post movie posters done in a busy/claustrophobic caricature style from the 70s and 80s

On the list of actors who've done movies with posters like these, Jonathan Winters has to be high up there.

http://www.pastposters.com/cw3/assets/product_full/(JamieF)__Stitches(1).jpg

Dig that tagline:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOWMwY2M5ODQtNTNjZC00ZDQzLTg4ZDgtMWRkYjg1NmE0Y2ZiL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzc5MjA3OA@@._V1_UY1200_CR79,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg

Mortuary Academy (1988)

alternative Mortuary Academy with alternative tagline:

https://www.cinematerial.com/media/posters/md/md/mdtww59r.jpg?v=1456605408

this one is pretty similar to the above, but on the top row they've added a condom in the guy's right hand, and some tits

http://www.benitomovieposter.com/catalog/images/movieposter/30672.jpg

Damn, Nedra Volz lived to be 95.

80s All Over continues to deliver the goods:

https://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/201/MPW-100681

Take This Job and Shove It (1981)

good link that i found through the frank frazetta article upthread: http://drewfriedman.blogspot.com/2012/01/jack-rickards-movie-posters.html

meanwhile i'm continuing my long-abandoned project of spreadsheeting all these movies, with taglines and dates. probably redundant to cryptosicko's Letterboxd list but it's something i started ages ago so... hey.

anyway one thing that struck me, cataloguing taglines, is how many of these posters, especially in the post-Animal House era, lean on calling out other, better films by name, e.g. What "Stripes" did to the Army, What "Police Academy" did to law enforcement... These guys do to scouting! for "The Wrong Guys," or that attempt by "Take This Job and Shove It" to suggest Hays's presence means you're in for something somehow descended from or connected to Airplane! can't recall seeing that kind of naked credibility-grabbing in more recent years - did the big studios crack down at some point, maybe secure a legal precedent that invoking their films was intended to mislead the audience about who made the films or something?

another running theme, apparently a wackiness signifier: really precise numbers, as where the town in "Cold Turkey" has 4,006 people trying to quit smoking and collect the cash prize, or where the dollar amount at stake in The Fortune Cookie is $249,000.92.

You only thought Will Ferrell was 'Old School'... Just wait until you see "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy'!

In theaters, July 2004

Spotted this a while back but didn't post it because it seems more of a straight illustration. However, in light of DC mentioning "calling out other, better films by name":

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y41-o8IPFf4/UeoWnQ-o83I/AAAAAAAACaY/NxfEq_aYahQ/s1600/Lovelines+soundtrack+%20unreleased%20+%201984%20.jpg

i think that counts in its way. i definitely wouldn't broaden the genre to include all illustrations, but definitely part of it is a welcoming of density and lots of little human bodies in the frame, even if not especially cartoonified - the claustrophobia and absence of demands to get the faces nice and big are critical.

Mortuary Academy looks amazing. It's not even listed on Paul Bartel's wikipedia page

SPECIAL APPEARANCES BY WOLFMAN JACK AND CESAR ROMERO

Bartel's filmography seems like I could just watch these in order for a year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bartel#Filmography

Munchies AND Gremlins 2, impressive

SO many movies postered in this thread are available in their entirety on YouTube for free - coincidence or FACT?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZWJhOTBjNTYtZWFjMy00NzM2LWIzYWItZGZmOThkMzBiZTY3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjI2MDIzNTA@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,551,1000_AL_.jpg
Mugsy's Girls (1984)

Very good find, surprised it'd escaped us for so long! Deezen, "Animal House" shout-out... and a very late performance by the onetime headlining stage actress Ruth Gordon, who'd pass away at the age of 88 the following year. Folks my age know her best from Harold and Maude, but previous claustro-carico work includes The Big Bus and Clint Eastwood's chimpanzee duology.

Featuring Teacup as Himself - is this the name of some third-tier 80s comic with whom I'm unfamiliar? Or just the name of the rabbit?

Was Animal House really that popular six years later?

"If you thought the gals from Bridesmaids were crazy, meet Craig's Groomsmen! Starring Phillip Baker Hall as Craig."

Animal House launched a whole subgenre of movies that got these posters, and none of them became in any way iconic so I guess they were all still stuck referring to the original.

