Picture Show: Classic Movie Posters from the TCM Archives

This book contains movie poster art that is the exclusive domain of the TCM archives. Thus, as others have already correctly observed, the movies are limited to RKO, MGM, and Warner Brothers. Someone else stated that the posters ranged from the 30's to the 60's, but there are some posters for MGM's silent films of the 1920's such as The Big Parade. I recommend it as long as you know the studios to which you are limited. Someone mentioned that they wished that there had been some Universal posters from the 1930's too. If that is what you are looking for let me recommend Film Posters of the 30s: The Essential Movies of the Decade, which has movies from all the different studios for that decade. Also good is A Century of Movie Posters: From Silent to Art House. Seeing the very early posters in this second book is particularly interesting.

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.

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.

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.