post movie posters done in a busy/claustrophobic caricature style from the 70s and 80s

http://www.impawards.com/1982/posters/last_american_virgin.jpg

I mean...

http://static.cinemagia.ro/img/db/movie/00/48/90/the-last-american-virgin-698551l.jpg

http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/6/A70-3474.jpg

http://sp3.imgs.sapo.pt/0009/60/79/5a/60795ac406eb3ef756bf021dc226b3e2.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jq_EW2EYrOw/UZUG0GFD_AI/AAAAAAAAFQ0/-20pyjE3RXk/s1600/High-Ballin

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qyf3yv2AGKA/UfAOP2BRB8I/AAAAAAAAFiY/rOsMkkyq16o/s1600/Checkered+Flag+or+Crash.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ihqTjoYfh_8/TX-tNvDb5dI/AAAAAAAAAM4/98ylt-hSNWY/s1600/Great+Smokey+Roadblock.jpg

on golden pond has a lack of busy and caricature style.

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTIzMTM3NDMyNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODUyODAyMQ@@._V1_.jpg

http://images.moviepostershop.com/rafferty-and-the-gold-dust-twins-movie-poster-1975-1020234909.jpg

http://www.stargatecinema.com/images/magictoolbox_cache/3bf842518f40ca6b8a10b619b8e02daf/2/3/23044/thumb400x400/2808-04.jpg

It still amazes me what a huge fucking deal Smokey and the Bandit was. Like, of all the movies to reverberate all through american culture, why that one?

Not sure, but coincidentally http://www.deadline.com/2013/10/r-i-p-hal-needham/

Dude, have you ever seen Smokey & The Bandit?

Sure there was the space movie in 1977, but nothing says Welcome to Carter Country like S&TB.

Also Jackie Gleason.

S&TB knock-offs were also easier to make on the cheap. All the fx were live things with cars & trucks, and usually the whole film would wrap in in less than 40 days. The commentary on The Cannonball Run dvd reveals just how easy it was to make a film like that.

Unrelated: Sorry about the two Rafferty posters...the first one wasn't showing up after I posted it.

http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/93/MPW-46753

^^Also note that Animal House was a phenomena similar to that of S&TB.

http://www.emovieposter.com/images/moviestars/AA130709/550/6sh_fitzwilly_JC07899_L.jpg

http://cdn2.iofferphoto.com/img/item/187/717/026/dick-van-dyke-and-bob-newhart-in-cold-turkey-b79dc.jpg

was there ever a less-loved sequel to a hugely successful film than More American Graffiti?

Good question. Grease 2 would be a contender. Or The Exorcist II: The Heretic.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/Goodbye-Pork-Pie_zps50079b4f.jpg

i wanna watch all of these movies btw, including ones like this that i know i've watched even tho i can't remember a thing about it

^exactly my reaction. Also: would totally put these posters up in my house.

Yeah, no matter how disappointing it'd probably be, there's something about these posters that just makes you wanna give it a go. I wonder how many of these I've seen as five-to-twenty-minute blips when I was just channel surfing as a kid in the 80s and early 90s. I bet they made for good USA filler.

http://garywarnett.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/fraternityrow.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/63/Montecarlo.jpeg

I wonder if you did a breakdown of these, how many would be fraternity movies, versus mixed-up romances with a dumb theme, versus "great race" scenarios...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-az5xP5vQYww/UV9nMKeSziI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/yxcDdLiqSBc/s1600/bnb.png

http://www.moviegoods.com//Assets/product_images/1020/106793.1020.A.jpg

http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/23/A70-11854

http://i2.listal.com/image/136185/600full-high-anxiety-poster.jpg

(couldn't find linkable English one at legible size but you get the idea)

http://images.moviepostershop.com/slap-shot-movie-poster-1977-1020465938.jpg

http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/77/MPW-38850

^^^ this is worth watching as an illuminating period piece, ime

oops, gr8080 already got that one, sorry

Alternate version of The Big Bus. They seem to have re-done these with the bus tilting at various angles to fit different formats.

http://www.movieposterdb.com/posters/05_06/1976/0074205/l_19782_0074205_fb8369e7.jpg

http://www.scifi-movies.com/images/data/0004156/affiche-le-bus-en-folie-the-big-bus-1976-1.jpg

ugh, nevermind

http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/11/A70-5794

and then, an awkward transitional phase:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3b/National_Lampoons_Class_Reunion_movie_poster.jpg/404px-National_Lampoons_Class_Reunion_movie_poster.jpg

http://images.moviepostershop.com/meatballs-2-movie-poster-1984-1020248531.jpg

I KNEW there was a Meatballs one! Well done.

http://i.imgur.com/sk8ZdVN.png

http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/117/MPW-58968

Don Knotts must hold the record for appearing in this type of poster.

http://images.moviepostershop.com/200-motels-movie-poster-1971-1020144185.jpg

if i was a skilled illustrator and a few thousand tumblr followers, i'd do a series of posters in this style for movies from the period that never had one.

just imagining:

apocalypse now
the shining
dune
cocoon
close encounters
blue velvet
caligula

lol

It is sort of amazing that Caligula didn't have one of these.

hahaa, i was thinking of the same idea, how great these would be applied to the 'wrong' movies - but unfortunately it requires a lot more talent and time than wacky photoshoppery...

Close Encounters a great pick because it's in some sense a "road" movie so the S-shaped line of cartoon people chasing their way down the poster would work out great. Anything with a big cast basically works.

Also funny how the bodies get bigger and the style more realistic based on how many of the stars are considered sex symbols. The all-male middle-aged comedian revues seem to be populated entirely by grinning gnomes, but Goldie Hawn is always legible.

I'm picturing a tiny animation of Malcolm McDowell fisting some poor soldier in a corner of the poster.

There must be people on tumblr who do commissions, right? I don't think I die happy without seeing that Blue Velvet poster now I've heard the idea.

A lot of these films had Mad magazine spoofs drawn in this kind of style, right? I guess someone could photoshop them into posters.

After a great deal of browsing, I feel confident in saying this style basically petered out by 1982 or so. There are stragglers, but it's really apparent when you see a poster for something like Screwballs or this one for Smokey and the Bandit III, which is still cartoony but really not the same kind of thing:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d2/Sandbpart3.jpg

This is where I wonder again what really killed this off. It can't just be the "easier to photo-collage" angle I suggested above, because clearly people were still doing lots of fully hand-illustrated posters for ages after this.

Starting to think "Carter-era" as mentioned above is really dead-on, notwithstanding precedents like It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

When did contracts start requiring that the star's face be a certain % of the poster?