History of Film Posters

In the early days of film, there were no movie stars on the movie posters because most actors in films chose to be anonymous. These were legitimate stage actors who felt embarrassed to be participating in this new medium. The producers were thrilled, because they believed they could control the medium as long as there were no stars.

The earliest forms of advertising for movies included hand painted crates and sandwich boards. The turn of the 20th Century saw a world with a very high illiteracy rate.  Posters or advertising for any entertainment needed to have vibrant colors and pictures and a limited amount of words, so that the advertising could be understood by a large number of people, also this would entise the views to keep an eye on the poster to find out the information shown on it. 

In the early days of film, there were no movie stars on movie posters because most actors in film chose to be anonymous. These were legitimate stage actors who felt embarrassed to be participating in this new medium. The producers were thrilled, because they believed they could control the medium as long as there were no stars.

This could relate to Richard Dyers Star Theory, as the institutions creating the film wanted creative control over the product that was released to the audience, meaning that the audience sees the product exactly as the institution wants it to be seen. This could also link in with the encoding and decoding theory of Stuart Hall. The theory is about how media messages are produced, circulated and consumed. 

1910 saw in the era when the production companies saw that they could make money out of these “movie stars” and this brought about the release of movie posters with named actors on the poster.

In 1920 the focus had almost moved away from the film to the star completely (and so the Hollywood celebrity is created). The 1920’s were considered the golden age of the silent movie. Beautiful movie palaces replaced the movie theater. The posters of old were replaced by artistically aesthetic movie posters. Well-known artists were commissioned to design movie poster portraits of leading stars as the posters had to be painted or block printed. 

1930 was when the film industry really came into its own. Since the first motion picture in the 1890’s the film industry proliferated very quickly going from silent pictures in early 1920 and full feature talkies in 1930. However, 1930 also saw in the great depression, people thought that this would be the death of the cinema industry but it instead offered people a chance to escape from the horrible reality they were faced with. This rise in popularity in cinema meant that the big companies where churning out films and posters to match their latest motion picture.

The posters varied in sizes, and they experimented with different styles of letters. During the 30’s, the studios generally produced two styles of one sheet and half sheet posters, each with a different kind of art work. Paramount Studio posters were known as “Style A” and “Style B”. MGM used “Style C” or “Style D”. Universal Pictures were known as “Style X” and “Style Y”. Sometimes there were more than two styles released, especially when the movie was a major production. 

Then, in the late 1940’s, we entered a new arena: the age of television. By this time, TV had attracted a large number of movie goers, so the studios responded by reducing the number of films made. Many of the great directors and stars of that time found themselves out of contracts with the studios. This was a devastating blow to many actors.

With the coming of the 1950’s, and to fight the popularity of television, movie studios created more fantasy films. The studios that once produced the war movies were now making science fiction, comedy and grade “B” drive-in movies. Although the drive-in had been around since 1933, it reached its peak during the 1950’s with over 4,000 screens in the United States alone.

1960’s brought the boomer generation to their teen years. There were so many children from the post-war baby boom that a lot of the movies were very “teen” oriented. Teen idols from the world of rock and roll crossed into movie stardom. Elvis Presley became very popular at this time, not only for his music, but his movies. There were also a lot of “beach movies” with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Action movies also became very popular and we saw the introduction of the infamous double agent, 007, James Bond

The 1970’s was  a launching pad to the era of the blockbusters of the 1980’s. Movies like The Godfather, Rocky, Star Wars and Star Trek were born. Although the posters of this time continued the use of photography, drawing and painting styles were sometimes used and famous artists like Ansel Adams, Frank Frazetta and Bob Peak created some popular posters of this time

The 1980’s was the age of special effects, which was the key to the success of The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, Back to the Future, Batman, ET, Ghostbusters and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

With the 1990’s came the computerization of special effects. Because of this, the 90’s brought two of the biggest money making films in history, Jurassic Park and Batman Forever.