10 Of The Most Misleading & Mis-Representing Movie Posters Ever!

In this interview with Pitchfork Academy Award-winning Irish songwriter Glen Hansard complains about the photoshopped makeover the poster for his film ONCE got on its recent DVD release:
“They have us holding hands, which we never do in the film! Those legs aren’t mine. Those legs are like three times longer than my legs. It’s a completely new body. They literally just used my face…If you look at my head, my head looks totally weird, because whoever did the Photoshop job was sh-t. My head looks really weird, they took my hat off, and they gave me an entirely new body. It’s completely bizarre. And they made Mar [co-writer/performer Markéta Irglová] much taller than she really is. You can look at the original cover and then what they did to it and spot all the crappy differences. It’s awful. It’s a real shame.”

Hansard is understandably upset because he designed the original poster and DVD cover himself. Some of the changes are more annoying than offensive but the “holding hands” deal – anybody who has seen the film knows how freakin’ misleading that is! Also Hansard’s comment illustrates how wide the gap is between who makes the art and who martkets it so it got me to thinking about misleading and downright mis-representing movie posters. Many have irritated me throughtout my years as a film fan. Now, it can be argued that most movie posters are misleading because that’s their job – to make the movie look bigger and better than it is so it’s a bit silly to pinpoint such offenses so call me silly as I make another patented Film Babble Blog list:

10 Of The Most Misleading & Mis-Representing Movie Posters Ever!

1. KING KONG (Dir. John Guillermin, 1976) As for trying to make the movie look bigger and better than it is, this one really takes the cake! Sure, there was a lot that was bogus about the 70’s remake of the 1933 classic but the overblown spectacle depicted on this poster doesn’t resemble what happens on screen at all. First off, Kong looks to be 5 times his size in the film – large enough to stand balanced between both World Trade Center Towers – he had to make a running leap from one to the other in the actual scene. Second, there were only helicopters in the movie so his crushing a jet plane (notice the size of it in perspective as well). Third, this sequence takes place at night. Fourth, this was not “the most exciting original motion picture event of all time”. Okay, so those last 2 were nit picking but no less than Saturday Night Live pointed the former offenses out in a Tom Snyder show sketch with John Belushi as Dino De Laurentiis. Snyder (Dan Aykroyd) questions the producer: “Sir, the advertising for your movie, the billboards and so on, depict King Kong crushing jet planes in his hands, but, sir, there is not one jet plane in the movie…isn’t that kind of a hype?” The elusive De Laurentiis by way of a slick slimey Belushi impression avoids the question by bringing up the hype of his competition – Jon Peter’s A STAR IS BORN (“your monkey can sing!” De Laurentiis says he told Peters) but we all know that he’s been satirically called out.

2. STAR WARS (Dir. George Lucas, 1977) This one always irked me as a kid. None of the characters look right – even Darth Vader looks a bit off. The image, while I’m sure some will grumble at it’s inclusion here because it is inarguably iconic, doesn’t really reflect the look and style of the record breaking blockbuster. Resembling 70’s sci-fi pulp novel jackets with it’s overly ripped muscular hero, overly sexy heroine (neither of which look anthing remotely like Mark Hamil nor Carrie Fisher), against a backdrop of battle, this poster most likely bugged me back in the day because the exact concept was redone a few times by other artists and never really improved upon. In the next few years when STAR WARS * was re-released several new poster designs appeared which were better in concept and presentation of the leads. Han Solo was even allowed to show his mug. Seems like it was only after it was a big hit with audiences did they figure how to market the movie. Or more accurately re-market the movie.

* Again, I’m not calling it EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE damnit!

3. THIS IS SPINAL TAP (Dir. Rob Reiner, 1984) This one is especially off-putting. Rob Reiner’s debut film is made to look like a sight-gag filled laugh-a-minute spoof, and while it did have some of that to it – it was really a different comic model than the film its poster was referencing. Reiner in an interview from Mojo magazine (Nov. 2000) recalled how he hated the concept: “They marketed it with a guitar flying in the air with a twisted neck which looked like the poster for AIRPLANE! It looked like it was trading on another film. It was one of the reasons why I started Castle Rock because I wanted control over marketing.” The image remained on the first video release of THIS IS SPINAL TAP (pictured to the left) but was replaced later but a plain black cover for the DVD releases. Glad to see it’s gone.

4. BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (Dir. David Lean, 1957) The excellent blog Cinemania called this one to my attention. Dan Jardine wrote: “And could there be a more misleading movie poster?” It is pretty absurd in that it mis-represents the feel and focus of said Best Picture Winner. Not sure why Holden is billed above Alec Guiness either. I just saw this film for the first time all the way through (seems like it’s been on TV my whole life but I never sat down and watched it all) so this caught my eye as being pretty notably non-complimentary.

5. SOYLENT GREEN (Dir. Richard Fleisher, 1973) Actually I think I like this poster better than the movie! It’s more exciting and I can understand why they would want to draw attention to population controling monster trucks to fake moviegoers out about what SOYLENT GREEN really is. In fact you’ve got to give them credit because without all the misleads in the marketing and the film itself the quotable twist ending would not have been as effective and this would not be the sci-fi cult classic that it is.

6. CLASS (Dir. Lewis John Carlino, 1983) This may be a fairly insubstantial film, especially in the company on this list, being a mostly forgotten 80’s drama/comedy (hate the word ‘dramedy’) but I think it makes a good point about mis-marketing. A popular genre of the Reagan era was the teen sex comedy (epitomized by such schlock as PORKY’S, THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN, PRIVATE LESSONS *, etc.) and while this film did contain some college party shenanigans it really didn’t fit into that genre. That didn’t mean that it couldn’t be marketed as such – with a stupid poster that not only mis-represented the characters it gave away the only interesting plot-twist! The poster image may be hard to read – it says: “The good news is Jonathan is having his First Affair. The bad news is she’s his roommate’s mother!” Makes it seem like wackiness ensues, huh? Well, let me tell you – it doesn’t.

* Not linking to any of that crap.

Dishonorable Mention From The Same Era: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (Dir. Amy Heckerling, 1982) This also mis-represents majorly by making it look like Sean Pean’s character Jeff Spicoli is the protagonist when he is a small player in an ensemble. His head appears to be cut from another picture as he is joined by two models who don’t appear in the film at all. Like CLASS, the film had a good bit of depressing drama so the over selling of the sex really didn’t clue in audiences. It also has a stupid tagline: “At Ridgemont High, Only the Rules get Busted!”

7. SCARY MOVIE (Dir. Keenan Ivory Wayans, 2000) This one is here for one reason only – the worthless promise of its tagline: “No mercy. No shame. No sequel.” Did you get that? “NO SEQUEL!” There were 3 damn sequels to this should’ve been a one-off throwaway. Sure, you can argue that they didn’t plan on a sequel until the movie became a hit but that’s a possibility you know they were aware of. For the SCARY MOVIE 2 they ad campaign addressed this: “look, we lied!” but the damage was done. I liked it better when Mel Brooks’ lame Python rip-off HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART I didn’t gather enough acclaim or box office to warrant a sequel. Ah, those were the days…

8. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (Dir. Robert Wise, 1951) This one is great as a piece of 50’s sci-fi B-movie pop art but incredibly misleading on all fronts. Hell, some even complain that the title of the film is misleading but I won’t go there. I won’t bitch about a color image for a black and white film, that was pretty much the norm then, but the depicting of action that never occurs and that, uh, what looks like a monkey’s hand on top of the Earth image is, well, just plain dumb. I do love the tagline though “From Out Of Space….”

9. JABBERWOCKY (Dir. Terry Gilliam, 1977) Another from my childhood that really pissed me off. Although it followed the likewise Medieval MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and had Michael Palin as the star this was not a Python project – it was Terry Gilliam’s solo directorial debut but was not billed as such. Wikipedia says: “For its American premiere the film was initially advertised as ‘Monty Python’s Jabberwocky’, but this was dropped following protests from Gilliam.” It wasn’t immediately dropped though – for years posters and videocassette releases and many international showings had the Python credit. It confused me back in the pre-internet 80’s when I was devouring all things Python. Watching it without the proper info that it wasn’t really a Monty Python movie I felt like I was a victim of cinematic false advertising. Gilliam seems to have been successful in ridding the world of the inaccurate billing – The only image I could find was the Greek one-sheet (available from MoviePictureArt.com for $45.50!) above.

