For Your Eyes Only

Artist: Bill Gold
Format: US 1-Sheet (27"x 41")
Condition: Excellent
Year: 1981

Description

The US 1-Sheet poster for the 1981 James Bond release “For Your Eyes Only” features everything a Bond poster should; girls, guns and of course, Bond striking a typically cool and suave pose. Following “Moonraker” (1979) the Bond producers wanted a grittier and more realistic Bond and this was reflected in Bill Gold’s design for the poster which used photographic imagery.

Gold’s poster also attracted controversy with the amount of female flesh on display and would become known as the ‘Legs Campaign’. Alastair Dougall writes in “James Bond: 50 Years of Movie Posters” (2012) how some US media outlets edited the image above the knee whilst in some of the more conservative states such as Pennsylvania and Utah, denim shorts were superimposed onto the image. See below an example of the US Advance poster which has been modified in this fashion, courtesy of “James Bond: 50 Years of Movie Posters”. Likewise, in areas of Europe shorts were simply drawn onto the poster in pen, effectively ruining the poster.

The UK Quad (featured below courtesy of www.moviepostermem.com) features the same central imagery though in artwork format alongside more detailed illustration around the legs, provided by British artist Brian Bysouth. It was felt that outside N.America audiences required more visual action in the poster and thus Bysouth was brought in. Bysouth, known for his ability to cover the entire canvass of his posters in detail and action, provides some staple Bondesque imagery and certainly compliments Gold’s original design. The ‘Legs’ style of poster had certainly been done before (ie, "Carrera Mortal" & "Salon Kitty") but Gold and Bysouth showed that it could undoubtedly also work with James Bond.