Back in the seventies, one would ocassionally find flyers, posters or even program books in movie theaters as a sort of souvenir of the movie you were seeing. It was always a pleasant surprise. This nifty, slick paper mini-poster is, of course, from the second Roger Moore James Bond film, THE MAN WI
TH THE GOLDEN GUN. I always felt as though I should have liked this film more than I did. After all, it was directed by Guy Hamilton who had done my two favorite 007 pictures, GOLDFINGER and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and it co-starred one of my favorite actors, Christopher Lee. Nevertheless, it was (and remains. Saw it again recently on cable) disappointing. Strangely enough, the film seemed to strongly influence my favorite comic book of just a few years later, though--Marvel's MASTER OF KUNG-FU. As writer Doug Moench veered into more outlandish spy territory, even Herve Villachaize kind of crept into the comic! In the meantime, one can hardly fail to notice in the poster seen here the style that would soon (along with Jim Steranko) become a major influence on MoKF artist Paul Gulacy!
ah, those were the days. just the other night, i was leafing through my program for Moonraker, and i remember picking up the comic that they released in cinemas for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, though where it is now is beyond me, and a big old poster they sold in the foyer when Star Wars first came out. . .
ReplyDeletethat poster there's Robert McGinnis, isn't it?
Yes I believe that is McGinnis artwork he did a string of the Bond film posters.
ReplyDeleteThere used to be a fantastic website called The Art Of James Bond, that had extensive information about the posters for each film, complete with variations for different countries etc. It was there that I first learned of Robert McGinnis and Frank McCarthy.
ReplyDeleteOne surprising thing about this poster was that although the main art was by Robert McGinnis, those karate kicking Asian lasses in the middle were done by Basil Gogos and added afterwards.
cheers
B Smith