Italian promo poster for the James Bond classic Agente 007: Licenza di uccidere, aka Dr. No, starring Sean Connery. It premiered in Italy today in 1963. 

Above: Italian actress Monica Vitti, star of several great Michelangelo Antonioni films, as well as one critically slammed English language film, the camp spy thriller Modesty Blaise, shown here in 1966 in a promo photo made for the latter film. It was published in the Italian magazine Triunfo in 1967.

What you’re looking at are two pieces of Japanese promo art for the Italian shocker Cannibal Holocaust. Released in 1980, the film was so disturbing that it was banned by several countries, and resulted in director Ruggero Deodato being dragged before authorities who were seriously intent on jailing him for the rest of his life. In order to avoid that fate, he had to prove that his actors had not been killed during filming, and in particular, he had to show that the scene of an indigenous Amazonian girl impaled on a pole was just a special effect. But even knowing the impalement, a castration, a disembowelment, a beheading, and the cannibalism are all fake doesn’t make the film any easier to stomach, mainly because it features some real atrocities, such as a three-foot long turtle being de-shelled, a pig being shot to death, and a monkey having its face cut off with a machete. On the plus side, the Brazilian scenery is beautiful. Cannibal Holocaust’s central premise of lost film footage being found and reviewed in order to determine the fate of the foolhardy foreigners who shot it sets up like familiar horror, but in all other respects the film pushes the envelope so far it’s on the outside looking in. Think you’re tough? Give this one a try. Cannibal Holocaust premiered in Tokyo in January 1983. 

Above is a photo of Italian actress Pier Angeli on the cover on France’s Ciné-Révélation. She was originally Anna Pierangeli, but she split her surname, thus giving herself the last name “angels.” A truer pseudonym has yet to be invented. But for as much excitement as attended her arrival onto the Italian movie scene, her career never quite reached the expected heights once she made the leap to Hollywood. She worked steadily in a series of unimpressive films, and had a few love affairs, including one with James Dean that was reportedly nixed by her mother. After twenty years in movies, and two divorces, she died at age 39 of a barbiturate overdose. Though she was depressed during her final years, it is impossible to know for sure whether her death was an accident or suicide. You see her here at the apex of her fame and beauty, January 1958. 

The Asphalt Jungle is half a century old, but remains one of the best procedural heist films ever made. The men who commit the robbery at the center of this movie come from all walks of life—some are perennial losers, others are opportunists, and others are just having a hard time and need a way out. All of them long for better lives. All of them desperately need the money to get there. These footmen, facilitators, and financial backers plan every aspect of a lucrative heist, but the caper begins falling apart almost immediately, due to back luck, mistrust, and greed.

Sterling Hayden, who we’ve mentioned before, is incendiary in the lead, exuding extreme menace but with a hint of recognizable humanity behind the eyes. One of his best moments comes in a brief but exquisitely choreographed shooting involving a thrown valise.

All of this takes place under the sure hand of director John Huston, working from a 1949 book by William Riley Burnett. Burnett was a bit of a legend himself. He was a prolific crime novelist who wrote the source material for Little Caesar, Scarface, and High Sierra, and whose screenplays include This Gun for Hire, I Died a Thousand Times, and Nobody Lives Forever.

Put Burnett, Huston and Hayden together (not to mention James Whitmore, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, and a young Marilyn Monroe in a small role as a rich man's plaything) and you get exactly what you’d expect—a genre classic that transcends its boundaries and becomes instead a piece of high art.

The film was a major hit that wowed audiences worldwide. At top you see the Italian promo art, and below that we have both the hardback and paperback cover art. The Asphalt Jungle opened as Giungla di asfalto in Italy today in 1951.

We’re starting 2010 out right, with an absolutely amazing poster from an equally amazing film. At least, we think it’s amazing. Reactions to Chilean-born director Alexandro Jodorowski’s El Topo run the gamut—some hail it as high art; other think it’s a pretentious and garbled mess. However, it’s undeniable that the film hails from a much more daring cinematic era. It’s also one of the first true midnight films, gaining popularity during its 1970 Stateside run among New York City’s artsy, nocturnal filmgoing crowd after a slow start in conventional release. Basically, El Topo ("topo" means "mole" in Spanish, but is used as slang to describe an awkward person) is a western, but it’s also a commingling of Biblical and eastern religion themes. Doesn’t that sound fun? The two halves of the film have different flavors, and this tends to turn off some viewers. Jodorowski confessed that a couple of important transitional shots got ruined and were never replaced. Add in all the nudity, dwarves, and random events, and it’s easy to think of the film as sloppy. But what isn’t sloppy is the Italian poster by Enrico de Seta, one of the true masters of cinema promo art, who we’ll be featuring again in the future. In the meantime, we recommend a viewing of El Topo. It’s a unique vision by a singular filmmaker—grand, violent, disturbing, and most of all, pulp. 

Today, nudie mags seem to be the last refuge of women whose careers are failing, but back in the day such publications were instrumental in launching careers. This photo of Italian actress Anita Pallenberg appeared in the Italian nudie mag Playmen in 1965, two years before she scored her first film role, and three years before her iconic turn as The Great Tyrant in the cult classic Barbarella. Other women who used Playmen as a stepping stone to stardom include Brigitte Bardot, Patty Pravo, Ornella Muti, and Barbara Bouchet. Pallenberg, in addition to acting, became a famous companion to Keith Richards and moved briefly into fashion design. But fame was a turbulent ride. She dealt and consumed drugs, became involved in the occult, and was even acquitted of manslaughter charges in 1979. There's too much to tell in one small post. Maybe we'll revisit this interesting person at a later date.

Assorted Italian and Spanish covers of Nicola del Principe’s Sukia,1977 to 1986, borrowed from sources too numerous to name. Credit to all. Also, perhaps you noticed that the cover star looks like Italian actress Ornella Muti? Well, she is Ornella Muti. At least, the main character Sukia Dragomic is modeled after her. We’ll have the full story on Sukia later, along with more covers.     

Update: Okay apparently nobody got our headline and subhead, but that's because they didn't look at the first cover. Notice the snowman has a giant schlong, indicated by the shadow? So Season's Greetings is like a penile salute. And Ding Dong Merrily on High is a (not so) famous Christmas Carol. Not funny? Sigh. All we want for Christmas is more wit.

Italian actress Sophia Loren gets a leg up in this photo from the set of her 1963 anthology film Ieri, oggi, domani, aka Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. The shot appeared in an unknown Russian film magazine, which we can discern thanks to the Cyrillic text at lower left.