Pretty Girls and Monsters - 1950s Sci-Fi Movie Posters

The pretty girl and the monster is a recuring motif in science fiction movie posters. Sometimes the poster bore little relation to what was seen on sceen. Situations and costumes were changed, and sometimes entirely new characters were created. The music is Thorn in my Side by the Eurythmics.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Science Fiction
• Sci-Fi
• Movies
• Films
• posters
• monsters
• aliens
• robots

[seaturtlefilms]

The women in the posters for Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still don't look like Anne Francis (well, not her face or hair) or Patricia Neal. I agree about Julia Adams. I don't know about the others.

[hydrolito]

Most of the gals did look great in the movies though not exactly like the posters.

[seaturtlefilms]

@hydrolito Yes, the posters generally promised pretty girls and delivered different pretty girls.

[hydrolito]

Yeah in the poster for Forbidden Planet Robbie the robot looks like a threat holding the girl, but insteads it was an invisible monster that was the threat that created by a machine.

[seaturtlefilms]

@hydrolito I have seen a version of the poster where Robbie is holding an injured crewman instead of a leggy blonde. This is truer to the story, but not so effective as a poster! Anne Francis was a good looking blonde in a short skirt, but the girl in the picture isn't her, either. The poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still is also misleading - Gort carried a demurely dressed, unconscious Patricia Neal - the woman in the poster looks like no-one in the film. Still, a striking poster.

[mnestrt]

Awesome! I want to see the models who posed for these posters! Their likeneses are hot enough! I wonder what the real deal looked like? nice presentation. Thank you

[seaturtlefilms]

@mnestrt I think the Black Lagoon poster is based on Julia Adams, from the movie. Thanks for the encouragement.

[hydrolito]

Godzilla vs King Kong they used the 1933 look of King Kong for the poster and not as he appeared in the movie. King Kong was also holding a pretty girl in the 1933 poster although he held one in the movie though did not exactly look alike.

[abuzadote]

Are the women in the posters supposed to be the movies' starlett or not necesarily? Julia Adams looks like her painted self in THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON poster. Another intertesting idea is to look for posters that feature terrible creatures that do not appear in the finished movie (e.g., THE MONSTER WITH THE MILLION EYES)