Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1536054
30 PROP CULTURE I SUMMER 2025 B y K R I S P E C K M y fellow Property Master and colleague, Andy Siegel, pointed out to me recently that as streaming movies at home continues to grow, and theatrical releases decline, we are losing one of our great industry pastimes: the movie poster. Like nerdy little kids collecting baseball cards, both Andy and I covet our movie poster and lobby card collections. We are truly the last generation to grow up seeing movies in drive-ins and theaters (movie palaces), as the only option. In honor of the "theatrical release" and all the great artists that made movies in the past and in the future, I wanted to share my appreciation of something that I'm very passionate about: Great PROP-CENTRIC movie posters. I bought my very first movie poster in 1989, right after graduating from film school and moving to Hollywood. I have a pretty good idea what many of you are thinking right now, "Dude, I wasn't even born then!" If you think Hollywood is dirty and dangerous now, you should have seen it then. Especially after dark, between Cherokee and Whitley streets. Drug deals and murder were not uncommon. Prostitutes and lowriders ruled the boulevard on weekends. There were several, now closed, old theaters, up and down Hollywood Boulevard like The Vogue, where my wife and I saw Thelma & Louise, and the second Indiana Jones. We became regulars at old Hollywood landmarks like Musso & Franks, Miceli's, Bob's Frolic Two, and the Burgundy Room. I was 21 and this was my stomping ground. Even then, Hollywood had all the trappings of old tourist shops with T-shirts, shitty replica Oscars, and Chinese snow globes of the Hollywood Sign. In the rear of those old shops, they had old movie poster hanging racks and this is where I bought my very first one-sheet: Taxi Driver. Scarface, The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now. As long as I've lived here in LA, these posters have graced the walls throughout my home and still do today. Those I bought in Hollywood were cheap reprints. Not original one-sheets worth any real value. Nonetheless, they were sacred to me. Even today, when I walk past these posters, they remind me of my arrival to Hollywood as a young man, pursuing a dream. Original one-sheets (27"x 40") were folded movie posters given to theaters to advertise current and upcoming movies. The major studios had a National Screen Service (NSS) numbering system on the bottom right corner of each one-sheet and sometimes they were even ink stamped on their backside for additional identification when folded. For example, an NSS number might read 74/205, which meant the movie was the 205th movie release of 1974. Martin Scorsese is also a well-known collector of old movie posters. I once read that he owns more than 30 variations of The Third Man! Are you kidding me? If that's actually true, I am both jealous and disturbed by this. Life's not fair. My little Third Man half-sheet cost a small fortune (half a fortune actually), but it's one of the most prized and cherished posters that I own. Each, like children to me. Especially this one. As you can imagine, collecting movie posters can be a lot of fun. For me, closer to an addiction. Prized possessions, real art, made by great artists like Saul Bass (Vertigo, The Man With the Golden Arm, Spartacus), Bill Gold (Casablanca, Giant, The Outlaw Josey Wales), Bob Peak (Westside Story, Star Trek, Apocalypse Now), Drew Struzan (Blade Runner, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future), Tom Jung (Doctor Zhivago, Star Wars, Papillon), just to name a few. Oftentimes there are many artists working on one movie poster. Imagine, before computers and graphic programs were the norm, these artists had all these different formats to service. Artwork for each format, each market, different languages in many different countries. That's just to arrive at the approval process. The art was all done by hand, before they would go to print, which was the easy part. The artwork for a US Apocalypse Now alone is completely different from the Japanese version, which if you are not familiar with, it's unrecognizable as Apocalypse Now if you saw it. This is an entire industry that I wish I knew more about. Lastly, two recent movies that pay homage to the lost art of hand-drawn movie posters, are Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and PTA's Licorice Pizza. Both period movies. I'm not saying that these posters were drawn by hand, but it makes sense that these two filmmaking giants paid homage to our lost art. In honor of this classic art form that so often focuses on the film's iconic, world- building props, I wanted to share with you what I consider the Top 25 PROP-CENTRIC movie posters of all time. Now for the posters… T H E LOSS O F I CO N I C F I L M P OST E R A RT T H E ST R EA M I N G E F F ECT