’Candy’ (USA/Italy, 1968) by Averardo Ciriello
Collecting movie posters can be a rewarding hobby—and even a lucrative one, too, if you view your collection as an investment that you’d be willing to sell later in life, after it has appreciated in value.
That’s what I try to tell my wife all the time! She’s never amused and resists my “charming rogue”/“Honey, can I spend some money?” puppydog act with a stone-faced sternness that makes me dribble away, chastened every time I run into her office with my laptop asking her to “Hey, look at this!” Because what she knows—and you don’t know—is that I really, really, really like buying movie posters. I have a lot of them. A lot a lot of them. Not hundreds upon hundreds, but certainly several dozens upon dozens of them. And the sad fact is, even with some of the beauties that I’ve amassed over the years, I have framed exactly one of them (a nice Magic Christian one-sheet that hangs in my office) while the rest have remained rolled and folded in my closet, safe, but unseen and under-appreciated.
See that nifty Italian 2-panel poster for Candy painted by artist Averardo Ciriello, above? I stumbled across that looking for something else a few days ago. And now it’s mine. I just didn’t tell my wife that I bought it. She’s probably finding out about it the same way you are. (I knew that if I asked, that she’d only say no. So I didn’t ask her!)
I got it via a Los Angeles-based high end poster gallery known as the Westgate Gallery. You can find their online presence at Westgategallery.com.
After the Candy poster was safely MINE ALL MINE I wrestled with the idea of sharing the Westgate Gallery and its wonderful wares with our readers. This is the kind of thing where you don’t want to tell too many people about it and spoil it for yourself. Yes it’s that good. Westgate Gallery—named after the Westgate Cinema, a porno theater in Bangor, Maine known to the proprietor during his obviously wayward childhood—is probably the single best-curated—and not at all picked over—high end movie poster gallery to open in recent years. Launched a bit over a year ago, the Westgate Gallery specializes in posters of Horror, Italian Giallo films, 70s and 80s “Golden Age of XXX,” classic cult films and basically exploitation films of any genre.
Westgate Gallery‘s poster concierge Christian McLaughlin, a novelist and TV/movie writer and producer based in Los Angeles, is obviously a total maven of mavens when it comes to this sort of thing. You couldn’t even begin to stock a store like this if you didn’t know exactly what you were looking for in the first place, and if you want a quick (not to mention rather visceral) idea of his level of expertise—and what a great eye he’s got—then take a gander at his world-beating selection of Giallo posters. He’s what I call a “sophisticate.”
Right now the Westgate Gallery’s flash sale has been extended through January 9th. Every item in stock is 40% off the (already reasonable) list price with the discount code “BF40” at checkout (that’s almost half off if you are bad at math.)
The selection below is only a very tiny sliver of what’s for sale at Westgategallery.com. In fact, 99% of these are culled solely from the horror and retro porn posters sections simply because I didn’t want to hip any of you motherfuckers to THE ONES THAT I WANT in the cult classics and Giallo sections.
Jean Rollin’s ‘Shiver of the Vampire’ (France, 1971)
’Grave of the Vampire’ aka ‘Seed of Terror’ (USA, 1972)
’The Pit’ aka ‘Teddy’ (Canada, 1981)
Jess Franco’s ‘Lorna the Exorcist’ (France, 1976)
’Disco Lady’ (USA, 1978) Rhonda Jo Petty, the star of this XXX feature was known as the “Farah Fawcett of porn.” She tried to pick me up in the Limelight disco in NYC circa 1985.
’Invasion of the Love Drones’ (USA, 1977)
1975’s notorious ‘Defiance of Good’
Ray Dennis Steckler’s ‘Debbie Does Las Vegas’ (USA, 1981)
Paul Bartel’s ‘Private Parts’ aka ‘Blood Relations’ (USA, 1972)
’Torture Garden’ (UK, 1967)
’Porno Holocaust’ (Italy, 1981) Gee, I wonder what this Joe D’Amato film is about?
Fun with funnels in ‘Satanico Pandemonium’ (Mexico, 1975)
A nicely creepy image for Roman Polanski’s ‘The Tenant’ (France, 1976)
‘Is The Father Black Enough?’ aka ‘Night of the Strangler,’ ‘Ace of Spades,’ ‘Dirty Dan’s Women’—starring Micky-fucking-Dolenz!
’Witchcraft ‘70’ (Italy, 1970)
’Driller’ (USA, 1984) This “profondo anal” zombie flick is a 35mm XXX musical parody of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, complete with a boogeying undead kickline and a werewolfish lead monster who ejaculates black goo during hardcore sex. Jackson’s lawyers were able to suppress the film and subsequent VHS release in the US, but obviously not in Italy….
Gerard Damiano’s ‘Satisfiers of Alpha Blue’ (USA, 1980)
If you’ve got the decor to pull off hanging this nightmarishly lurid pink Italian poster for Wes Craven’s 1972 shocker ‘Last House On the Left’ all I can say is “Bless you” and hope that you do not live anywhere near me.
And if you’ve got the decor to warrant something like this little number, a poster for ‘3 on a Meathook’ (USA, 1973) that goes double for you, bucko…
A German poster for Greg Dark’s ‘Devil in Miss Jones III: A New Beginning’ mit iconic punkette porno starlet Lois Ayres
’Queens of Evil’ (Italy/France, 1970)
‘Devil’s Playground’ aka ‘Satan Lovers’ (USA, 1976)
No one will like you if you hang this poster for ‘The Innocence of Valerie’ (aka ‘Valerie Sex Sandwich’) in your home, but I do appreciate the almost Cal Schenkel-like aesthetic quality to this one. Like it could almost BE the artwork for a late 60s Frank Zappa single… (Speaking of the great Cal Schenkel, visit his website. NOW)