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Redesigned posters for cinema classics & cult films: Hitchcock, ‘Re-Animator,’ ‘They Live!’ and more

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Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ by Jonathan Burton.
 
As regular readers will know we have a love of movie posters here at Dangerous Minds. A film poster encapsulates in one single bound a shared memory, a liminal experience, an emotion (and our response) and some abstract of knowledge. A well-crafted movie poster can hit all the bases while still being aesthetically pleasing.

Always on the look out for new movie artwork I was more than tickled to find this selection of innovative and original takes on old pics by a group of young artists from across the globe. Apart from producing work for books, magazines, comics and what have you, the collective at Mad Duck Posters produce officially licensed artwork for a variety of classic movies.

What I like best about these posters for films by Alfred Hitchcock, John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon is how the artists have interpreted each film in a throughly imaginative and contemporary way while still remaining true to their source material.  Most of these posters are up for grabs—details here. Now I just have to find some more wall space…
 
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Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ by Jonathan Burton.
 
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‘Re-Animator’ by Stan & Vince.
 
More remixed movie magic, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.16.2017
11:39 am
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Amazing movie posters for films by Hitchcock, Kubrick and Lynch that we’ll never get to see

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Salvador Dali’s ‘Giraffes on Horseback Salad’ (1937)
 
Most film directors have a list of movie projects they never manage to make. Some are started like Orson Welles’ Don Quixote but never finished—though posthumously released in a re-edited form. Others like Hitchcock’s R.R.R.R. never quite make it from idea to script to studio green light.

L.A. based artist and designer Fernando Reza has created a stupendous selection of film posters for movie projects by directors like Hitchcock, Welles, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch and even Salvador Dali that were discussed, planned, and even partially filmed but never completed.

Take for example Salvador Dali who planned to make a movie with the Marx Brothers called Giraffes on Horseback Salad in 1937. Dali was friends with Harpo Marx and the pair decided to work together on a film project. Dali had already made two short films with Luis Bunuel (Un Chien Andalou and L’Age d’or) and would later go on to collaborate with Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock designing dream sequences for Dumbo and Spellbound.

Dali and Marx concocted a story about an aristocrat played by Harpo falling in love with a woman whose face is never revealed. The great Surrealist intended to use the film to show:

...the continuous struggle between the imaginative life as depicted in the old myths and the practical and rational life of contemporary society.

The film was to include scenes with a “horde of burning giraffes wearing gas masks, and Harpo catching dwarves with a net.” A script was apparently written but the other Marx Brothers nixed the idea thinking the idea a stinker and the script not very funny.
 
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Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Kaleidoscope’ aka ‘Frenzy’ (1964-67).
 
Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make a prequel to Shadow of Doubt with another “Merry Widow Murderer” luring women to their grisly deaths. As with Psycho, Hitchcock had devised three set pieces to focus on the three gruesome murders carried out by the deviant sex-fiend. The first murder was to take place by a waterfall; the second on board a disused warship; the third in an oil refinery against brightly colored oil drums. 

Unlike Psycho or Shadow of Doubt there was no moral counterpoint to the “relentless sex and violence” shown onscreen. A script was written and test scenes shot. Among the actors considered for the lead role were Michael Caine, Robert Redford and David Hemmings. The film was basically a slasher movie a decade ahead of its time. Universal Studios vetoed the idea—thinking Hitchcock’s movie too amoral and too dark.
 
Continues after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.06.2016
11:06 am
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The eyes have it: Eye-catching movie posters that have a very similar look
05.16.2016
01:35 pm
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Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968).
 
In younger days I had a girlfriend who would often ask me to look into her eyes and see how much she cared. Perhaps lacking the imagination—or just that right amount of sensitivity—I only ever saw her eyes staring blankly back at me. Which may explain why we never lasted very long as a couple.

The eyes are said to be the windows of the soul. Or as the Roman philosopher Cicero wisely said:

The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.

The eyes reflect what we’re thinking or more poetically as Saint Jerome put it “confess the secrets of the heart.” How often has someone said “look me right in the eye and tell me the truth” as if the very truth were evident in those watery orbs for all to see? It is a common belief that our organs of sight do reveal everything—even as far as those detectives who believed photographing the pupils of Jack the Ripper’s victims would reveal the image of their killer. Those detectives were wrong, but in truth our eyes do reveal more than we know.

Last year in Sweden, scientists announced after a study of 428 individuals that every eye is unique—as unique as a fingerprint—and each iris can indicate different individual character traits. Apparently, the more pockets or “crypts” (threads which radiate from the pupil) in the iris, the more a person is supposed to be kind, sympathetic and warm-hearted. The more “furrows” (lines curving around the outer edge) the more neurotic and impulsive.

According to Matt Larsson, the behavioral scientist who led the study at Orebro University:

...people with different iris configurations tend to develop along different trajectories in regards to personality.  Differences in the iris can be used as a biomarker that reflects differences between people.

Then it’s true—our eyes do reveal secrets. But we must know how to read them first—and not just see them simply staring blankly back.

Advertisers have been canny to this idea for a long time. A big close-up of an eye on a movie poster tells the public exactly what to expect from a film—fear, terror, violence, alienation, or otherness. It is a well-used trope for horror movies—a vulnerable eye looking out in terror on which we can see the reflection of the killer getting ready to despatch another hapless victim.  As can be seen from this small selection of movie posters, this heavily-leaned on semiotic message can sometimes work exceedingly well (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), fail miserably (Blind Eye), explain the whole movie (The Day of the Jackal) or just be plain old weird (The Theatre Bizarre).
 
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Fred Zimmerman’s ‘The Day of the Jackal’ (1971).
 
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Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Straw Dogs’ (1971).
 
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John Boorman’s ‘Deliverance’ (1972).
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.16.2016
01:35 pm
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Not quite coming soon: Movie posters for imaginary film sequels
11.17.2014
11:34 am
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‘Death: Diabolik’ by Robert Sammelin
 
It’s a game for long distance car journeys where you and a buddy sit and discuss those films you think would make good sequels. You know the kind of thing: American Psycho 2: The Race for the White House in which Patrick Bateman has the good fortune to become Republican Senator with ambitions to be the next President; or South by Southeast the follow up to Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, which begins on the same train with the top bunk honeymoon embrace between Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint.  Of course, some sequels are already out there as books, while others have characters or situations that suggest prequels waiting in the wings. All of which brings us to these rather cool posters for various imaginary sequels and prequels, all of which are available to buy.
 
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One day I do hope this will happen, and that it will be as promising as Odessa Sawyer’s poster makes it look: ‘Pan’s Labyrinth: Fall of the Underworld.’
 

‘Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League’ by Robert Sammelin
 
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Simply, classy design: ‘The Rocketeer 2’ by Alex Griendling.
 
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Looking slightly darker and more Frank Frazetta-like, Ashley Wood’s ‘Barbarella 2.’
 
More posters for imaginary sequels, after the jump….

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.17.2014
11:34 am
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