Film noir vintage poster book belongs on your shelf

The-Art-of-Noir-The-Posters-and-Graphics-from-the-Classic-Era-of-Film-Noir-by-Eddie-Muller[1]Who doesn’t love the sexy drama and irresistible hype that’s packed into just about every movie poster made in the heyday of film noir?

Now available in the U.S. and the U.K., “The Art of Noir: The Posters and Graphics from the Classic Era of Film Noir” (Overlook Duckworth Publishers), by noir czar Eddie Muller, is brimming with vintage allure.

Full of swaggering dudes, feisty ladies with perfect pouts and a whole lot of phallic imagery, these brash, bold posters were saturated with style and rich with original artistry.

The films covered in the book were produced in the U. S. between 1940 and 1960, though one of the book’s themes is how artists of other countries depicted the peculiarly American phenomenon of film noir, writes Muller.

Primarily, he says, the book is a tribute to the craftspeople who created the artwork. And, although film noir is the segment of the poster collector’s market that has seen the steepest rise in value, the posters in the book weren’t chosen for their monetary worth. Instead, says Muller, he made his selections based on the posters’ artistic and historic relevance as well as their ability to spotlight cinematic contributions from writers, directors and performers.

We will discuss the book more extensively later on, but just wanted everyone to know it is now available on both sides of the pond. Meanwhile, you can read Anne Billson’s review in the London Telegraph.