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Hey, Todd, do you want to hear something frightening?
Why?Because it's almost Halloween?
No, because the bartender just brought over our monthly tab.
Ooh, that is frightening.Looks like we'll have to dress up in disguises if we want more drinks, huh?
Hey, speaking of Halloween, I'm reminded of our Reynold Brown episode.
Oh yeah, amazing poster artist.Horror, sci-fi.
And since it looks like we may need to leave the bar for a bit, it's a great excuse to share this episode again.
Yeah, just somewhere else.
appears to be, and let me gather my breath here to say this word, acromega, shit, I'll say the word again, acromegaly, acromegaly, acro, this is gonna be the cold open, isn't it?It's gonna.
Welcome to two designers walk into a bar, a place where pop culture creatives discover design icons that make us tick, and we share a few cocktails in the process.
Today, we celebrate the spooky, cheesy, B-movie posters of the mid-50s sci-fi era.
Belief will be suspended, hearts will race, and we'll all need a couple shots of liquid courage as we cower together back in the barn.
All right, Todd, today we're talking B-movie posters, we're talking mid-50s, we're talking sci-fi.
Mmm.I love this look.I love this era.I love everything about it.
Yes me too okay, so I'll tell you I jumped in I started doing some research mm-hmm and There was basically one guy who was really crushing it during this time when it came to B-movie horror posters.
Yeah, yeah, same.He did all of them, didn't he?He did.Among many, many, many other movie posters.
Yeah, the guy was really prolific, really incredible.And so I think rather than having, let's say, a designer battle or an artist battle or a guessing game, the kind of thing that we normally do,
How about we just zero in on two of his posters that were absolutely iconic and absolutely incredible.
spooktacular idea Elliot I know there's some really well-known ones just because I was looking to see how much they were going for on the auction market yes you know it's there's some really well-known ones there my guess is you've probably chosen one of his one of his top B movie posters
Well, Todd, let me put it to you this way.I'm actively trying to sell your car so I can buy one of the original.
Oh, okay.Then I'm going to guess that your poster has a giant something on it.
Well, I'm going to guess your poster as a giant something on it.
We've narrowed it down, right?Because a lot of rental Brown's illustrations had giant somethings on it.Um, okay.Is your giant something, uh, and animal vegetable or mineral?
I don't think he did anything with vegetables and minerals, by the way.
But I think maybe the things became giant due to some sort of alchemy or sorcery that involved vegetables and minerals.
Absolutely.Radioactivity, maybe.Radioactive activity, I should say.
Yeah, there's definitely, once these things grew, there was a lot of activity.Just ask the townspeople who were being terrorized.
It sounds like we're talking about the same movie. Hmm.
Well, you know, I think with a lot of these B-movie plots, there was kind of a central playbook.
OK.OK.I got I got a defining question here.Sure.How many legs does the thing on your poster have?
Two, but they go all the way up.
Oh, you're talking about the attack of the 50-foot woman.
Who was way taller than 50 feet on the poster.
Yeah, we'll definitely talk about that.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Yeah, apparently Reynold Brown had a little trouble with scale.
We'll get into that.My creature has eight legs.That should give it away real fast.
It's either on land or in the ocean.I don't know of an eight-legged thing that flies.
You know what?That's true.I didn't think about an eight-legged one in the ocean.
Okay, well, then it's obviously on land, so you tipped your hand.Okay, I'm going to say it's a giant spider, but spiders in and of themselves I mean, sure, any 50-foot woman is going to strike fear into the hearts of men.
Yeah, I'm thinking there are probably some types of spiders that are, say, a little bit more frightening than others.And if we're talking horror, we're talking B-movie, I'm going with the capital T Tarantula.
you nailed it my friend ding ding ding ding you win the spooktacular olympics with that so reno brown known like historical figure in the world of 40s and 50s illustration in 60s as a matter of fact yeah and particularly in the genre of b-movie sci-fi and the movies were
interesting and interesting plots, but the poster really sold the hell out of these movies, didn't they?
Oh, a hundred percent.A hundred percent.I mean, as we talked about, they were both just very, very iconic posters.Attack of the 50 foot woman, the one I, there've been homages done to this poster.It's been in scenes for movies and countless
magnets, t-shirts, all sorts of things are sold with this image on it.It's just incredible.
Okay, so Tarantula came out in 55.When did 50 Foot Woman come out?I mean, I know it was around the same time, but I don't know exactly what year.Because they were making like, you know, 12 a year or something like that.
Right.Came out a few years later in 1958.
Okay.Okay.Cool.Um, well, uh, since mine was a little earlier, do you want me to start telling you a little bit about that?And then, uh, you can probably repeat it a lot of the same things and say, just replace tarantula with woman.