BTW speaking of the "and remember that other movie" type of poster --- C. Grisso posted a French version of S*P*Y*S (1974) in the early days of this thread, but the differently-drawn American poster hits that theme really hard...

http://www.cinemaretro.com/uploads/spysposter.jpg

...as does the trailer. Which also incidentally conveys nothing moreso than "this movie will be a painful unfunny bore that looks like a made-for-TV job." The British poster backs this up solidly:

http://www.cinemaretro.com/uploads/SPYGS450.jpg

https://www.movieforums.com/community/attachment.php?attachmentid=15129&stc=1&d=1400943426

Angel in My Pocket (1969)

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1416/8662/products/happy_birthday_gemini_original_film_art.jpg

Happy Birthday, Gemini (1980)

I like how Angel in My Pocket is only a few years earlier than a lot of the movies itt yet it looks like its from a whole other era.

Plot synopsis for Happy Birthday, Gemini:

Based on the off-Broadway smash of the 1970's; a poor Harvard student's romance with a girl hits a rough spot when he realizes, on his 21st birthday, that he's in love with her brother.

I actually read something about that movie a few years ago that made it sound really interesting, but I couldn't locate the movie itself anywhere. The very fact of a gay adolescent film existing in this era gives me hope that it's better than it's Animal House-y poster implies.

There's something utterly hypnotic about these posters. Drawn caricature invokes a whole lost social world, no?

And like, people doing a caricature of something implies it is a thing of note and substance, so it's extra strange to see it applied to cheap, tits 'n' ass comedy films

Special Appearance Steve Brodie as Jack Enoff

I think that's the third time Gemini has popped up here, but I'm always pleased by the poster. I feel like 80s All Over did cover this one already and I can't remember anything they said about it. Which might not mean anything but... hm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bus#/media/File:Big_bus_film.jpg

I actually read something about that movie a few years ago that made it sound really interesting, but I couldn't locate the movie itself anywhere.

I think someone's uploaded the whole thing to YouTube, a common factor among all the movies in this thread.

Not that busy, but in crossover with The Leftovers thread:

http://www.nightowlbooks.com/frasier1-sheet.jpg

http://media.hollywood.com/images/580x879/3743129.jpg

I don't think this was posted yet... sorry if it was...
http://i.imgur.com/27LsTuf.jpg

eh never mind Doc beat me

Saw this one outside the MFAH theatre this weekend.

https://cdn.traileraddict.com/content/unknown/harold-lillian-hollywood-love-story.jpg

Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story

i hate the look on that fucking lions face

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81WAEX%2BnWBL._SY679_.jpg

Senior Trip (1981)

Over in dense adventure thriller land:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yw0soiS5Z14/T1aMOtoiarI/AAAAAAAABLg/MqEMfh-T_EU/s1600/colossus2.jpg

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

http://www.englishscholar.com/amst1/westworldposter2.jpg

Westworld (1973)

80s All Over delivers the goods again:

http://www.moviepostermem.com/images/products/940e0f89-a6e0-40a6-b3f5-ff38561b2bd9.jpg

Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)

"Directed by John Schlesinger"

I was about to write that this must be the sore thumb of his career, but I just noticed that he also made The Next Best Thing and The Believers. Weird.

They also report that it was a serious, serious money-loser for the studio, striking when the poster suggests the entire enterprise began with the low-budget logic of this kind of would-be screwball farce. They hypothesize that loading up on seasoned character actors adds up, budget-wise, but I wonder if there's more to it.

some imdb trivia entries:

When released, its $24 million budget made it the most expensive comedy ever produced. It was a major failure at the box office.

Wikipedia states: "Just before the film was released, EMI sold the ancillary rights under this scheme to German investors in need of a tax loss, in an effort to try to recoup their $11,000,000 loss. When the movie's distributors learned this fact, they were no longer financially motivated to distribute the movie widely and consequently released the film for only one week".

According to Pulse the Magazine, "the film had been fraught with problems, from a disjointed script to its title - and marketing that implied it was just '...another car crash comedy romp'. This was compounded by the producers' decision to sell the video rights before Universal Pictures agreed to release the film. Angered by this, Universal minimized their marketing support and limited the number of theaters in which the film was shown. Withdrawn from theaters just a week after its release, the movie disappeared".

and

Originally planned with a $2-3 million budget, the film's costs ultimately ballooned to $25 million.

oh man, that is an even better, and yet more utterly banal, string of blunders than i'd hoped for

everything about that is incredible.

I don't think this was posted but I did a ctrl-f for "shirtless lewis j. stadlin" and nothing showed up so I guess not.

http://i.imgur.com/AZx7IpG.jpg

and SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY AND THE ASBURY JUKES!

Is there an imgur gallery of all these yet