No comments about Chinese Propaganda Posters.

1 comments about War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication.

1. This book is a formidable weight! It can be used as a 'coffee table book' but it is more than that. The illustrations are brilliant and the explanatory text very interesting. If you have an interest in propaganda, you should love it. I was given it as a present but I would have bought it anyway if I had spotted it first. It is unusual and brilliant.

2 comments about Film Posters of the 50s: The Essential Movies of the Decade (Film Posters).

1. Like the other decade books in this series Film Posters of the 50's is a sensational buy. You could either keep it intact as a collection of posters in a book to show and discuss with friends, or cut the book up and actually have a vast number of posters up on your wall. This book is about a third the size of your standard film poster and most movies are full page colour. Any of them would look great up on the wall. Don't know what the previous reviewer is complaining about, must have confused this book with a similar title or something because this ain't like he describes.

   The 50's decade has films by Bogart, Cary Grant, James Dean and Grace Kelly. Alfred Hitchcock made some gems as well. You'll find them all here along with your 50's movies like I Married a Monster From Outer Space, Attack of the 50ft Woman, Creature From the Black Lagoon and The War of the World's.

   I wasn't even alive back then but I recognise most of these movies. They're classics. This is a sensational book to own.




2. If I were only measuring this book by the 250+ images of movie posters in it, I would say it deserved more than five stars. Unfortunately, the layout has two flaws. Many of the images are reproduced in unnecessarily too small sizes. Some of the two page spreads have the key point of interest right in the middle of the crease. The book also would benefit from a much more thorough discussion of the techniques used in the posters.

   This book is the third in a series that also covers the 60s and 70s in earlier versions.

   This volume could have been entitled "The Movies Strike Back at Television." The posters emphasize new technologies (like 3-D glasses), lurid promises for the dying "B" pictures, and lush designs to help attract people away from their TV trays. Attractive new stars like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean helped.

   Photographic reproduction in these posters is uniformly grim, so those posters which only feature drawings are the best. The most abstract ones appear in European and Japanese versions, and are usually the most outstanding.

   A movie poster can help set the mood for the movie experience, and enhance the emotional impact much like music does on the film track. In some cases, these posters seemed to go beyond the movie itself. The poster for War of the Worlds seemed clearly more forbidding and overwhelming than anything I remember from the movie itself.

   You will also enjoy recollecting your memories of these movies from looking at the posters.

   What was most impressive to me was the way that a poster used a gesture, a moment in a scene, a character, or a design to capture the essence of the whole motion picture. This is the ultimate test of the old saw, "a picture is worth a thousand words." In this case, the best posters are worth many tens of thousands of words, and speak more eloquently than any words could.

   Here are some of my favorites: La Dolce Vita; Sunset Boulevard (Polish version); The Bad and the Beautiful (Italian version); A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Japanese version); Vertigo; The Man with the Golden Arm; Anatomy of a Murder; Attack of the 50 Foot Woman; The War of the Worlds; The Ladykillers; The Man in the White Suit; Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (French version)(2); Mon Oncle (French version); Moulin Rouge (Polish version); French Can-Can (French version); Casque D'Or (French version); Lust for Life (British version); Kanal (Polish version); The Steel Helmet; The Dam Busters (British version); Reach for the Sky (British version); The Bridge on the River Kwai (British version); From Here to Eternity (French version); Bio Bravo; High Noon; Carmen Jones (Italian version); Gigi; Jailhouse Rock; and On the Waterfront (Italian version).

   We are indeed fortunate that Mr. Nourmand has shared his taste and collection with us in this volume.

   After you have finished enjoying these images, I suggest that you take a look at the logo for the organization, project, or company you work for. How well does it establish what you are trying to accomplish? You can use these posters as a guide to what is possible.

   Be sure to make your visions vividly available to all!

1 comments about The Art of Skiing: Vintage Posters from the Golden Age of Winter Sport.

1. This book has great visuals, from all different countries, and is a perfect gift for the skier you know who likes old-school stuff. I actually bought this for someone who doesn't understand English, but the artwork stands on its own.

3 comments about Design for Victory: World War II Poster on the American Home Front.

1. This beautifully designed small coffee table paperback is the perfect guide thru US WW2 patriotic industrial and gov't posters. Yes, sometimes one may have felt "Big Brother" is watching, since these artistic posters decorated the walls of factories, building sides, and seemingly near everywhere during the war years. The message invariably was "Be A Nurse", "Help the Troops", "Contribute to the effort", and most important "Don'T SHIRK ON THE JOB..MAKE EVERY MOMENT COUNT FOR THE BOYS OVERSEAS!" Of course similar posters were designed and displayed by all combatants, and their messages were all near identical. The postwar industrial posters are also noted, and they were definitely childish at worst, compared with the noble and heroic aspirations sought in the best of the War Posters!



2. "Are you doing all that you can?"