10. 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (Dir. Michael Winterbottom, 2002) This is a more recent title that annoys me terribly. It’s one of my favorite films of the last 10 years and it’s extremely rewatchable so I see the DVD cover a lot and hate that it has a close-up of a girl dancing showing off her tongue-stud when no such image is in the film. Maybe I blinked and missed it so if you saw such please let me know. Otherwise the image makes the film look more like a modern era ecstasy-rave movie than the spunky smart-ass 80’s Manchester rock portrait it really is.

So, since there are zillions of misleading mis-representin’ movie posters out there – please let me know your personal choices.

More later…

5 Multiple Role Movie Masters

There are not many actors that can truly pull off playing more than one part in a single movie (hence this being a top 5 and not a top 10 list). It can be a scene killer and movie deal breaker if it’s not a convincing second character, or in some cases 3rd or 4th or 15th character (see # 3 on the list). In making this list I wanted to avoid when actors play their twin brothers or sisters (or other family members for that matter – but that rule was meant to be broken) or when they are clones, robot copies, or their primary character in disguise. Also tried to weed out the one timers – I mean Sir Alec Guinness was fantastic as 8 different people in KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS but in the end that didn’t make the cut over those whose careers are almost based on their multi-tasking personas. Especially like this guy’s :

1. Peter Sellers (1925-1980) Tops the list because he’s the only actor ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for playing 3 different parts * – Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley, and the title character in DR. STRANGELOVE. He was even originally going to play a 4th character – Major T.J. ‘King’ Kong but he was uncertain of his ability to do a Texan accent so the role went to Slim Pickens. Sellers came from a sketch comedy radio background as a member of the Goons (with Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine, and Harry Secombe) so he was well equipped early on to handle tons of assorted dialects. 9 out of the roughly 35-40 movies he made (depends on which filmography you read) had him playing over 25 different parts. The range of accents, change of genders and ethnic makeovers throughout his career makes it difficult to know how his real voice (if there actually was one) sounded and what he really looked like in real life – though to him there probably was no such thing as “real life”.

The most notable of the films in which the master inhabits more than one personage is THE MOUSE THAT ROARED (3 characters), LOLITA (2 characters), the original 1967 CASINO ROYALE (just 2 characters but one was James Bond!) and the little seen SOFT BEDS, HARD BATTLES in which 2 of the 6 parts he played were Hitler and the President. His final film – the dismal THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU had him play 2 characters – the villain of the title and who he considers his “worthy adversary” – Dr. Hayland Smith. Not the greatest exit in cinema history but at least he went out doing what he did best.

2. Eddie Murphy – I’m sure many readers will be cynical about Murphy being this high on the list but just consider this : he’s played more characters in a fewer amount of movies than Sellers and he has convincingly portrayed an entire family (aided by CGI) through 2 incredibly profitable if not acclaimed films (THE NUTTY PROFESSOR & NUTTY PROFESSOR II : THE KLUMPS). It worked so well in a movie as cheesily charming as COMING TO AMERICA that I can overlook the device in such crap as VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN and NORBIT. So even if Murphy spends the rest of his days doing the Donkey in future SHREK sequels or resurrecting Axel Foley every now and then for a fast buck he’s still got his multi-tasking part playing skills to fall back on.

3. Monty Python (1969-1983) – Okay so many readers wrote me to say that they felt the Python players (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin) got short shrift in my 10 Definitive Films-Within-Films and 10 Movie Moments That Broke The 4th Wall posts so I’m giving them full due here. Part of the powerful charm of the original BBC Flying Circus program, which was heavily inspired by the Goons (Sellers again!), was that each of the 5 performing members played a bunch of parts in various sketches every episode. Even animator Terry Gilliam, so not an actor, put in a few memorable moments. When it came to their movie work no other films in comedy movie history were as peopled by, well, the same people over and over. I’m not going to list everybody’s exact standing in multiple role-dom but just for example’s sake here’s the most popular Monty Python member John Cleese’s stats :

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (1971) – 15 characters.
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975) – 7 characters.
MONTY PYTHON’S THE LIFE OF BRIAN (1979) – 6 characters.
MONTY PYTHON LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL (1982) – 12 characters.
MONTY PYTHON’S THE MEANING OF LIFE (1983) – 9 characters.

Whew! That’s 49 different characters in just 5 movies – quite a run, huh? Figure in all the other Python players and their plethora of parts and you’ve got the biggest tally of multiple characters in cinema history. Can’t tell you the exact tally though – too lazy to do the math.

