Monday, April 6, 2009

Bad Girl By Bolles

There is a really nice entry on the site, Allure about the actress Sally Eilers, who was very popular in the 1930s. We should be grateful that fabulous old movie blogs like Allure (check out my links for some others) have helped to bring her and many other long forgotten film stars back into the public eye. The entry in Eilers includes some great photos of her (I've borrowed one) as well as several variations of the movie poster art from the 1931 feature, Bad Girl. But my favorite example was not included so I'm posting it here. As you can certainly tell it is by our man Bolles. It's a great pose and the almost lurid lettering, which is part of the painting and not typeset really ads some punch. Bolles also did a great job with Eiler's likeness, something that didn't always happen with his depictions of starlets on the covers of Film Fun.
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It was just a couple years ago that I learned Bolles had done work for the movies. Since then only a handful of examples have turned up, but none later than Bad Girl. Let's hope that there are others out there. Lots of them!

3 comments:

Thomas Haller Buchanan said...

The color combinations are harmonious as they are lurid. The teals contrasted to the warm (hot) red-orange, slithering down to violet, with the bits of yellow — amazingly balanced. Beautiful.

That teal is so perfectly placed. Yes, please, find more!

darwination said...

I love bad girls - this one looks more nice than naughty, but I'm a fan anyways. Great ad, the girl and the lettering, thanks for posting these bits of Bolles' ad work.

Jack R said...

Hi Thomas. I really love the color scheme in that lettering too. Bolles hand lettered all his advertising work and was sort of like a human type setter. I'll have to do a blog on this one of these days.

Hi Beau,
I agree, the girl looks pretty upstanding, not that Bolles couldn't draw them from the wrong side of the tracks when the assignment called for it.
Your blog has been great this week.