Printed on a card stock
paper in a set of eight for display purposes in cinema foyers, or outside
in lightboxes below the quad-crown
release poster, these cards were usually produced in colour, although
the colour was achieved using garish photo dyes that a studio retoucher
would apply by brush to a black & white photograph to create the artwork
from which the Front of House cards would eventually be printed, and which
have now become very desirable and expensive collectibles. The majority of
magazines in the 1960s were printed in monochrome, hence why the majority
of the still photographers on the Bond films shot in black & white up
until 1983. It wasn’t unusual for studio retouchers not to have seen the
film or to be supplied with colour transparencies to use as colour
matches, therefore the retoucher was left to choose his own colour palette
when colouring up the original black & white images.
These 10" X 8" Front of House sets were produced by the National Screen
Service (UK) – the company that controlled the distribution of theatrical
advertising materials throughout the UK and Ireland. Early titles in the
series often had an alternate set of black & white images produced,
although it was this style that was more generally adopted to accompany
reissues of the James Bond films in the UK. After Sean Connery had given
up the role of James Bond, his films were still available for
distribution, and Front of House sets were still available from the NSS,
but amended to remove any connection between the actor and the character.
This often took the form of a pasted paper snipe on the cards to cover up
the necessary wording, or cards reprinted with new credits. UK Front of
House cards generally utilised different images than their
US Lobby Card counterparts,
and used the Eastern Hemisphere producer credits for the first nine films
of the series, and always included the British Board of Film Censors’
certificate after the film title. The Goldfinger set is unique in
that the producer credits appear in both configurations as they did on the
film posters, and in Robert Brownjohn's iconic main title sequence.
Although not part of the EON Productions series, Casino Royale
(1967) also had a set of Front of House cards, with eight images selected
from the US 12-card mini-lobby set. Similarly, Never Say Never Again
(1983) also used the identical eight card US mini-lobby set (10" X 8")
when the film was promoted in the United Kingdom.
Nowadays sets are often broken up and individual cards sold separately in
order to maximise their monetary value. The promotional photographs chosen
(mostly shot during scene rehearsals) usually gave a varied overview of
the film story; later titles in the Bond series utilised carefully chosen
key images seen throughout the whole integrated advertising campaign. Some
cards also utilised behind-the-scenes photographs. As the series
progressed, the stills used were more specific and included the major
action sequences and characters from each film, rather than what had often
appeared to be an arbitrary choice of images. With the increasing number
of multiplex cinemas in the late 1980s, the space available to promote and
advertise each film being screened was much reduced, and Front of House
sets stopped being produced. Instead, film studios created their own sets
of images that were provided for reproduction in newspapers and magazines
in the form of a ‘Press Kit’, which contained the officially approved key
publicity images used for the promotion of a particular film. The choice
of photographs available was therefore more consistent than those seen
throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
The Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Front of House colour set was the
first UK set to be reproduced in true four-colour process. |