Yeah, this is going to be a really efficient podcast.Cause we can just dub in a lot of the same stuff, I think, and really only do the work once, which not only will be pleasurable for us, but also for most of the listeners.
Absolutely.But, you know, I am really interested on a couple of things.Would love to hear your take on both of the movies and both of the posters.And clearly there's some similarities, both in the movies and in the posters.
And I think we could have a pretty good wrap up discussion at the end on sort of what all this meant at that particular time.Sure.
All right.So a little about Tarantula.Again, poster was done by a guy named Reynold Brown. And Tarantula was produced by Universal International in 1955, as I said.And I'll describe the poster a little bit here.
It depicts a mob trying to escape a giant 100-foot-tall tarantula.
I know, I know.I mean, you know, people are afraid of regular sized tarantulas.That actually is the second most popular phobia.I looked it up, is arachnophobia.
Is the first most popular phobia fear of our podcast.
It has to have a fancy Latin name, but yeah, something like that.
Oh, oh, oh, podcasta-whatever-phobia.
Podcastaphobia, yeah.Yeah, right, got it.Okay, so Giant Tarantula.In the Tarantula's pinchers, it's clenching a helpless damsel, who is, she's wearing like a flowy dress, so she's showing some leg too, but she's kind of in the pinchers.
I would say, like we talked about, similar to some of Reynold Brown's other posters, including 50-Foot Woman, there's a little hocus-pocus going on with the scale here.
The Spider is at least four times larger than three-story buildings that are in the same scene. Yet the woman in the pictures is kind of correct compared to the size of the stars in the foreground.
So speaking of the stars in the foreground, there are two figures, one representing John Egger and another representing Mara Corday.
Look, Elliot, they are so terrified that they are literally running out of the frame of the illustration of this tarantula and they're running towards the type that mentions their name, which I think is kind of a clever device.
So they're running out of the frame into the type of the poster.Across the top, which Reynold Brown was known for, these giant letters in red block letters against a bright yellow sky are the words, Giant Spider Strikes.
And then under that, it says, dot, dot, crawling terror, 100 feet high.So it's not even three dots like an ellipses, it's two dots.
And it was just, it's filling up the space to justify it under the first line, which was bigger, but they could have just made that line bigger.It's such an oddball thing.I don't know why they did that, but I was obsessed with it.
Anyway, across the middle of the poster is type that's screaming, tarantula! And it's in that hand-done, italic-type style.
You know what I'm talking about, where the bass lines and the top lines, they're so energized, they don't meet, they don't line up.They're just all kind of going wonky different directions.
It's kind of, to put a little bit more of a contemporary you know, identifier on this.It's sort of in your Raiders of the Lost Ark.It's very Indiana Jones type, you know, because they were obviously in the 80s paying homage to movies like this.
Exactly.So clearly hand-done, beautiful type.And this poster, I want to hear your take on other posters as well, but I thought this was a lesson in sort of image layering.The giant spider is both behind and in front of these small buildings.
It's kind of coming over the and the giant tarantula type that I just mentioned, it's on top of the spider, kind of pushing it back a little bit, holding it back, yet the woman in the spider's pinchers drapes over the type.
So it's all like messing with our heads.And as I mentioned, John Egger and Mara Corday, they're literally running out of the scene into the white of the poster.So it's a lesson in layering.And speaking of the two stars in the front,
They have some interesting expressions, Elliot.You know, I would expect they're not exactly raw terror.Like, I would be terrified if a hundred foot tarantula were chasing me.I wouldn't say their expressions are raw terror.It's kind of interesting.
It's like they have a look on their face like they have been chasing an ice cream truck for a block and they were looking forward to it, only to realize it was driven by a clown.It's like,
Or like, you know, I don't know, surprise birthday party, but half the people there are people they don't actually like, and that's the surprise.
Yeah, it's something like that.It's not just crazy terror, but it's a little bit like, eh.So anyway, obviously we're posting this on our site so listeners can see for themselves and can leave us comments and argue with me on that.
Do you want to hear a little about the movie, Elliot?
I would love to, because, you know, with a poster like this, I've already got my ticket money in hand.
And I want to know what's going to happen next.
All right, good.I'll, uh, I'll be as brief as I can.The plot gets a tiny bit complicated.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.This is a B-movie sci-fi.
Yeah, well, yeah, but, okay, just wait.There's so many, there's so much subtext happening.
All right, first of all, it takes place in Arizona.There you go.There is a doctor.His name is Matt Hastings.He's been called into town.He's played by John Agar, by the way.He's been called into town to investigate a strange death.
They appear to be suffering from acromegaly, whatever a disease, which is which is a speech impediment where you can't pronounce medical terms properly. Acromegaly, which is a rare condition when the body produces too much growth hormone.