   That simple question, asked in a popular WWII, finger-pointing poster, captures the patriotic spirit that pervaded America.

   Posters, according to the authors, deserve credit as "the ideal agent for making war aims the personal mission of every citizen." Further, "Poster campaigns aimed not only to increase productivity in factories, but to enlarge people's views of their wartime responsibilities." Rockwell's enduring classic images, The Four Freedoms, illuminate this ideological trend.

   How did wartime posters inspire military recruits, help increase domestic production, and sell war bonds during WWII? What were the different strategies used by government agencies to promote American ideals, self sacrifice, and gas rationing to a scared and confused public? Which advertising methods and artistic techniques worked best? Why?

   This concise, colorful guide examines the power, poetry, and politics of American WWII posters in five thematic chapters. Delving beneath the surface of over 150 colorful posters, the authors showcase and analysis the zig-zag evolution of wartime posters.

   Personally, I found chapter three (Art, Advertising, and Audience) to be a fascinating summary of vigorous debate among message makers. How should the war effort be framed? Is it a struggle for truth and democracy against terror and fascism? Is it a battle for survival? Should the focus be on personal fears, national achievements, or heroic freedom fighting?

   George Gallup, later of pollster fame, urged posters be designed to appeal to "the lower third" of the population. Other analysts warned that the Office Of Facts and Figures early communication efforts were too abstract and contained too much information. "It would be wonderful indeed if the psychological war could be fought on an intellectual basis," warned two critics "if the American people who will win or lose this war were so educated and conditioned that we could bring them understanding on the terms we all prefer. But, through no fault of ours, they unfortunately are so educated. And in pitting the strategy of truth against the strategy of terror, we cannot stop to educate - we must win a war. We must state the truth in terms that will be understood by all levels of intelligence. Further, we must dramatize the truth." Powerful images soon replaced statistics in posters.

   The considerable efforts to coordinate wartime messages across departments also generated vigorous debate. Eventually, the newly formed Office of Wartime Information identified six basic propaganda themes for general information programs: The nature of the Enemy; the nature of our Allies; the need to work; the need to fight; the need to sacrifice; and Americans and our ideals.

   This visually appealing book also carefully examines the proliferation of wartime posters, full of patriotic messages, created by non-profit organizations, unions, and corporations. The last chapter, Postwar Aims and Private Aspirations, focuses on the impact of Sheldon-Claire company posters celebrating the middle class home, the traditional nuclear family, consumerism, and free enterprise. It also features a haunting gas mask poster produced and distributed by Kroger Grocery store chain.

   The epilogue, the weakest section by far, argues that the change in postwar workplace posters reflected a more condescending air toward workers, explicit anti-union messages, and the renewnal of industrial conflict between management and labor. This thin section seems both out-of-place and a disjointed conclusion.

   Design for Victory, despite this somewhat weak ending, should satisfy the curiousities of graphic designers, artists, historians, and scholars interested in advertising methods and persuasive communication.




3. Anyone intersted in the graphic stylism, the stark imagery, the sometimes disturbing and sometimes hilarious generalizations made in American Propaganda during World War Two should check out this book. It contains many posters that I've not seen in print before, but unfortunately leaves many others out. From an academic, historical perspective the documentation and historical explanations for the U.S. propaganda machine are too brief. Still, the poster reproductions are fantastic, mostly in color. I would also reccomend Anthony Rhodes "Propaganda: The Art of Persuasion" for a look at other countries' propaganda from the same time period.

4 comments about 60 Great Sci-Fi Movie Posters (Illustrated History of Movies Through Posters, Volume 20).

1. War of the worlds, This Island Earth and Star Wars! Every big name movie or B-movie poster you could think of. And a few I've never heard of. Only one point away because some of the posters look like they were unfolded after being left in somebody's basement for a dozen years. Surly they could have found better copies or used computers to take out the flaws. But still, its cheap and holds a lot of poster images, so I really should not complain. Can't help but love the half naked women. Many of which were not in any of the films. Just there to hook the people.



2. With the exception of the more recent movie posters, I thought it was a fairly good collection of 54 classic science fiction posters.



3. All of Bruce Henderon's books are worth a dozen times what he sells them for; flawless, stunning reproductions of great movie posters. Buy them ALL! this is my favorite, though.



4. This is a TERRIFIC book, at a terrific price, filled with - you guessed it - terrific, clean, sharp, colorful images of some of the best science fiction and fantasy movie posters ever created. In that respect, it meets and exceeds a five-star rating.
   
