JAMES BOND
FACT FILES

Usually printed on a card stock paper in a set of eight for display purposes in theatre lobbies, these Front of House Lobby Cards (11" X 14") were generally 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 Lobby Card would eventually be printed. 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 US Lobby Cards have long become very desirable collectibles – and nowadays sets are often broken up and individual cards sold separately 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.

Pictures below are examples of Lobby Cards from each release and re-release set of the James Bond films in the USA from 1963 to 2012. Sets relating to the double-bill reissues had four stills from each film, and the studio usually chose images seen as part of the original release lobby set, although some releases did include new stills. The characters of Felix Leiter (played by Jack Lord) and Quarrel (played by John Kitzmiller) did not appear in any of the eight Lobby Cards for the original US release of Dr. No in 1963. A new lobby card was therefore introduced into the 1965 set when the film was reissued with From Russia With Love. Similarly, the character of Doctor No (played by Joseph Wiseman in the first James Bond film) first appeared as part of the set issued for the 1965 re-release with From Russia With Love, and the same card re-used for the 1966 re-release when Dr. No was paired with Goldfinger. Curiously, of the eight cards issued to promote On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) two were specially posed publicity stills featuring stuntmen at Piz Gloria; another showed the director Peter Hunt and crew members at the Swiss location, and a behind-the-scenes shot of Telly Savalas having his costume brushed down by member of the Costume Department at Pinewood Studios. It is also perhaps not surprising the then new James Bond, George Lazenby, only features in two of the stills, with his face only fully visible in one of them. Lazenby had already quit the role of 007 by the time the film was released in December 1969, so the better-known American actor Telly Savalas is featured on three of the eight Lobby Cards.

Lobby cards ceased to be produced for most releases in the mid-2000s, although some countries still continued to issue sets for the promotion of the Daniel Craig films overseas.

Pierce Brosnan's debut as James Bond in GoldenEye (1995) was unique in that its Lobby set contained nine cards, including one featuring the poster artwork with the text ‘COMING SOON’ printed in red at the bottom so it could be used in advance of the actual release; whereas the standard eight 11" X 14" cards featured a publicity still of Pierce Brosnan flanked by Famke Janssen and Izabella Scorupco as part of the border artwork. The World Is Not Enough (1999) had a set of twelve Lobby Cards, with Die Another Day (2002) issued as a ten-card set. Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008) were also issued as twelve-card sets, although now some cards had two or three images, with other cards presented in the portrait orientation. The last James Bond film to have an International Lobby set was Skyfall (2012). The images now selected are the familiar frequently-seen key publicity stills of the stars seen throughout the campaign, rather than the somewhat arbitrary images used for earlier films in the series. For more recent James Bond films most promotion has been relegated to online content, rather than physical media in cinema foyers. The advent of digital marketing marked the end of printed media as we used to know it.

In 1981 the near bankrupt United Artists was acquired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the merged studios became known as the MGM/UA Entertainment Company. Octopussy (1983) was the first James Bond film to be distributed by the new company and their new logo featured on lobby cards for the first time. MGM/UA then packaged the first twelve films in the EON Productions series ‘A James Bond Festival’. A new poster (18" X 27") illustrated by Glenn Harrington (1959- ) was produced to accompany the screenings at several repertory cinemas in 1981-1983. Distributor United Artists had earlier presented a similar festival in London during October/November 1980, and again in January/February 1981. In March 1984 United Airlines chose to screen the thirteen James Bond films as in-flight entertainment and a similar poster featuring the Glenn Harrington artwork was used in promotion. A new series of 11" X 14" Lobby Cards were issued by MGM/UA in 1984 as the festival was still being booked in selected venues in the USA and Canada. As had been the case with the original release Lobby Cards there were some unusual choices of stills, with one of the Dr. No cards featuring Sean Connery with James Bond author Ian Fleming on the reactor set at Pinewood Studios.

US JAMES BOND Posters

Goldfinger US Lobby Card set