Postnote #1 – Maybe it seems lame to have the Python troupe under one entry but a list where each member was given their own slot would have been tedious – therefore lamer – so I opted for a one for all entry.

Postnote #2 – Carol Cleveland : From Flying Circus to Meaning Of Life she was the unsung female reparatory member. For a list like this that should be noted.

4. Lily Tomlin – Sure, she hasn’t been in as many movies where she plays multiple roles as some of the others on this list but for 3 solid reasons she makes the top 5 – 1.) The only highlights of the dire mostly unfunny sci-fi spoof THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN (Dir. Joel Schumacher – go figure! 1981) was in addition to her playing the title character and neighbor the pursed lipped Judith Beasley there was the bringing to the big screen the classic Tomlin character Ernestine – the persnickety telephone operator from Laugh-In. 2.) This list is way too male dominated and we need Tomlin to break up this sausage party. 3.) It’s her BIRTHDAY Damnit! She was born in Detroit on September 1st, 1939 – to be exact. So let’s give her props, okay? Though I didn’t want to include when someone played their own sibling on this list – she did that duty in BIG BUSINESS (Dir. Jim Abrahams, 1988) with Bette Midler playing her own twin sister as well. Also since I made the exception with the Pythons on sketch films and live performance movies – Tomlin’s THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE (Dir. John Bailey, 1991) has her performing 5 different character pieces. So I believe she fully qualifies. Happy Birthday Lily!

5. Mike Myers – The shadow of Peter Sellers hangs over just about everybody on this list. But it practically burns through the work of Mike Myers. Especially in the AUSTIN POWERS trilogy (AUSTIN POWERS – INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY (’97), THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME (’99), and GOLDMEMBER (’02) which all echo with swinging Sellers as much as they do the swinging ’60’s London scene. The obvious concept of playing the hero and the villain (Dr. Evil) as well as the bumbling demeanor also present in supporting characters Goldmember and Fat Bastard (also played by Myers) is pure Sellers derived through and through. From the springboard of early 90’s SNL Myers has been blending Sellers methods with his own 2nd generation slacker stoner charm in his movie material and has pulled off some tricky double and triple duty so he slides right in at #5.

Honorable Mention :

Mel Brooks – Throughout the movies he directed and starred in that were mostly genre spoofs (BLAZING SADDLES, HIGH ANXIETY, HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART I, SPACEBALLS, ETC.) Brooks usually played 2-3 characters each time out. They weren’t truly different from one another and that was precisely the joke – maybe not the greatest joke but hey – what can you do?

Meg Ryan – Okay so this violates the rule * that it can’t just be somebody playing their sibling (which I know already got broken with Lily Tomlin above) but in addition to sisters Angelica and Patricia Graynamore, Ryan also plays Tom Hanks’ office co-worker Dede in the 1990 surreal comedy JOE VS. THE VOLCANO. In his entry on this film Case File #40 of My Year Of Flops Nathan Rabin of the Onion AV Club writes “now normally the phrase ‘Meg Ryan in multiple roles’ is enough to send shivers down the spine or suggest a fate worse than death. And while it pains me deeply to write this, Meg Ryan is adorable!” I concur so let nobody ever say film babble never gave a shout out to Meg Ryan! Now let’s move on.

* Also the rule that the actor needs to have been in more that one film playing multiple parts but ah…sue me!

The Kids In The Hall : BRAIN CANDY (Dir. Kelly Makin, 1996) Not quite up to Python standards, oh Hell not even up to SCTV standards the Canadian comedy quintet (Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson) had a good run on TV so why not a full fledged feature with each member playing multiple parts? Sounds great! Wait – key member Dave Foley doesn’t really want to take part? Oh okay, he’ll do a few bits but won’t contribute to the writing? Hmmmm, maybe the whole project should be scrapped – what everybody wants to do it anyway? Okay, It might work. What? It didn’t? Damn. Kind of like the last season of Flying Circus in which John Cleese didn’t participate, BRAIN CANDY has some good bits but nothing classic. The Pythons though regrouped with HOLY GRAIL – doubt the Kids will ever pull off something like that.

Also according to Wikipedia : “Lon Chaney played dual roles in several films, using the elaborate makeup that became his trademark.” I’ll take your word for it Wikipedia!

Okay, so that’s all I got for now. So before you say Martin Short – I know there are lots and lots of multiple part players I missed so shoot ’em on over!

More later…