So your hands, your fingers, your extremities, your features get abnormally large.There's a joke in there.I know you'll think of one.
Anyway, Hastings visits the lab of the deceased and meets his colleague, a guy named Dr. Deamer, but does not learn Dr. Deamer is experiencing also acromegaly. And he's doing experiments with radioactive elements to produce this.
His goal is to produce artificial super nutrient, which when it's perfected, it could help provide an unlimited food source for humanity, which is kind of cool.You know, it's in the 50s.Think about that radioactivity, atomic age.People were afraid
Better living through chemistry, right?Right, right.
But in his lab, we see there are giant rabbits, rats, and, of course, a tarantula the size of a dog.Hastings doesn't discover all that.
When he leaves, Dr. Deamer, the guy doing the experiments, is attacked by another deformed lab assistant, and the lab gets all broken up.The tarantula escapes, and the lab assistant dies.
So just suddenly, as luck would have it, this beautiful out-of-town new lab assistant named Stephanie, in quotes, Stevie Clayton, arrives to assist Dr. Deamer to be his new lab assistant, since he keeps losing them.
the disease you shall not say its name yeah the disease that's right name will never be said that's right so as by weird circumstance Hastings meets her at the bus station and says hey I was going out to dr. Deamer's mansion anyway why don't you come with me so they go out there and they learn that all of the animals have escaped is this like kind of a scooby-doo sort of mansion
Yeah, it is.I mean, there's a laboratory in the giant mansion.And so Hastings starts investigating, like, all these cattle are dying in the desert, and their bones have just been picked clean, and there are these large white petals of goo.
And Stevie reveals the secret experiments to Hastings and that angers Dr. Deamer and Hastings learns the goo is actually spider venom and it rushes back to the mansion where he finds the doctor near death.
So the doctor confesses that he killed the lab assistants and that at the same time the giant tarantula that had escaped that was the size of a dog is now 100 feet tall.And he starts attacking the mansion.
So Stevie and Hastings, they hop in the car to get away.The doctor is killed because the mansion falls on him from the tarantula. So Hastings and Stevie, they're in the car, but nothing, Elliot, can stop this spider from pursuing them.
There's bullets, there's dynamite, there's everything.They have no effect until they call in the Air Force.They're dispatched to launch a napalm attack that eventually incinerates the spider.The end scene.
Wow, what do you think that smelled like?
Yeah, napalm spider?Hmm, I don't know.I would want to smell that in the morning.
So, kind of a lot of references there, like we were talking about with radioactivity, chemistry, napalm, you know, weird stuff.All right, so there's some coda to some of this and where the actors ended up, but I want to hear more.
I want you to take me to the movies, Elliot.Tell me about this 50-foot woman.
All right, I'll be Siskel to your Ebert.
So as I mentioned before, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, iconic poster, less iconic movie, but the poster is absolutely incredible.So let's go into the poster a little bit.
and start talking about that, and then we'll talk about the movie a little bit.So the poster, just to give you some quick accolades here, the poster was actually ranked number eight on the 25 best movie posters ever by Premiere Magazine.
So this is like an iconic thing, right?
I would like to see the seven above it.
I would too, actually.If Ghostbusters is not one of those seven, then there is nothing right in this world.
And if Airplane isn't also one of those seven.
God, I know, I know.You can't trust Hollywood.We've had this discussion before.Yeah, I know.
I know this is, well, we could, that's a whole podcast unto itself.That's a separate whole thing.
Anyway. This poster shows a woman, far larger than 50 feet in height as you mentioned, straddling a highway overpass that snakes into the foreground with the skyline behind her of the city against a bright yellow background.
So she's dressed in a sort of bikini top and short sort of tennis skirt type of bottom, which is the same costume this woman wears in the film.
OK, where does a 50 foot woman buy clothing that size?
Well, apparently, at least when what I remember from the movie, it was sort of like the bedsheets that she was when she was bedridden, when she started.But still, those would have to be massive bedsheets for her to fit into what she's
50 feet tall because they're wrapping around her waist and wrapping around her chest.So I don't know if this was like, you know, Superman's baby blanket and it stretched and grew as he did.
Todd, I think it goes without saying there are some holes in the plot.
Well, they gave you an answer.Just be happy with that.
Exactly.You know, don't don't focus on the inconsequential details here.We're having fun.
OK, this is movie.Yeah.Yes.All right.
OK.So anyway, she has a crumpled car.So she's straddling the highway.She's, you know, looking down and she has a crumpled smoking car in her left hand and her claw like right hand following her gaze.
looks like it's getting ready to grab one of the two overturned cars that have collided with one another right in front of her, presumably when the drivers looked up and spotted this giant woman.
