Poster Comparison

The Italian Job

I chose the movie The Italian Job for my movie poster comparison for the main reason that really liked the remake. I found it very interesting to see that the movie had several diverse posters for their different timeframes of release in theaters and some in different countries.

So let’s start with the older posters from 1969 and then from the rerelease in 1999 of the same movie. In the American released poster, I can see where the stand out eye catcher is the woman dressed in a bikini with her back to you. In 1969 there would have been no way the movie ratings industry would have allowed her to have her scantily covered front side to the poster. You then have Michael Cain in a cutting edge fashion for that timeframe in a turtle neck with his hair is a purposeful mess, almost in a stoic Marlboro Man type pose. The captioning is cutting for its time with some yellow aura around it and throughout the poster. You also have some action in the background in the form of police in riot gear with batons and two mini cars rushing down a stairwell giving some intrigue and showing that this will be an action-packed film worth seeing.

                       I found this poster that was released in 1969 in Italy completely fascinating in that it showcases some serious Roman type architecture in the background that would be found locally lending to the credibility of the name of the movie. There are no sexy selling points on this poster, but it has flowers and lots of color throughout the poster. It looks like the fashion in Italy at that time would have been a long sleeve button down shirt with a vest which leads to a very serious note. Even the border around the picture is serious as it looks like it is a map with no nonsense fonts.

                                     This poster appears to have been released in Japan. It has the sexy girl in it alongside a seriously American gangster looking Cain complete with a cup of tea and a gun. The gun being the epic American Tommy Gun which lends an action from the western civilization that was rarely seen in Southeast Asia. It has a lot of automobile action with the car rushing towards you in the tunnel and several vehicles chasing each other underneath Cain in his leather office chair with my grandpa’s golf shoes on.

                                   This poster looks to be a rerelease from 1999 in the U.K. It has a newer shadowed font in the foreground and the entire poster is comprised of both the English and Italian flags. It again has the stoic Cain looking serious and the cars racing towards you through a tunnel. I find it interesting that there is a huge red arrow pointing to the cars and on the arrow is written “This is the self preservation society”. Not sure what the saying means, it may be something indicative to the location in the U.K.

                              Now for the recent remake posters, this one was the main release poster that I remember from the theaters. Nostalgic that it has the same yellow hue from the first poster in 1969. That’s about where the similarities end though. This poster has everyone dressed in black showing the villainous serious side of them. Wahlberg is in the forefront as the leading actor with Charlize Theron and Jason Statham at his side. Theron has her shirt unbuttoned to reveal her cleavage and that is the sex sales pitch for this poster. Donald Sutherland is in the background which lends a time honored credible actor to this movie. The bottom half has a helicopter, which were not prevalent in 1969, and Mini Coopers, which were ever so popular in 2003 when this movie was released. Then there is the phrase “Get in. Get out. Get even.” that to me means that this will not be some long drawn out movie, but rather a quick paced, action packed film.

                                   I just wanted to include these two posters I found because they exude sexual content. Obviously the one with Theron is intended for the male audience. She has this smoky erotic look like she is in a dream. It is such great idea on the advertiser’s part to put a poster out with Statham for the female demographic. He has that rogue bad boy look that will play to the emotions of women.

                                    

I believe the great variations in movie posters for The Italian Job is due to the fact that we as movie goers have evolved a lot since 1969. The main selling point in 1969 was that it was a serious action movie and since that era our movies have evolved into a more sexy and definitely more comedy filled production. I can see where there are vast differences in these posters as the different time frames themselves would bring about the latest cars, the brightest stars and the hottest fashions. The fonts could not be any more different between the two ages and I believe this to be that in 1969 the viewing public would have wanted more description of the movie in the poster to sell it to them. Also the earlier edition was directed by Peter Collinson (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0172772/) who was famed for making action movies; the 2003 version was directed by F. Gary Gray (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0336620/) who was more into comedies, music videos and some action movies. Whereas in 2003 the movie goers would be relying more on their intuition to read into the movie and with less lettering it leaves room for more action photos. The older ones seemed to rely more on the fonts and shadowing whereas the newer poster have a straight and succinct lettering to them which I believe to be due to the fact that photos in the earlier days were not as glamorous as they are today and in the newer posters we don't rely on lettering to sell us a movie through a poster. There are still the voluptuous women in both posters, but in the older poster her back to us is indicative of the demure views of the general public and having her face forward would detract from the main role of Cain who was the main action selling point of the movie poster. The newer one with Statham plays to the sexual desires of women and in the 1960's that would be completely unheard as the men of that era were the ones to pick out the movies and also pay for the theater tickets; chivalry was still alive in 1969 so I am told. The original posters were designed to be showcased in several different countries with each one specific to that country. The newer ones maintained the same pictures about them throughout distribution as far as I could tell.