As a whole, it is uncommon for the Film Noir movie posters to follow the same visual style as the film itself; the posters are often cartoonized & full of colour; unlike the films themselves. The posters do often have some sort of mystery, but this goes for most film posters, as this is often the thing that influences the potential viewer to watch the film. The movie posters do however use a convention that is also used in the films; darkness & mystery. This is established through the use of harsh lighting - as with the films. The contrasting colour & darkness is a noticeable difference from the Film Noir movie posters in comparison to conventional modern day movie posters.
Touch Of Evil (1958) - Orson Welles
The fact that this film was created toward the end of the 'Noir Era' may be one of the reasons why it looks more realistic & slightly more modern than the poster for 'The Maltese Falcon' for example.
The poster uses the conventional scheme of showing (what seems to be) the protagonist, the femme fatale & the villain. A notable point to make is that the man in the shirt, on the left; who seems to be the protagonist, is shrouded in a darkness. This is unusual, as it would be expected that the villain is the character in the darker light (as shown in the poster for 'the blue dahlia').
The film name & lead actors are written on a gravestone, which leads the viewer to ponder what relevance that has. The detailed drawing at the bottom of the image, just above the credits has the same effect. Showing some sort of crossing, with fleeing people & a burning car. Watching the film will later answer the question as to both of their relevance.
The poster boasts a bold title, in a colourful font, in order to grab an audience's attention. It also uses a tag line, which is common in Noir posters. The tag line uses Barthe's Enigma Code theory. Giving the audience enough information to trigger some understanding, but not enough to satisfy their understanding. So they are propelled to find out the rest of the information. Which in this case, means watching the movie.
The Blue Dahlia (1946) - George Marshall
The poster for the film 'The Blue Dahlia' is one of the more conventional Film Noir posters. It uses the typical artistic, cartoonized portraits of the main characters. It is easy to distinguish the protagonist, villain & femme fatale,due to the way they are presented in the poster. For example; the villain is shrouded in darkness, with little light. The femme fatale (bottom left) is dress in the typical glamorous attire. The protagonist (center) is portrayed in ample light, with a typical 40's/50's style haircut, suit & tie. He is also sporting a cigarette, which was seen as fashionable and 'more acceptable' at the time. This carried through into Film Noir, which was the main film type in production during this time period.
The style & placement of title is similar to the 'touch of evil' poster with its colour, & shaky effect, which is in this case, created by a hard shadow. The poster is also similar to the 'touch of evil' poster in the way it uses contrasting colours in the font, compared to the background to display the actors names. The credits are displayed in a the same format, with a plain black, vertically elongated font.
This poster doesn't use a tag line, which is one of the reasons i believe it has less of an effect on the audience. Although it has some mystery to it, created in the lighting & the way the characters are standing. The mysterious element is never prominent enough to urge the viewer to want to watch the movie.
The Maltese Falcon (1941) - John Huston
The Maltese Falcon movie poster has a different look than the other two posters analysed above. This is mainly due to the unrealistic looking portraits used, of what seems to be the protagonist/villain & the femme fatale of the film. It is also due to the, what looks like, shaded black colour dotted about, but could be some sort of dark shrouding, as used in the touch of evil. It is possible that this poster, although using 2 of the same concepts as the 'Touch Of Evil' poster, looks looks different, because of the technological advances between the creation of the 2. It is also possible that the 'The Maltese Falcon' poster is intended to look like that for a reason.
Although the poster, as a whole looks slightly different to other Noir posters, it uses a large amount of the conventions such as:
- bright colours (in comparison to the black & white film)
- Cartoonized character portraits
- Bold Fonts
- Tag line to interest potential viewers
- Credits & production company logos small at the bottom
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