Then her right foot, which is in the foreground, right near the credits at the bottom of the poster, her right foot is planted on a smoking trailer truck.
So like that's really great like you know no fucks given I'm stepping on whatever I need to in order to Get these other vehicles and get these other people right there you go And then tiny people as I just mentioned they're scattering everywhere their arms are outstretched so I don't know if they have the same expressions as the people you were critiquing earlier in your poster and
but they are much, much smaller, much, much farther away, and they're basically scattering in every dimension like roaches when you flip the light on.Like, they're just trying to get out of Dodge.I mean, so it's just great.
So they're all in the highway overpass, fleeing their vehicles, scattering in every direction.Then the movie title.So you talked about this red block type against this yellow sky background.Same device is used for this poster.
So red condensed block lettering tucked into the upper left corner of the poster.And then the words attack and woman and the number 50 are all larger than the rest of the title.So this is all an uppercase, you know, like it's screaming at you.
Now I'm kind of bummed because you mentioned your poster has some exclamation points.
Aside from the period, I love how on this poster they didn't write out foot, F-O-O-T, they just put F-T period, and then it's attack and woman are larger, and then 50
is also bigger it's the same size but that's black so it's like just so you make no mistake about the height of this woman it's 50 50 goddamn feet okay and if i remember and this is this kind of shows the development of those three years in between our movies where the typo mine was you know was horizontal went across it kind of covered the illustration the top of the poster yeah i remember this being
dare I say, a tad bit more understated on the right-hand side, wasn't it?The illustration kind of flowed above it a little.
Yeah, the illustration's definitely doing the heavy lifting here.Yeah, for sure.And I just can't help but think... Going back to, you know, there's just this great way to kind of connect the dots for the person debating.
Like I'm thinking about an average moviegoer in small-town USA in 1958 and they're walking up and they're trying to make the decision about which matinee to go to one Saturday afternoon.
They cut a glance, they get a look at this poster, and it's sort of like, has it not registered at all?This Dame is?Don't you want to see the film?It's like, it's 50 feet. You know, what are you waiting for?Like get in there kid.
You know, it's just like, I don't know.It's just so amazing.Um, as I mentioned earlier, this poster, if, if people, if, as we're talking about it, if it doesn't immediately pop into your mind's eye, we will have it on the episode page.
Or as it turns out, you could see it in some of these other places, which are shows or movies you've already probably seen.
So in the TV series Smallville, it's in the school newspaper offices, which I think is great because of course of the setting and the time that starts to make sense.
Right.And of course this is kind of B-movie pulp just based on a comic book.It makes sense.Pulp Fiction, one of my favorite movies, what I consider to be a Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece.This is in Jack Rabbit Slims.
You know, this is where they have the dance contest.That scene, right?And then it's also used as the basis for cover art for an Avengers comic book.So you start to see how influential this poster became.It's just this sort of...
I don't know this again, like going back to our Bigfoot and Iwo Jima episode, there are just certain images that are just woven into our culture.You almost can't imagine life before they were part of it.
It's a sci-fi touchstone, isn't it?Yes, it really, really is.
It's sort of the poster version of the theremin sound when a UFO lands.It's just everywhere.
It has to be there.Yes, you'd feel something were missing if it were absent. So yeah, so then a little bit about the movie itself.
So like this is, this is all fine and good, but you know, once you buy your ticket, once you get inside, what is it that you're going to see now, Todd, I'm not going to get as in the weeds perhaps as you did.I'm a simple man with simple tastes.
I like a giant woman in a bikini.
That's enough for you, huh?
Yeah.And, and I like a B movie.
I mean, really what, what, you know, the fact that there's a plot is purely secondary to me.
Well, I'd love to hear about this movie.
Okay.So the film storyline concerns the plight of a wealthy heiress named Nancy Archer.So Nancy, the character is the subject of the poster.She is the 50 foot woman.
Okay.And it was played by an actress named Alison Hayes. and the character has a close encounter, so this isn't radiation exactly, this is a few years later, we've gotten more sophisticated, okay?
So her close encounter is with an enormous alien in his round spacecraft.
Okay.So she kind of went on a bender and she's out driving around and lo and behold, she stumbles upon this alien.I mean, usually that's how it happens.I mean, Todd, that's why you and I stopped drinking so much, all the alien visitations.
And so anyway, so this alien weaves his magic, causes her to grow into a giantess. And this happens to complicate her marriage, which is already on the rocks a little bit, due to her husband's philandering.
And this is a guy named Harry Archer, so she's Nancy Archer and her husband's Harry.And Harry was played by a guy named William Hudson.
Harry's name is going to be important as I'll mention in just a moment So she's basically wandering around, you know, she grows to 50 feet She's wandering around the town now and she's looking for Harry and Harry of course is uh He's living it up right?
