Exploitation Poster Art

Sex, drugs, delinquency, Black Power, and rock ‘n’ roll—these are just a few of the themes that have inspired B-movie makers over the past 80 years. The posters created to promote these movies are fantastic period pieces that evoke all the taboos of bygone eras. Before the Hayes Code of 1934, Hollywood had few inhibitions: the poster for Girl Without a Room, for example, left little doubt as to how the young woman would find accommodation. In the 50s, Beats and juvenile delinquents attracted teens to the drive-ins; in the 60s and 70s came Blaxploitation films like Shaft and the first of Russ Meyer’s mammary-obsessed epics, Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill. The posters for these films are masterpieces of visual innuendo, offering, in most cases, far more than the movies themselves actually delivered. Tony Nourmand is co-owner of the Reel Poster Gallery in London and a poster consultant to Christie’s; Graham Marsh is a designer and art director. Together, they have produced Horror Poster Art and Science Fiction Poster Art, and collections of 20th-century film posters by decade.