Picture Show: Classic Movie Posters from the TCM Archives [Paperback]

Dianna Edwards (Author), Robert Osborne (Author), Turner Classic Movies (Author)

Book Description

Series: Turner Classic Movies | Publication Date: November 2003

Turner Classic Movies may be best known for running the timeless films we never tire of watching, but behind the scenes is another treasure few get to see: a vast archive of posters from more than seven decades of movie making, including the remarkable collections of the great studios RKO, MGM, and Warner Bros. Picture Show gathers more than 150 of the most compelling and memorable examples for a scenic tour of Hollywood history and a dazzling compendium of graphic design excellence. From the great dramas such as Casablanca to one of the most distinguished monster movies, King Kong, to the legendary comedy of the Thin Man series, these emblems of another era speak volumes about the evolution of film, design, and popular culture. Throughout, author Dianna Edwards elucidates the historical relevance and touches on the stunning tropes of the posters, peppered with juicy bits of star-powered gossip. Including a number of seldom-seen examples, Picture Show is an introduction to great movies through their treasured posters.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ranging from the stunning to the silly, the vintage movie posters gathered in this illustrated book reek of campy nostalgia. Edwards, a contributor to STEP inside design magazine, calls them "small-scale masterpieces of strategic communication." She's ransacked the Turner Classic Movies archives to come up with a playful bunch of film ads, shown here in full-color matte images, that serve as "an introduction to classic movies presented through the prism of their posters." Among the subjects covered are femmes fatales (e.g., Lana Turner in 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice and Joan Evans in 1951's On the Loose), "acrimony-in-matrimony" (e.g., Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall in 1957's Designing Woman) and heartbreak and yearning (e.g., Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in 1932's Red Dust). Edwards holds off on making in-depth comments about the posters, letting viewers deduce for themselves the underlying meaning of the suggestive poster for 1952's The Lusty Men.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Dianna Edwards is the author of several books on graphic design, including Catalog Design: The Art of Creating Desire. She lives in Atlanta.

Robert Osborne is primetime host of Turner Classic Movies network, columnist-critic for The Hollywood Reporter , and the official biographer of Oscar .

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811841545
• ISBN-13: 978-0811841542
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 9.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #538,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Now showing - Bijou art - In color!, January 23, 2006

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Picture Show: Classic Movie Posters from the TCM Archives (Paperback)

Another reasonably priced addition to the slowly expanding library of movie poster books. Because it is based on the TCM archives it is very generalised and basically covers movies of the thirties, forties and fifties. The chapters are dictated by what is available in the archive so there is no collection of comedy classics, 'Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House', for instance and other light-hearted titles are included in the chapter called Battle of the sexes.

The posters are presented in various sizes and mostly you'll be able to read all the text, especially the percentage credits that usually appear at the bottom of each poster. Some of this is quite interesting because plenty of people named are complete nobodies now. Rather annoyingly the whole page posters have been enlarged a bit too much so that bottom credits are missing.

I think it is fair to say that there is not a well designed poster in the book, so no stunning Saul Bass work or Bob Peak graphics but you'll get to see the best portraits that Hollywood marketing departments could offer.

Overall a good title to have if you like poster art and if you have an interest in the thirties have a look at Reel Art: Great Posters From The Golden Age Of The Silver Screen, a huge, beautifully produced coffee-table book showing three hundred posters. A lot of MGM productions are in the TCM Archive and probably the most complete showing of this studio is in Mgm Posters: The Golden Years, with 260 posters in a very nicely designed book. My favorite genre is Film Noir, unfortunately hardly represented in 'Picture Show' but you'll find the definitive poster collection in Art of Noir: The Posters And Graphics From The Classic Era Of Film Noir.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charismatic, Charming and Colorful, January 5, 2004

By 

Pamela Plotkin (Newport Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picture Show: Classic Movie Posters from the TCM Archives (Paperback)

What a fabulous delight. Posters from American movie archives at my finger tips. Each poster brought back a memory of another day and time. The author's vibrant storytelling recalls the golden era of motion pictures. Everyone in the family has enjoyed the beautiful visual adventure and the excellent commentary. It is a book filled with a thousand memories. Enjoy, I promise it will make you smile.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars WONDERFUL BOOK BUT WHERE IS UNIVERSAL?, July 21, 2005

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Picture Show: Classic Movie Posters from the TCM Archives (Paperback)

The "Picture Show" is a vibrant and eclectic collection of movie posters culled from Turner Classic Movie's library of over 3500 vintage films. The book is an over-sized, soft cover reprinting hundreds of movie posters. Lesser known films may appear two or three to a page while greater classics are reprinted in full page glory. The book begins with a short history of movie posters and the explanation of "One-sheets" "Half-Sheets", "Three Sheets" etc...before breaking down the posters into several different chapters.

We lead off with "Bad Girls" and movies like "The Mask of Fu-Manchu", "The Outlaw", and "Born to be Bad". These are some of the more sexy and seductive posters found and highlight screen vamps such as Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, Joan Fontaine, and Jane Russell. From there the next chapter features the Battle of the Sexes, featuring classic films like the Thin Man movies, and the various Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn films.

The chapter on Fancy Footwork highlights those great musicals of the 30's and 40's such as "Footlight Parade" with James Cagney, "Girl Crazy" with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, and "An American in Paris" with Gene Kelly. Forward March reprints posters from great war films. "Back to Bataan" and "Flying Leathernecks" with John Wayne, musicals like "Anchors Aweigh" and "Follow the Fleet" and one of my favorites "The Dirty Dozen"

Since Warner Bros is one of the prominent studios featured we naturally get to see many of their great adventure film posters included: "The Adventures of Robin Hood", "Captain Blood", and "The Sea Hawk" as well as "The Three Musketeer" and "The Prisoner of Zenda" There are also chapters devoted to westerns and to tough guys like Cagney, Mitchum, Bogart and McQueen.

The last chapter is devoted to sci-fi and horror films including the Val Lewton flicks "I Walked with a Zombie" and "Cat People" along with sci-fi's "The Thing" and "Them!" Movie posters are very underrated as an art form and interest in collecting posters is at an all-time high. Even the reproduction market is extremely busy reproducing these posters for those of us who can't afford the originals. This is a well diversified sampling of both high-profile classics as and "B" movies. The only short-coming of the book is that it only features the posters of three studios: MGM, Warner Bros., and RKO. Classic horror fans will no doubt be a little let down that Universal's films are not included. I'm not sure why but it's a serious oversight. The horror/sci-fi section is quite skimpy overall. It would have been nice to see "Mark of the Vampire" or "Doctor X". That little caveat aside this is a wonderful book for any fan of classic films.