He's sort of this cad.He's out on the town.He's with another woman.He's drinking carousing and in these clubs so she decides she's going to go out and she's going to find him.
The effects are absolutely great because I remember watching this movie as a little kid and when she's 50 feet tall
She's sort of wandering around the town, but the way that they were able to do the compositing at the time, she's sort of translucent looking.And I never understood when I was little, like, why is she a ghost?
Like, I get that she's big, but why is she also a ghost?Like I could never really sort of put two and two together.And then, you know, of course, as an adult, you're like, oh, they just kind of couldn't pay for anything better.
But, so this is one of the joys of watching this film though, right?So it has this sci-fi storyline, it has this low budget, it's about a woman bent on revenge, she's going around busting up the town.
So the film attained popularity with movie fans and obviously has become a cult film, okay?Like, not only based on the poster, many many more people have admittedly seen the poster than I've ever seen the film.But the film is still great.
It is a B-movie, it's campy, it's wonderful.
It really is like one of the examples of what a B movie is.
Oh, absolutely.Absolutely.
And what's great was you'll never forget her husband's name once you've seen this film because almost all the time that she's big, she's wandering around the town, busting things up, just searching for a husband and she's yelling, Harry.
And it's so great, because it's just so bad.
OK, do that one more time.I'm going to close my eyes and imagine.OK.Do it one more time.
Are you ready?I've got to clear my throat.I've got to get ready.Harry!I mean, it's like you're there, isn't it?I mean, it is so amazingly bad.
On this podcast, you can probably see I've got goosebumps right now.
Yeah.Oh, I can feel them.The way you did it.
Yeah, absolutely.Absolutely.OK, please continue.
Yeah. So this is such a great B-movie.And like I said, the effects are exactly what you'd expect in terms of both the era it was made and the overall budget.So the budget for this film, like this is the all-in budget.
I'm hoping a lot of this went to Ronald Brown. for the poster, to be totally honest with you.So the budget in 1958 dollars was a range, I couldn't find the exact amount, but it was a range of about 65K to about 90K.
So that equates today, you're thinking, well that's peanuts.But that's $615,000 to about $852,000.So still under a million dollars.And if you think about how movies are made now,
even a good indie film with no giant 50-foot woman in it and no Ronald Brown poster costs much, much more than that.So before we switch gears and maybe talk a little bit about Ronald Brown
as we go into the break i need i need to tell you about one of my favorite exchanges in the whole movie all right okay okay so she's storming around town and and the the citizens so like the sheriff the townspeople They all know who she is, right?
Because she's this wealthy heiress.She's been in the town forever.So it's not like, who is this 50 foot woman?Like they all know exactly who she is.They also know the reputation that her husband has, like he's disguised none of his behavior.
So they kind of know what's going on and they know why she's upset and pissed off.Yeah.Right.Okay.So, so this is going on and there's a great scene where they're all sort of clustered together, looking up as,
this one piece of footage of her semi-translucent body, you know, is going across the town busting up different buildings and stuff.So the dialogue with a townsperson talking to one of the cops, this is so great.This is the exchange, okay?
She'll tear up the whole town till she finds Harry.Yeah, and then she'll tear up Harry. I just love that.I thought that was some of the best dialogue writing ever.It was so brilliant.
And did this win like a screenwriting Oscar that year?
I hope so.I haven't done the research, but I mean hands down it should have.Are you kidding me?
All right, well, after the break, I want to give you just a little update on some of where the actors and the crew ended up with Tarantula.And then let's talk a little bit more about the contributions of Reynold Brown.
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giant women and spiders.Todd, how many shots did we have?
I don't know Elliot, I lost count too.How about we grab a fresh coffee for the second half and meet back here in a few minutes. Hi, while we have your attention, if you want to learn more about us and the podcast, there are a few ways to do it.
Visit our website at twodesignerswalkintoabar.com.All of that is spelled out.No numbers.
Kind of a long URL, so do yourself a favor and bookmark it.Once you're there, you can find links to more information about the subjects in this episode, our episode archive, and information about both of us.
Wait, we do want people to visit, right?
Well... Oh, and look for us on social media.You can find those links on our website as well.
And while we're at it, if you have a friend who you feel will dig on our rambling,
Tell him or her what we're up to.
While we can't guarantee that they will remain your friend, we can guarantee that they will listen to at least 30 seconds of whatever episode you send them the link to.
That's being a little shameless.
And speaking of being shameless, it wouldn't be a proper ask if we didn't mention that if you like what you hear, you can also make a donation via our website.We have a Nigerian prince handling all transactions for us.