   Alas... I'm still disappointed by it. Here's why. I already have a lot of the Bruce Hershenson books, as well as a number of other movie poster books. This book is Volume 20 in Hershenson's series, yet to those who have earlier volumes, it's a bit misleading to call it that. For earlier volumes, Hershenson took care to try not to duplicate images that had already appeared in the volumes that preceded it. There were occasional duplications, but even those were sometimes welcome to get the images in various sizes (for earlier volumes, the reproduction size would vary from 1 poster on a page to as many as 9 posters on a page). One of the great advantages of this volume is that ALL the posters are presented at full page size, 1 per page. There's even a wide margin at the spine side of the page so you don't have to force the book open wider to see the inside edge of the poster art. (Two thumbs up for that design feature!) My complaint is that the selection in this book - 60 posters - is almost entirely duplicated from earlier Hershenson volumes, AND are generally the same posters for the same movies that all the other poster books have printed ad nauseum over the years.
   
   In that respect, the "60 Great" movie poster books are really "Best Of" collections, which is why I think they should not have been numbered as part of the continuing series. Like a "Greatest Hits" collection from a band, these are spectacular collections, just don't be expecting anything other than the most familiar titles.
   
   Bottom line - it's unquestionably well worth having, but if you're an old hand at movie poster books, don't expect anything out of the ordinary.

No comments about Film Posters Of The 60s: The Essential Movies Of The Decade (Film Posters).

No comments about Film Posters Exploitation (Film Posters).

3 comments about Attack of the 'B' Movie Posters (The Illustrated History of Moves Through Posters Series Vol. 14).

1. All of Bruce Hershenon's books are worth a dozen times what he sells them for; flawless, stunning reproductions of great movie posters. Buy them ALL!



2. What a book! All the poster/lobby card compilations by Hershenson and Allen are great, particularly Volume 10, Serial Movie Posters, which I suspect is their best seller to date, soon to be topped by this one.

   We can argue about the "B Movie" in the title, since many of the posters and lobby cards shown are for exploitation, road show, and drive-in films, and there are some A features to be found in these pages as well. But that's a quibble.

   What images! These were intended to get the farmers off their wagons and into the theatre, and they do serve that purpose. Have a gander at the incredible poster for I LOVE TROUBLE (39), a masterpiece in several senses of the word and from many points of view. The poster for TOMCATS (237) exhibits a very poor understanding of human anatomy but it would cause any healthy male of any age to fumble unconsciously in the general direction of the fly of his trousers. A number of posters and lobby cards feature the immortal Mamie Van Doren, protruding further than seems humanly possible (100, for instance) and Jayne Mansfield (for example 112) is no slouch along those lines herself.

   I'd love to have seen a poster for BOP GIRL GOES CALYPSO starring Judy Tyler, but one can't have everything! Highest possible recommendation, and keep those hands away from that fly.




3. This volume from the series of books from Bruce is fantastic.The beatifull artistic designs of the posters contained in this volume are true classic examples of the fond memories I have from my youth when drive-ins were at the peak of popularity. Although the films were Ed Wood grade z type shlock fare the posters promoting them were class a in artistic design. The general rule of thumbs used by us frequenting the weekly drive-ins was the more outragius off the wall display on those posters(usualy a scanty cladd female and verball quotation to entice the movie going individuals) the most likely the film is a real turkey.Many of us loved making the weekly treck to the driv-ins just to see if the latest presentation could topple the king Plan 9 From Outer Space in realy bad filmmaking.The color posters contained in this volume all are examples of classic poster designing that sadly is lacking in "bland" fare that has been created for film posters from the late 80's to the present day.I highly recomend this gem of a book to any lover of film posters, the price for it is "dirt cheap pocket change" considering the outstanding content it has.A truely unique one of a kind book that I long have searched for and untill now, was never available.

5 comments about Film Posters of the 70s: The Essential Movies of the Decade (Film Posters).

1. This is a wonderful book in the series with wonderful reproductions of the posters of the decade. Makes a wonderful gift for someone who loves movies as well as a great coffee table book. Highly recommended



2. When I first looked at this book, it was like going back to my childhood, well, sort of, it was so neat to see posters of some of my favorite films from back then and a lot from movies that I never knew they made. The artwork on those posters is most certainly something to see and admire!!! If you love art and or movies this is THE book to get you won't be disappointed!



3. Like the other decade books in this series Film Posters of the 70's is a sensational buy. You could either keep it intact as a collection of posters in a book to show and discuss with friends, or cut the book up and actually have a vast number of posters up on your wall. This book is about a third the size of your standard film poster and most movies are full page colour. Any of them would look great up on the wall.

   The 70's gave the world Star Wars, Grease, The Godfather, Mad Max, Alien, Taxi Driver, Texas Chainsaw Massacure, Halloween, Rocky and a very blood thirsty shark who changed human perception of sharks for decades to come named Jaws. These films along with other greats fill this book. Roger Moore also took over from Connery as James Bond and Clint Eastwood made a heap of Westerns. Find them here as well.




4. Excellent... add it to your book collection! If you are a Star Wars fan check this out!



5. back in the day this was the best visual present.if the poster was cool then the movie would get Love.a picture can tell a thousand words.and the 70's had the coolest posters and arguable the best films in Movie History.before video tape you walk to the movie house and see the poster and the reaction you felt led you or back the other way.a solid must have book.