Nearly 30 years after its initial publication, Yesterday’s Tomorrows: The Golden Age of Science Fiction Movie Posters is available in the revised edition author Bruce Lanier Wright always wanted. As he explains in a note opening this 2022 do-over, the original publisher presented the art as he never intended: the size of postage stamps.
That counterintuitive, cost-saving measure is finally righted by Castle Bridge Media in a gorgeous trade paperback true to Wright’s vision: one full-page poster (or the occasional lobby card) on the one side of a spread; a page of accompanying text on the other. As a bonus, the book features striking, colorful and clean design all around (courtesy of In Churl Yo), both in step with modern typography and overall approach to the page while exhibiting just the right amount of retro influence without getting hokey.
Spanning 1950 to 1964, some 75 films get the double-page treatment. Wright chronologically divvies them up into sections embodying the pervading mood of America at the time, from the space race to the Atomic Age and the Red Scare. Naturally, the movies reflect those feelings and fears, if not seizing upon them; whether audiences were conscious of it, they were lured to the cinema by posters that promised much and rarely delivered half that.
Each spotlighted film is discussed in an essay that’s part art appreciation and part film criticism, with historical perspectives seaping into each. Rare is the examination that treats the genius of advertising artists Reynold Brown and Albert Kallis as important to a film’s promotion as the cast or concept. With such pictures as Forbidden Planet, Queen of Outer Space, The Thing from Another World and the cover’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman among them, Wright embraces certified classics, cult classics and certified schlock — all without apology because none is needed. —Rod Lott
Ordered!
Enjoy!