In fact, he told us to mention that we have stickers to mail to anyone who donates $10 or more.Are we done?We're done. Okay, so Tarantula, it was directed by a guy named Jack Arnold.
He also directed It Came from Outer Space, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, another universal institution, Revenge of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and many, many others, before moving to a television career.
And check this stuff out.Check out these directing creds.All right.
So, first of all, let me go back and say the first movie that I mentioned first, it came from outer space, another B-movie sci-fi, starring a Mr. Who, Russell Johnson, the professor on Gilligan's Island.
Jack Arnold directed 26 episodes of Gilligan's Island.
Yes!He directed a bunch of episodes of Peter Gunn and Raoul Hyde, and he did a few Perry Masons.Also, Love American Style.You remember that, right?Wonder Woman, Bionic Woman, and Love Boat.And sit down for this one, Elliot.
Fifteen episodes of The Brady Bunch.Including all of the Hawaii episodes.
with the and the curly perm hair yeah and the famous oh my nose yeah with the football yeah master master you know what we can end this podcast episode right now I know.Look at that.I mean, that's just Hollywood legend.
But I've got two more little tidbits to share with you.
It's like double dessert.
I know.John Agar, the guy that played the male lead, he ended up marrying Shirley Temple.Well, not ended up.He actually was married to Shirley Temple and already divorced before this movie was made.He married her in 1945 and that only lasted.
to 1950 because of his drinking.He had a little bit of a drinking problem and he had been arrested a couple times.
He was like the real life Harry.
He was and so then he went to get remarried to another woman named Loretta Barnett Combs and they were gonna elope and guess what?The officials wouldn't marry them because he was drunk again. Anyway, they did get married.
They stayed married for 49 years.The end of him.All right, but the real winner in all of this is our leading lady, Stevie, played by Mara Corday.She ended up marrying an actor, I don't know if you remember, a guy named Richard Long.
He was in 77, Sunset Strip.He was in the Big Valley and did a million other guest appearances.Anyway, She'd gotten out of showbiz pretty soon.Once you've done Tarantula, what else can you do?You really can't do anything.
But she had an old showbiz friend, a guy named Clinton Eastwood, that offered her a chance to get back in the movies.So gave her a little tiny role in The Gauntlet.
And then she had a brief, but I would say very significant role in the famous Sudden Impact movie of 1983.So do you remember the movie, Elliot?
Oh yeah, yeah, the diner scene.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, do you remember the line that Harry says?Let me see. Detective Harry Callahan?
Yeah, go ahead, make my day.
Yeah, did he fire six shots or only five?
The person that he is talking to is holding a gun to Mayor Corday's head.She is the waitress who tried to get his attention by pouring like a thousand gallons of sugar in his coffee.
Yeah, because he was a regular there.Yeah, yeah.And she was tipping him off that something was amiss.
Yes, yes, I remember that now so You might ask yourself.Those are two people that I would not have thought would have been lifelong friends.
Well Looked it up and little Clinton Eastwood had an uncredited role in tarantula as the Air Force squadron fighter So there you go Hollywood comes around was this his first movie I It was not his first.
His first was actually Creature from the Black Lagoon.Really?He also had an uncredited role, yes.
Both uncredited.But, you know... As sometimes luck has it, Oscar smiles on you.Sometimes Oscar doesn't smile on you.Tarantula had a tough year.
In 1955, it was released near the end, like one does when you're trying to get Oscar contention, but also for other movies that were released that year. you might have heard of a couple.
Blackboard Jungle, East of Eden, little Jimmy Dean guy was in that one.The Seven Year Itch, Marilyn Monroe, Lady and the Tramp, To Catch a Thief, Oklahoma, and a little diddy called Rebel Without a Cause.
So unfortunately, Tarantula didn't have an opportunity to win an Oscar.And again, I'll say it, I knew Hollywood was rigged at that point.
Yeah, when you have two James Dean movies in the same year.
Yeah.So I mean, what are you gonna do?
Well, you know, I'm still amazed that Clint Eastwood is sort of the Kevin Bacon of Hollywood.I mean, he's been in so many movies.
yeah yeah who knew yeah so anyway the guy that brought us both here today is reynold brown the illustrator of these two great posters as well as many other hollywood posters and I know a little about him.I didn't find out a whole lot, though.
I knew he was obviously an artist, and I knew he taught at Art Center, I think it was.Maybe you know.
And, you know, had a really great, wonderful career, and a long career.But do you know more about him?
Oh, Todd. You, me and Wikipedia, we know all about him.
We have the world's knowledge at our fingertips here.When I saw this, this attack of the 50 foot woman poster, I just thought, yeah, who is this person?Who's behind this?
