The Cover Art of Blue Note Records is Graham Marsh and Glyn Callingham's classic collection of the unparalleled record sleeves produced by the celebrated Blue Note record label. Both a comprehensive guide to an acclaimed label, and an insightful snapshot of graphic design history, The Cover Art of Blue Note Records is a must-have for all Jazz fans.
Sex, drugs, delinquency, Black Power, and rock ‘n’ roll—these are just a few of the themes that have inspired B-movie makers over the past 80 years. The posters created to promote these movies are fantastic period pieces that evoke all the taboos of bygone eras. Before the Hayes Code of 1934, Hollywood had few the poster for Girl Without a Room, for example, left little doubt as to how the young woman would find accommodation. In the 50s, Beats and juvenile delinquents attracted teens to the drive-ins; in the 60s and 70s came Blaxploitation films like Shaft and the first of Russ Meyer’s mammary-obsessed epics, Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill. The posters for these films are masterpieces of visual innuendo, offering, in most cases, far more than the movies themselves actually delivered. Tony Nourmand is co-owner of the Reel Poster Gallery in London and a poster consultant to Christie’s; Graham Marsh is a designer and art director. Together, they have produced Horror Poster Art and Science Fiction Poster Art, and collections of 20th-century film posters by decade.
The 1930s was the cinema’s age of innocence, a time when the emphasis was on escapism and entertainment. Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn were Bringing Up Baby, Busby Berkely’s precision-drilled chorus girls were Flying Down to Rio, Fred Astaire was donning his Top Hat, and John Wayne was climbing on the Stagecoach to stardom. As this stunning collection of poster art reveals, it was also the decade of the illustrator, with Al Hirschfeld, Hap Hadley, and Alberto Vargas setting new standards in graphic design. Color may have only just begun to appear on cinema screens, but on the hoardings outside, the hues were bold and dazzling as never before. Tony Nourmand is co-owner of the Reel Poster Gallery in London and a poster consultant to Christie’s; Graham Marsh is a designer and art director. Together, they have produced Horror Poster Art and Science Fiction Poster Art, and collections of 20th-century film posters by decade.
Lights down, curtain up on the cinema of the 1940s, a decade that produced some of the most critically acclaimed movies of all time. These range from the iconic Casablanca, starring a cynical, world-weary Humphrey Bogart and a never-more-beautiful Ingrid Bergman, to Orson Welles' seminal Citizen Kane, and from the optimistic It's A Wonderful Life to the enigmatic The Third Man, recently voted best British film of all time by the critics. This was the decade when Hollywood introduced cinema audiences to one of the greatest of all genres the film noir, still epitomised by movies like Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, Gilda and The Maltese Falcon - a darkly sinister world of gumshoes, double-crossing dames, bent cops and blind alleys. The world may have been at war for the first half of the decade and Europe in ruins for the second, but this was, in many ways, a golden age of cinema. Moreover, as this book shows, the passage of time has not diminished the impact of the 40s poster art that had contemporary audiences queuing to see the latest releases starring movie immortals like Robert Mitchum and Rita Hayworth.
The cinema of the 1950s reflected the mood swings of the post-war generation. Optimistic epics and brittle social comedies rubbed shoulders with socially aware dramas and, faced with the new challenge of television, the studios conjured up a host of fresh attractions: CinemaScope, Vista-Vision and 3D, the curves of Marilyn Monroe and the moody mumbles of Marlon Brando and James Dean. In Hollywood, veteran actors circled the wagons against the massed assault of juvenile delinquents as the Wild West became the Asphalt Jungle. In Britain, upper lips remained stiff - though a smile or two was permitted at the latest Ealing Comedy. Films from Italy and France, where the 'New Wave' was starting to break, were still considered strictly high culture, if not threateningly risque, in the Anglophone nations. The images in this book represent the full range of poster art which attracted world wide cinema audiences to the movies of the decade. Some may be familiar, others, long forgotten, will come as surprises. Most are still as fresh and powerful as the day they first appeared.
The Essential Movies of the Decade
The ultimate photo album.' (Harper's Bazaar). A movie lover's encyclopedia of weddings and a tribute to the most iconic Hollywood stars. Will quench your thirst for impeccable glamour and salacious gossip.
