Customer Reviews

Reel Art: Great Posters from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen (Tiny Folio)

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This undisputed classic actually surpasses its reputation. The sumptuous, coffee table-style volume, over 340 pages, would be worth owning alone for its eye-popping reproduction of rare poster images that advertised such films as King Kong, It Happened One Night, Dracula, The Old Dark House, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Casablanca, Gilda, Gone With the Wind, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz and hundreds of others. Each chapter is beautifully organized into genres making the tome as compulsively entertaining as it is enlightening. Don't mistake this one for any of the other copycat poster books, though, which merely display page after page of images with no analysis or comment. What makes Reel Art a must-have, definitive book on the subject is its witty, hefty, impeccably informative text and extended captions which reveal so much about how the old-time Hollywood publicity and marketing machines worked to sell the moviegoing world not only on particular stars, directors, films, but also on the sexiness of things like cigarette smoking and the patriotic duty of going to war. Talk about "The Hidden Persuaders"! I especially appreciate the groundbreaking information Rebello and Allen reveal about the actual artists (some very famous, like Norman Rockwell, Al Hirschfeld and Miguel Covarrubias) and art directors who were responsible for the distinct visual style of posters from MGM, Paramount, Universal, Columbia, RKO and even the so-called "poverty row" studios. There's even a lengthy section of illustrators' biography, complete with actual poster credits -- something I have never seen anywhere before this. What research the book must have taken! Awesome and essential, as I guess is to be expected from author Rebello, who also did the first-rate Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of `Psycho.' Only quibble: this book cries for a follow-up, so when will the authors get around to the sequel?

This is a must have book, even if you aren't "into movies". It is a sheer visual delight and a worthy addition to any library. Those with an interest in the graphic arts should definately acquire it. Arranged in a thoughtful manner, the glorious artwork is accompanied by intelligent text that is never dry and always informative.

...This is a groundbreaking book, the first (and only one since!) that truly unearths the story of how movie posters were created, who drew them, why each studio had a certain 'look' to their posters and what impact they had on the popular culture. The text is wise, witty, thoroughly enjoyable while it imparts vast amounts of fresh and fascinating information. And as for the images, they are magnificently chosen and reproduced, each one of them accompanied by intriguing and smart observations on the films themselves, their making and their role in Hollywood history. This is an ambitious undertaking, yet it's an ideal book to get lost in during a lazy weekend. Hard to put down, beautifully done and crying out for a sequel. A classic!

You ought to see the poster for D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), the movie that President Woodrow Wilson described as "history writ with lightning." It's a heroic poster of a Knight of the Ku Klux Klan on a rearing steed, a burning cross held aloft. The figure wears flowing robes -- shades of David's Napoleon -- underneath which his scarlet cuirasse is emblazoned with a white cross. His helmet -- yes, a helmet, not just a pillowcase with eye holes -- has a threatening foot-long spike atop. Spooky stuff, in more ways than one, yet in 1915 such a poster was a stunning icon, representing a movie whose director believed to be no more than a particularly dramatic but nevertheless realistic historical tale. The Klan rides to the rescue of white women.

One of the more impressive features of this thick little book is the stylized ways in which the actor's faces are drawn and painted. Most of the stars in the romances are a bit more, well, pretty than they were on screen. Some are beautified almost beyond recognition. Tyrone Power has the head of a mannequin. If I didn't know it was Mary Astor in "The Maltese Falcon," I wouldn't be able to tell from her poster. Others, monsters and manticores, are appropriate ghoulish. Sometimes the golden green gloom is used for effects other than the macabre. Man, do they bring out those Bette Davis eyes. You know -- the Bette Davis of "Now Voyager" (1942). The actress who murmured the immortal lines, "Oh, Jerry, let's not ask for the moon. We have the stars!"

There is an introduction describing the background of studios that are long disappeared -- Vitagraph, Pathe -- before they ALL virtually disappeared, but the text is only about two dozen pages long. It's interesting enough, and the subject is so seldom addressed, that one wishes for more. Nor is there any information to speak of for the individual posters. The artists, one presumes, were anonymous studio hacks but it would be nice to know something about them. Were they just doing a job? Were they Manet manque? Probably just doing a job, but they brought some talent to it. I'd love to know what the late Don Ivan Punchatz would have made of these illustrations.

All in all, with almost every stroke of the brush, they violate Samuel Goldwyn's pronouncement about movie posters: "That's the kind of advertising I like. No exaggeration. Just the facts."

Reel Art is like looking at a carpet sampling booklet. The paperback edition that is. Apart from a few none specific notes given a the front of the booklet the information on offer is very limited. Page after page of vintage posters with no text to accompany them makes this flick book an annoying "read". If all you require is visual this is an excellent choice. However, if you thought this book would actually tell you anything about the posters published, think again.

Hope you find this helpful. JG