Film Posters of the 50s: The Essential Movies of the Decade

Film Posters of the 50s movie poster book

Movie Posters of the Fifties book

In the 1950s the motion picture industry did battle with it’s newest and biggest rival: television. This meant trying everything from gimmicks (“in 3D!”), genre films (such as horror and science fiction), to a bit of sex appeal (courtesy of the likes of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean).

In Tony Nourmand’s book Film Posters of the 50s: The Essential Movies of the Decade, the movie poster takes on a vital role in advertising films of the time: getting people to leave their home (and TVs) and into to the movie theater. Whether it was the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet or the emergence of designer Saul Bass, some consider the 1950s as part of the “golden age” of film poster art. The fifties certainly marked the transition into the modern equivalent of the so-called “star sell”, where big name movie stars began to drive film advertising (and film production in general).