JAMES BOND
FACT FILES

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 stills 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 re-issues 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 original Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Front of House stills were the first UK set to be reproduced in true four-colour process.

Selected films also had larger Lobby Cards issued by the National Screen Service to promote them on their original release. From Russia With Love had a single Lobby Card (22" X 28") featuring the iconic Renato Fratini UK poster artwork, but reproduced in duotone. Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965) both had a set of four Lobby Cards with identical images to the Front of House set, but printed to fill the whole card. These larger cards were designed to be displayed in light-boxes alongside the quad-crown poster outside the cinema or in the foyer. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) had a set of twelve (16" X 20") Jumbo Deluxe Lobby Cards issued. Eight of the cards were in the landscape format, with six of them having identical images to the Front of House set; with the remaining four cards in the portrait format and featuring unique publicity stills from the film. This twelve-card Lobby set was not advertised in the Exhibitors’ Campaign Book and generally only used in larger cinemas. The Living Daylights (1987) also had a set of 14 Jumbo Deluxe Lobby Cards (14" X 17") issued to promote the film in larger cinemas. This set, also not advertised in the Exhibitors’ Campaign Book, had 12 cards (including a text only title card) featuring stills from the film in the landscape format; and two portrait oriented publicity stills featuring Timothy Dalton and Maryam d'Abo, and the obligatory shot of the James Bond star surrounded by the ‘Bond Girls’. This was the last time this kind of publicity still was used to promote the films.

Although the various double-bill re-issues of the James Bond films in the UK generally had a new quad-crown poster issued to accompany the release, the films did not have new Front of House stills issued as they did in the USA. Instead, the National Screen Service issued new sets of eight black & white stills for the first three films in the series. Unusually the black & white sets for From Russia With Love and Goldfinger were glossy double-weight photoprints – not the dot screen printed cards for other titles in the series. Thunderball did not have a new set of stills issued. The original 1967 Front of House set for You Only Live Twice was the first to use actual colour images rather than retouched black & white stills, but the set issued to accompany re-issues of the film reverted back to the inappropriately tinted images, which resulted in some unusual colour choices for the actors’ costumes. The re-issue set amended the text so the tag-line now read “Sean Connery AS James Bond”. Earlier original release sets were also re-issued with pasted paper snipes to remove the connection between the actor and the character once Sean Connery had left the series. Diamonds Are Forever (1971) also had a black & white re-issue set with different stills to the first release set, which was criticized for having too many violent images.

The final UK re-issue Front of House set accompanied the 1975 Season, which had one card for each of the first seven films of the series, plus a title card featuring the gun barrel design seen on the corresponding quad-crown poster. There was no standard format for this season, with individual cinema managers programming their own choice of films or double-bills depending on the availability of prints.

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