WB: The Seven Arts Years

For a brief period in the late '60s, Warner Bros. was controlled by Ray Stark and Eliot Hyman's Seven Arts Productions, after they purchased majority rights to the studio from Jack Warner for $32 million.  The house poster design style had a uniformity to it not alike the aforementioned Paramount style.  The posters often feature art, colors, and fonts that are characteristic of the "psychedelic" era.  The billing block below was usually black on white, with the same font and layout across the board.

Truth be told, the style does seem to be established prior to the Seven Arts takeover and continued after the company was sold to Kinney in 1969, but to keep this post somewhat contained, and because I adore the WB - Seven Arts logo and am fascinated by the years this era comprises, I chose to begin and end with the Seven Arts period.

Up the Down Staircase is an example of the same layout in place just prior to the Seven Arts takeover:

Perhaps the most celebrated films produced by the WB in this era are The Wild Bunch, Bullitt, Bonnie and Clyde, Cool Hand Luke, with several other lesser-known, but highly regarded titles such as Petulia, The Learning Tree, Rachel, Rachel, The Rain People, and Wait Until Dark.  Although the Seven Arts years were brief, they encompass times of great change within the industry and without...evidenced within Hollywood by the adoption of the new MPAA ratings system in 1968 and films such as Wild Bunch and Bonnie and Clyde, which were revolutionary and game-changing due to their more explicit, realistic depictions of violence and the ways in which their narratives seemed to echo or respond to the larger social context, particularly Vietnam and the anti-war movement, the concurrent women's and civil rights movements, and rapidly changing societal mores.

I've tried to place the following together based on similarities in use of color, collage, border, or generally similar vibe:

An attractive one that doesn't really mesh so much with the others aside from adhering to the artwork above / black on white billing block below:

Aside from the colors and the cleanliness of the layout, one of the quirks that I find pretty unique to the WB posters are the non-colored sketches that are sometimes part of the primary artwork and other times complimentary to the main artwork, which you can see on Cool Hand Luke and the following examples, some of which are post-Seven Arts:

 

 

 

A color example of one of the sketch style:

Some post-Seven Arts examples of this sketch technique, which also demonstrate the continuity of the WB house style:

Some more onscreen examples of the WB - Seven Arts logo:

House Style: Paramount

When Olivier Assayas' Carlos came out a few years ago, I immediately gravitated towards the great retro one-sheet, designed by Sam's Myth, that accompanied its U.S. theatrical release.  The poster reminded me of the clean, attractive, and almost uniform design of so many Paramount titles of the late '60s - '80s.  These would often have a large square image, with black on white billing block below, all surrounded by a white border.  This layout isn't limited to Paramount by any means, but it seems more prevalent in Paramount titles and for a longer period.

My friend and Brooklyn neighbor Adrian has written about this style and era, with a focus on thriller and espionage titles, while not calling particular attention to Paramount or any other studio, but rather influential ad man and designer Stephen Frankfurt, at his Movie Poster of the Week column here and here.  Perhaps it's Frankfurt, with his iconic designs for Rosemary's Baby and Downhill Racer for Paramount who's most responsible for laying the foundation for the Paramount key art layouts for the next couple decades.

The de-saturated, two-tone treatment of the image on the Carlos poster is specifically reminiscent of these one-sheets:

Sometimes they would not hew so strictly to the white border, particularly with regards to the billing block, but the rest of the standard design remains mostly intact.