their memories.
Alas, like so much commercial art, posters were generally treated with disregard in their own time. One person talks about opening up the walls of movie houses and discovering balled-up posters had been used an insulation.
There also was a general lack of attribution, even when such a prestigious artist as Norman Rockwell would do one for The Magnificent Ambersons. Little had changed by the 80’s, when artist John Alvin would hide his signature in his work, such as his name in the clouds on the one for E.T. or on the side of a building for Blade Runner.
And there are many artists here I was not previously aware of. In addition to Alvin, there’s Bob Peak, widely renown for his distinctive visual style for the sheets for Superman, Apocalypse Now and Rollerball. Or how about Richard Amsell, who did those for Hello Dolly and The Sting. And I’m sure everybody is familiar with the work of Roger Kastell, who did the posters for The Empire Strikes Back and Jaws, the original painting of which has been missing for forty years.
Technology of the 1990’s drastically changed expectations and perceptions of movie advertising. The Quantel Paintbox ushered in a digital revolution resulting in a template photo-illustration most people just described as “Photoshopped”. Funny how I never really noticed how the overwhelming majority of posters and physical media covers are little more than giant faces of one, two or three main actors in the film, along with the title and some peripheral ephemera. I’m not even sure I am using either of the last two words in that sentence correctly, but I liked the way that reads and sounds.
Similar to the vinyl resurgence, the past couple of decades have seen a return to illustrated advertisements. Unfortunately, these are almost exclusively alternates to the official artwork, which is why the covers of disc cases are largely still that same godawful format we have seen consistently used since the 90’s. The illustrations are often alternate posters, and much of this documentary concerns those artists and the thriving collector’s market for their output.
One aspect of this I had not considered is licensing, and the final chapter digs deep into that topic. This is the driest part of the film, and yet the one I found the most intriguing. I was not aware some artists do unapproved fan art while others actively seek approval from rights holders.
One artist has a fascinating story of being prevented by MGM from using Vincent Price’s name or likeness on posters of one of the actor’s most well-loved films, The Abominable Doctor Phibes. He reached out to Victoria Price, his daughter, to see if she would be willing to intercede on his behalf. She did, and now her father’s name appeared in the same rather tiny type alongside fellow actor Joseph Cotten’s at the bottom of the poster.
Unfortunately, there is one technical flaw I need to report concerning the disc and that is an interviewee talking in untranslated French. Unfortunately, his words were not translated into English in subtitles. Curiously, although the disc has an English subtitle track, what he is saying is missing from the screen entirely, not appearing in subtitles in either language. Fortunately, he is not in the film for long. Still, I would have liked to have known what he was trying to convey.
Even with that brief technical flaw, I still highly recommend 24×36. Although the topics covered here are similar to those of vinyl fanatics interviewed in Vinyl Nation, I was surprised by how much correlation there was to another interest of mine. In the earliest years of video games, especially in the home market, artists were rarely credited for their often gorgeous hand-illustrated work that advertised those games. And, similar to move posters, photo-illustration (really, photo-realistic computer illustration) came to replace that. I don’t know anybody else who collects arcade game flyers like I do, but I felt an immediate kinship with those in 24×36 who collect posters and who lament the end of an era of work of greater artistic value.
Dir: Kevin Burke
Documentary
Watched on Raven Banner blu-ray