You know, who did this iconic thing that as we said, has appeared in a lot of places has influenced a lot of different, um, subsequent pieces of art.So,
William Reynolds Brown was born in 1917 and he, as we discussed, was an artist who painted a lot of Hollywood film posters, but he also briefly worked as a comic book artist as well.So, um, yeah, he was from California.
Uh, as you mentioned, he attended Alhambra high school and he started to meet cartoonists, you know, when he was in his late teens, around 20. And he started to ink a comic strip by a gentleman named Hal Forrest called Tailspin Tommy.
So he wasn't credited for that.You know, Forrest would draw it and he was one of the inkers.And so I think that really started to help him dial in his skills.So have you ever heard of an illustrator that goes by the name of Norman Rockwell?
Does that name ring a bell?
How is it pronounced again?
Rockwell.Yeah, sounds familiar.Sounds familiar.Did, you know, like Santa Claus and stuff like that.
Saturday evening something or other.Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.Might have turned into something.
Yeah.Yeah.Anyway, so his sister, was a teacher at Brown's high school.
Yeah.Really?And then through Rockwell's sister, Brown later met Norman Rockwell himself, who said, if you want to be taken seriously as an illustrator, you've got to get out of this comic stuff.You've got to just commit to illustration.
So, you know, sure.Yeah.Follow Norman Rockwell's advice.There are far worse people you could be listening to.
So he subsequently won a scholarship to the Otis Art Institute. So during World War II, as you can imagine, all hands on deck, everybody's doing something.So he ends up working for a company called North American Aviation.
And there he met his wife and he created all of these very, very detailed cutaway illustrations of all these different airplanes that this company was selling.And they're absolutely incredible.
You know, you can go online and you can find these, maybe we'll post one or two examples on our episode pages as well.I mean, so the guy was a draftsman.
He had incredible eye for detail, which is sort of funny when you think about what we were mentioning earlier, where the scale was so woefully off.So the only thing that I can think is that it was for dramatic effect, right?
Again, it's just getting butts in seats for these movies.
Yeah, or the producer, he was like, how big do I make the woman?And the producer was like, I don't know, just big, make it big.
Instead of make the logo bigger, it's make the creature bigger.
He did magazines and a bunch of that stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.So jokingly, we mentioned a minute ago Saturday Evening Post, obviously the domain of Norman Rockwell.That's what made him famous.But Brown also did Saturday Evening Post covers.
He did covers also for Argosy, Boys Life, Outdoor Life, Popular Aviation, that makes sense.But another iconic magazine still around today is Popular Science.
And he, I think, due to the fact that he was a draftsman, as we've talked about, he did several Popular Science covers. As luck would have it, I have a popular science book that is like 150 years of covers and topics.
And so I dug into this book and lo and behold, it has several of his covers in it.One is great.It's something like a family in a convertible sedan.
And there was some sort of rooftop parking situation, like a parking garage and it's dangling almost horror movie style or suspense movie style off of the precipice, off the edge of the roof of this building.
And the headline is something like, if I remember correctly, could this happen to you?
I've seen that.Yeah.Yeah.They're driving off the building or something.Yeah.
And I'm like, is this like a story about brake pads?
You know, it begs further inquiry.And then he also put together some paperback book covers as well.And you mentioned that this guy taught at the Art Center College of Design.
So like all of this stuff is going on, but that still doesn't really get to the heart of how did he start doing all these movie posters?
Right? As luck would have it, when he was at Arts Center, he met a woman named Misha Callis, and she was the art director at, drumroll, Universal Pictures, right?Yeah.And so through her, he began doing his film poster work.
that's okay so that's why he was involved with all those classic universal monster creature films yeah so you mentioned some of the the movies and sort of what was going on at the time you mentioned creature from the black lagoon little clint eastwood's first film that he did uh the poster for brown did the poster for now
I'm going to give you, so we've basically zeroed in on sci-fi, B-movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon, another iconic B-movie.Now I want to talk to you about some other, what I'll refer to as some of Hollywood's greatest hits.
and just iconic movies.And he did the posters for these as well.
So like, I don't want, even though he did comics work, even though he did some illustration, he did much more than kind of this B-movie schlock kind of stuff that you and I both love, okay?1958, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor.
Wow, same year as 50 Foot Woman.Exactly.That's quite a resume.
Then Her, 1959 with Charlton Heston. Wow.A little movie in 1960 called Spartacus with Kurt Douglas.
Wow.Was into his sandal period.That's right.
Exactly.Exactly.Same year, The Alamo with John Wayne.Who didn't wear sandals.Not to my knowledge.Maybe when he was not in front of the camera.Yeah.
A couple of years after that, Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando.
All right.Now, Todd, we have to drift back for at least a time in a in a b-movie but this is a good one mothra versus godzilla i love that movie 1964 wow great okay And then the last, but certainly not least, Shenandoah with Jimmy Stewart.
