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OT: Nostalgic 60's Movie Poster Paintings in April Vanity Fair

posted 8 years ago by ecarle (14979)
2 replies | jump to latest

In accord with the 60's movie nostalgia at the Psycho board, I will call attention to an article in the April 17 Vanity Fair(Alec Baldwin on the cover) regarding an illustrator of 60's movie posters named Robert McGuinness.

The article is a bit detailed about the man's past and current, elderly life, but its the two pages of "paintings" that make the memories.

The article reminds us that in the 60's, many paperback books had richly illustrated covers in which handsome men and beautiful women were rendered with near photographic-perfection...and yet as paintings. They were almost Norman Rockwell-esque in their precision of facial expression and body proportion.

This Robert MacGuinness guy did paperback covers, but he also did movie posters. The Vanity Fair article reproduces a few of them(all with the poster names and credits removed; just the paintings.)

Included:

Sean Connery as James Bond in Thunderball, in his orange scuba suit and surrounded by bikini-clad "Bond girls."

Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck in Arabesque. Maybe my favorite. I recall this as a poster creating tremendous excitement to see the movie. It was from Stanley Donen, three years after Charade, which had a much cheesier poster, actually. THIS one, done in 1966, is a richly appointed painting in which Sophia(legs spread apart in a sexy stand-up stance and wearing not much of a tiger-skin jacket) and Greg(suited up and pointing a handgun) look as great as they would ever look as movie stars.

Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple. This was one of several paintings rendered for The Odd Couple, and the best. Matthau is in full "horizontal recline" in an easy chair, smoking a cigar and dropping ashes everywhere, with beer bottles all around, the essence of Oscar Madison, slob and yet...somehow cool and funny looking. This Vanity Fair painting wisely removes the painting of tidy uptight Jack Lemmon in an apron reacting to Matthau; its really Matthau's turn to shine. Note: this poster of Matthau (with Lemmon yelling at him) once took up a block in Times Square.

Jane Fonda as Barbarbella. Again with the legs apart standing up, and wearing even less than Sophia Loren in Arabesque. Thank you, sixties!

Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in How to Steal a Million. I recall liking the poster -- which is the essence of wit and romance and movie stars -- far better than liking the movie. Interesting: "Hepburn" doesn't quite look like Hepburn. But O'Toole is letter perfect.

And: Breakfast at Tiffany's. Evidently this was McGuinness' first movie poster and it is surprisingly less "rich and detailed" than the later posters from the mid- to late sixties. Still, it is likely the most well-known and nostalgic of McGuinness posters.

Ah, sixties movies. Handsome men, beautiful women, richly appointed paintings of them. And Walter Matthau all cool and rumpled in an easy chair.

Alas: no Hitchcock movie of the sixties ever got the McGuinness treatment. The posters for Marnie, Torn Curtain and Topaz are actually pretty clunky, in my book.

[–] swanstep (2715) 8 years ago

Here's a link to the article online:
http://tinyurl.com/lzkt797
It only has a few of the images from the print version I believe, but enough to get the general idea.

It's funny how at any even given time there tend to be a handful of people - artists, fashion designers, photographers - whose very personal visions of virility and sexiness resonate with the zeitgeist, get swiftly embraced by movies and advertising and come to partly *define* that era. When you're around at the time those visions and implicit ideologies are just in the air, normally nameless unless you're in the industry, until suddenly everyone kind of gets burned out on/sick of those particular visions, and something else takes over. It's funny to think of McGiness still around at 91 painting exactly the same bikini-gals he's always painted. The world zeitgeist has moved on so far from his '60s and '70s heyday that he's had time to come back into retro-tinged fashion at least a couple of times since.

I think the McGinnis image that most affected me as a kid was his poster for Live and Let Die. I read the novel with the movie poster cover when I was, I dunno 8 or 9, and I remember staring at that cover image for images. The exact ways these Amazonian women impassively slouched or filled out their bikinis or.... was kind of mesmerizing. There were parts of the book I didn't understand and the cover kind of ended up representing all that adult mystery for me.

[–] ecarle (14979) 8 years ago

A re-try of a reply that disappeared a few days ago, from memory:

It only has a few of the images from the print version I believe, but enough to get the general idea.

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Thanks for the link. Those are some good shots, but unless I'm mistaken, my two favorites -- Arabesque and the Matthau painting -- are missing. You gotta buy the issue?
Barbarella is in fine fettle...I guess that's the "internet drawing card."

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It's funny how at any even given time there tend to be a handful of people - artists, fashion designers, photographers - whose very personal visions of virility and sexiness resonate with the zeitgeist, get swiftly embraced by movies and advertising and come to partly *define* that era.

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Yes. Those crystal clear color paintings of sexy, bountiful women and handsome, rugged men were all the rage not only in movie posters but on the covers of paperbacks. As a kid growing up around these covers and posters, I felt they represented a lush, plush world of sex, action, and adventure.

And then the seventies came.

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When you're around at the time those visions and implicit ideologies are just in the air, normally nameless unless you're in the industry, until suddenly everyone kind of gets burned out on/sick of those particular visions, and something else takes over. It's funny to think of McGiness still around at 91 painting exactly the same bikini-gals he's always painted. The world zeitgeist has moved on so far from his '60s and '70s heyday that he's had time to come back into retro-tinged fashion at least a couple of times since.

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I do believe that McGinness(or someone a lot like him) got to paint the poster for one of the later Mad Men seasons...capturing 1966 or so perfectly.

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I think the McGinnis image that most affected me as a kid was his poster for Live and Let Die. I read the novel with the movie poster cover when I was, I dunno 8 or 9, and I remember staring at that cover image for images. The exact ways these Amazonian women impassively slouched or filled out their bikinis or.... was kind of mesmerizing. There were parts of the book I didn't understand and the cover kind of ended up representing all that adult mystery for me.

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The Bond posters from roughly On Her Majesty's Secret Service through Moonraker had that "painting effect" -- with a hot Bond and his babes. I recall "Live and Let Die" featuring, amidst the babes, a speedboat flying out of an alligator's open mouth. It was a nifty merge. Came 1981 and "For Your Eyes Only," they went for a simple look, just a photo of Bond aiming at gun at pretty, muscular female legs in the foreground. I think later they brought back at least one McGinness-like poster. A View to a Kill, maybe?