A billboard today, with a reference to a rather-well-known aviation film. Taking a steampunk aesthetic (top hats in steampunk, not so much in aviation) for the ‘we’re cool’ that massive companies use in response to the boutique smaller makers. I’m not sure what the pipes under the wings are meant to be, but the first…
Tag: TV & Film
Triangle Tribulations
Today’s Poster from the Facebook Vault of the Atomic Space Age, here. It’s a great claim by Convair, but in the end it wasn’t a great result. The exciting F2Y Sea Dart (a very unusual marine jet aircraft that hydroplaned on skis) proved an abortive concept though they managed to fly prototypes (XF2Y-1) which survive…
Sparky Card
Something rather different today, our first ‘paper aeroplane’ on the blog. Here’s the cover, of the 1930s KLG Sparkplugs promotional toy, which features the Supermarine Schneider trophy racer at top right and Sir Malcolm Campbell’s Bluebird land speed record car below – justifying the claim: ‘The fastest plug in the world’. Below is the folded-out…
Which Woman’s Wings?
Women’s History Month is nearly at an end. One oddity, here it looks like a great film, lots of American aircraft*. Except it’s not. The US film poster for the British film ‘They Flew Alone’ released in the US as ‘Wings and the Woman’, directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring his wife Anna Neagle. It’s…
Bond, Nellie & Bond
Today’s Bond Poster. There’s nothing quite as cool Sean Connery flying the aircraft with his toes, just being very cool while everything explodes around him! From the film ‘You Only Live Twice’, this poster is the artwork by the exemplary action poster painter Frank McCarthy. You can own your own version at £2,250 – here,…
Feminin Fly In
Today’s Poster. Another one for Women’s History Month, this was also picked up by the Musee de l’Air on their Twitter feed. A Women’s Aviation Meet, believed to be 1953, in August at Dinard. They add that the poster’s artist, Jacques Jacquelin used the magazine 1952 Paris Match No.173 for inspiration, notably the release of…
The Red-Blue Max
A very strange story today, around the well-known book ‘The Blue Max’ which was made into an even better-known film* of the same name. The book was written by Jack D Hunter, a fantastic name for an action-novel writer, but actually his real name as well. The cover for the first edition of the book…
Magnificent Mag Men
Today’s Poster. And a question! A 1965 aviation film, ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ that had huge public popularity then and even today. The cartoon illustrations used on the posters, in the credits and elsewhere in the film, by Ronald Searle also have become a core part of the film’s style, quite rightly….
Stop Worrying
Today’s Poster. In memory of artist and satirist Tomi Ungerer, who died yesterday, the 9 February 2019. The film ‘Dr Strangelove’ is way too complex to tackle here, but here is the poster, by Ungerer. Although it’s not his strongest work in my opinion, and highlights some of the less critical elements that made the…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 