James Bond: 50 Years of Movie Posters
TLDR: “Exactly what it claims to be”
This is a huge coffee table book. So big that I’m having trouble finding a place to put it, as it won’t fit in my of my bookshelf spaces.
True to the title, it’s essentially a picture book of movie posters of all James Bond films through SPECTRE, with one image of the Skyfall teaser poster as that must have been the only thing released when the book was printed.
Each image has a caption and some discussion. After looking through all of them, I have some observations.
Here is the classic Bond poster: James Bond, staring intently into the camera, holding a gun, flanked by the two Bond girls (because there’s always two…). Surrounding them is a montage of action sequences from the film. This is an uncannily common formula, I imagine because the films don’t need much explanation – everyone knows what a James Bond film is, these days.
I don’t know why I was surprised that different countries have different posters. Obviously, there are language differences, but the tone of the poster is often different as well, to emphasize some aspect more or less, based on the local culture and appetites.
The Bond women are extremely prominent on every poster, seemingly more so in other countries. During the 1960s, they were mostly illustrated, with clearly exagerrated breast size.
Bond’s gun is most often silenced – meaning, it has a long silencer attached. This is so common as to be odd. I supposed it makes Bond seem “secret,” but it’s also an interesting visual thing – it draws more attention to the gun, and it makes it seem… ungainly. Like, this is a thing you would do to a gun only if you know what you were doing and has a specific reason. (I’m avoiding the phallic implications…)
I was a little surprised to see that Grace Jones was incredibly prominent on the A View to a Kill posters. She almost the focus of every poster – where as Tanya Roberts was almost nowhere to be found. I suppose it’s because of Jones’ exotic looks and her adversarial role in the film’s plot.
This was a fun book. I spent about a month paging through it.
Now, if I could only find a place to put it…
Book Info
- Author
- DK Publishing
- Year
- Pages
- 304
- Acquired
- I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
- A hardcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.