Yeah, so all kinds of amazing poster work, just amazing Hollywood work in general.And in fact, and you'll love this, this might be one of the best documentary titles I've ever read, all right?
So 1994, As it should be, Brown's life was subject of a documentary.And the title of the documentary, people want to look it up, is The Man Who Drew Bug-Eyed Monsters.
Yes, absolutely.You got to watch it and then you got to watch it again.
That's right.That's right.
And then there's also a book.So, Reynold Brown, A Life in Pictures.And that came out in 2009, so a little over a decade ago.And I've been reading up on this book and I really want to get my filthy hands on it because we highly recommend this book.
Like, it is pretty incredible.
Yeah, yeah.I saw that somewhere while I was looking at posters and I also want to get that too.So, that would be great.But, okay, so let me ask you then.
enjoyed talking about these movies obviously we enjoy talking about the posters for the movies what makes these posters great why did why did we talk about them you know 50 odd years later 55 years later yeah how do they have this staying power and how do they continue to influence people yeah you know I thought a lot about that uh
And I have classic, right?You got to have your three takeaways.And so I have my three takeaways.So how about we compare and contrast here as we wrap this up?OK.
I think the first one, and you touched on this really, really well when you were describing your Tarantula poster, is composition.
So the use of perspective, certainly in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, is the way the woman is angled, as we talked about, she's straddling the elevated highway, the negative space in the upper left corner for the title, and it all works and it feels very sci-fi comic book-like.
It almost feels like a giant comic book cover. So, the visual language is a really, really quick read for the audience.It's like you look at this thing when you're in line to buy your ticket and you know what you're going to get.
You know, there's very little mystery here.How about you?
Well, you know, I got to say, same thing.And I mentioned the hocus pocus with perspective on Tarantula.Yeah.And I love that.I actually love that about both of them.And we joked about 50 foot woman who's probably more like 200 feet in the poster.
Yeah.But I love that the emotion
of being attacked by a radioactive spider superseded logic like people you know it was just like hey this is big and scary make it big and scary so i love that i will point out a little minor faux pas in tarantula though the spider only had two eyes
Which was, I know, but I mean, come on, the poster's magical besides that.
At least it got the eight legs right, I think, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, exactly.And, you know, the thing we both talked about, too, is the use of primary colors on both of these posters.
Like, we both said the backgrounds are yellow, bright yellow, and I think, you know, there was red type on both of them.
yeah and again it's elementary right it's like building block colors it's very quick it's very bold yeah the skies are yellow in in my particular poster the cars are red and blue the type is red and all of this color really leads your eye around the poster so
In the Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, you talk about your characters bursting out of the frame and really planting their feet on the credits.In this poster, in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, you almost don't even see the credits.
They're very, very downplayed. geometric, lightweight, slim, condensed typeface, and the blue is the same blue as the cars.So it almost, from a distance, disappears, and it's really all about
just a bold illustration but invariably you follow the woman's arm down to her leg and then down it just you know to the crushed semi-truck I mentioned and boom it just drops you right into the beginning of these credits and so it's really well done in terms of a layout.
Yeah, you know, and I was interested in tarantula to see, well, what was this common?Like to have these just intense bits of color and contrast at that time.
And I looked it up, and as I mentioned, Reynold Brown was doing this bright yellow background and obviously a big black spider.So yellow and black, just like the most contrast you could probably get.Nobody else was doing that at posters at that time.
So it obviously stood out, and I'm sure the same thing of the time in 1958 with 54 Woman.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it goes back to, think about this guy was doing things with comic books, and think about the colors of the costumes of superheroes in comic books.It's all, you know, Superman and Captain Marvel.
So I'm sure that some of that carried over into just the, you know, the aesthetic here. All right, Todd, but I gotta give you my number three.
So that's two.Yeah, yeah, yeah.Number three, yeah.
Okay.And I'm gonna, as if we haven't already gotten lowbrow enough with this podcast, I'm gonna, you know, number three for me is sex.Todd, it's 1958, it's a giant woman in a bikini running around.Need I say more?
You win this round, my friend.Only on the technicality, because my poster, while it The main subject has eight legs.They're Fuzzy and and they're gross and you know, they're nothing like the woman on your poster So you win this on a technicality?
All right, so that was the tiebreaker That was the tiebreaker and you know what in your honor to support you I'm gonna buy us a round of zombies
Oh, that sounds perfect.And then we'll be zombies when we're leaving the bar later on tonight.When we go outside and we start yelling, Harry!
Or maybe it'll be, Uber!Uber!
And I'll still be trying to say, Acromegaly!
Okay, don't yell that.Alright, till next time.
Alright, see everyone soon.
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