THE GREATEST MOVIE POSTERS EVER: LUANA (1968)

This West German/Italian co-production carries on the dreary tradition of jungle-girl movies that suck out loud, but when it was re-released in the early 1970's it was graced with a misleadingly awesome poster crafted by the great Frank Frazetta, perhaps the most influential fantasy illustrator of the past half-century. His archetypal covers for the 1960's editions of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories set the standard for how such stuff should look, luring the curious with images fraught with an air of explosive savagery and wild adventure to be had, elements that LUANA lacks in spades. But who cares? Sure it's another case of putting a Dior dress on a naked mole rat, but with a poster like this one there was no way I would have missed the flick had I been given the opportunity to see it on the big screen! In fact, that poster's so boss that even finally seeing the movie on DVD a couple of years ago did nothing to diminish my love for the one-sheet and I eventually bought one, setting me back by around a hundred-and-forty semoleans on eBay, but it was worth it. It's gonna look splendid when I get it framed and hang it on one of the walls here in the Vault. Umgawa!!!

THE GREATEST MOVIE POSTERS EVER: ORDERED TO LOVE (1961)

Despite my love of all things offensive, I have never been down with the whole "Nazisploitation" genre (with the exception of the unintentionally hilarious STORMTROOPERS USA), a cinematic niche that appeals to those who revel in the depiction of innocent young women being raped and tortured for the amusement of leering Third Reich vermin. Most of these odious works involve some sort of secret camp located in the middle of the hinterlands that specializes in forcing captured women to be unwilling sexual playthings when not being subjected to horrifyingly sadistic experiments from which there is little hope of rescue or escape, and every single one of these flicks is depressing and bleak to the point of making one feel like a hot shower and a good scrubbing may be needed after viewing (not that I expected a movie about nazis to be in any way a light romp, mind you). But while I may hate Nazisploitation, I do love its undeniably lurid imagery, be it on the covers of old mens' adventure magazines, trashy book covers or sleazy movie posters, as is obviously the case in point here. I've never seen the movie and don't particularly desire to, but that one-sheet would definitely get my attention had I passed by Norwalk Theater and seen it on display.

THE GREATEST MOVIE POSTERS EVER: OPERATION KID BROTHER (1967)

During the height of the 1960's James Bond craze it seemed like everybody and their sister was cranking out a spy spoof/knockoff in hope of siphoning off some of the 007 franchise's multi-millions, and the vast majority of them ate ass. But out of all of them none had quite the in-your-face-to-the-point-of-hilarity elephant cojones and outright shamelessness of OK CONNERY, aka OPERATION DOUBLE 007 (as memorably seen on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000) and OPERATION KID BROTHER. This Italian-made spoof of all things 007 was heavily influenced by the camp stylings of the Adam West BATMAN television series as well as the myriad tropes of the Bond series and it's much more entertaining than it has any right to be thanks to the presence of Bond movie regulars Bernard Lee (M) and Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), as well as THUNDERBALL's villain, Adolfo Celi, and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE's hot leading lady Daniella Bianchi, making this the ultimate Bond spoof/ripoff. It's embarrassing enough that identifiable players from the actual series appeared in this nigh-incomprehensible mess, but the real kicker is who they got to play the Bond stand-in character. In the story the real 007 is unavailable to dive into the film's convoluted goings-on so instead the secret service recruits his younger brother, a celebrated doctor whose mastery of all manner of esoteric physical and mental skills would give even Derek Flint pause. And who, you may ask, plays 007's kid sibling? Why none other than spectacularly wooden non-actor Neil Connery, Sean's real-life younger brother, whose performance was presumably so awful that the filmmakers had his voiced dubbed over to make him sound heroic. No one, not even the Japanese, could have thought of so brilliant a gimmick for a Bond knockoff (and that's really saying something!). I mean, Sean Connery's brother?!!? It's so utterly mad that it's sheer genius, and the whole flamboyant train wreck is capped off with a poster that successfully mimics the design of a typical James Bond movie poster of the 1960's, essentially polishing a corn-filled floater turd. All that, plus a terrific score by legendary Italian film composer Ennio (THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY) Morricone.

THE GREATEST MOVIE POSTERS EVER: COCK OF THE AIR (1932)

What's not love with this one? If only it were actually about a gigantic flying penis...

THE GREATEST MOVIE POSTERS EVER: NURSES FOR SALE (1971)

This one pretty much speaks for itself. I remember this playing at Norwalk Theater in the early 1980's, which leads me to wonder how many times it got re-released; it's a German flick that originally came out in 1971 and had its first U.S. screenings in 1977, and this poster features the image I recall from its newspaper ads during my misspent youth. Not very well executed, this poster nonetheless shows off some of the classic elements that make an exploitation movie poser work, namely a woman in peril getting her clothes ripped off by thugs, a fetish outfit (in this case the nurse's uniform) and a hot chick in the aforementioned fetish uniform armed with a blazin' machine gun. Even if the movie sucked, the poster's a whole lot of fun.

THE GREATEST MOVIE POSTERS EVER: SIXPACK ANNIE (1975)

I never saw this particular example of the now more-or-less dead "redneck" comedy genre, but as a lifelong fan of MAD magazine-style mayhem-filled illustrations, how could I not love this poster? Some hillbilly cutie with big tits barely constrained by a tied-off blouse, rockin' a pair of proto-Daisy Dukes (which I remember at the time being called "Daisy Maes" after the blonde rural bombshell from LI'L ABNER) while cracking open a humongous beer as a myriad of characters get up to all sorts of shenanigans around her is an image sure to lure many into the theater/drive-in, even though it's a good bet that the movie's a piece of shit. I was lucky (?) enough to find the one-sheet of this while rummaging through a small mountain of drive-in movie posters during a comic book convention in Pittsburgh five years ago, and the dealer practically paid me to take it off his hands. I got in mint condition for the paltry sum of five bucks. In other words, less than the cost of your average six-pack.

THE GREATEST MOVIE POSTERS EVER: LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH (1974)

Turning up on these shores some six years before SHOGUN ASSASSIN, this was the third of the generally excellent and bloody-as-a-motherfucker LONE WOLF AND CUB samurai flicks, and the movie is every bit as entertaining as the one-sheet. Coming out during the height of the 1970's chopsocky craze, LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH has nothing to do with kung fu (despite what the poster claims) but has everything to do with kicking major ass, as seen in the incredible sequence where former imperial executioner Ogami Itto — aka Lone Wolf — singlehandedly takes on an entire army of heavily armed soldiers who have horses and rifles to complement the usual assortment of swords, spears, arrows and whatnot. And guess what? He not only utterly kicks all their asses, but the bad motherfucker also survives to continue kicking ass for three more movies! This poster proudly hangs next to the humble stove here in the Vault.

THE GREATEST MOVIE POSTERS EVER: BRUCE LEE FIGHTS BACK FROM THE GRAVE (1978)

The Bruce Lee exploitation genre — aka "Brucesploitation" — yielded dozens of ridiculous ads and one-sheets that all made a case for being the most tasteless cashing-in on a movie star's untimely death, but this one just speaks for itself. The movie's a total piece of shit, but how could you not want to see a flick in which Bruce Lee explodes out of the grave to fight a bald, human-headed bat is a possibility?