Above: Hungarian poster for The Sleeping Car Murders (Costa-Gavras, France, 1965). Designer: Sándor Benkő.
Last summer I wrote about my discovery of Hungarian movie poster design and featured a number of posters for very well known films from The Wizard of Oz to The Elephant Man. Those posters highlighted the distinctly different graphic approaches taken by Hungarian designers compared to their country-of-origin counterparts. But while delving deeper into the world of Hungarian poster design—mostly via the auction site Bedo—I have come across many even more remarkable designs for films that are less well known. The fifteen posters that I’ve chosen to highlight here were all made in the ’60s and ’70s and there is a distinct pop art sensibility at work: a lot of bold, primary colors and almost cartoonish illustrations, but always in the service of bold, striking graphics. Distinctly upbeat, while perhaps not expressly joyful, they do give us a sense of why Hungary was often referred to as “the happiest barrack” within the Eastern bloc.
Above: Hungarian poster for Stress is Three (Carlos Saura, Spain, 1968). Designer: Lajos Görög.
Above: Hungarian poster for Stadium Nuts (Claude Zidi, France, 1972). Design by Somorjai.
Above: Hungarian poster for The Scarlet Lady aka The Bitch Wants Blood (Jean Valère, France, 1969). Designer: Tibor Jákfalvy.
Above: Hungarian poster for Blood of the Condor (Jorge Sanjinés, Bolivia, 1969). Designer: Gyula Konkoly.
Above: Hungarian poster for Bye Bye Barbara (Michel Deville, France, 1969). Design by Margit Sándor.
Above: Hungarian poster for Closed Circuit (Giuliano Montaldo, Italy, 1978). Designer unknown.
Above: Hungarian poster for The Seven Cervi Brothers (Gianni Puccini, Italy, 1968). Design by Lajos Görög.
Above: Hungarian poster for The Executioner (Luis García Berlanga, Spain, 1963). Design by Benkő Sándor.
Above: Hungarian poster for A Kind of Loving (John Schlesinger, UK, 1962). Design by Klára Sóti.
Above: Hungarian poster for La Mandragola (Alberto Lattuada, Italy, 1965). Design by Magda Vörösmarty.
Above: Hungarian poster for My Wife’s Enemy (Gianni Puccini, Italy, 1959) Design by Révész-Wigner.
Above: Hungarian poster for Penny Gold (Jack Cardiff, UK, 1973). Design by Muray & Muray.
Above: Hungarian poster for The Southern Star (Sidney Hayers, USA, 1969). Design by Tibor Jákfalvy.
Above: Hungarian poster for The 17th Parallel: Vietnam in War (Joris Ivens & Marceline Loridan Ivens, France, 1968). Design by István Killer.
Above: Hungarian poster for Your Turn to Die (Michele Lupo, Italy/France, 1967). Design by Róbert Muray.
Above: Hungarian poster for Jeremy (Arthur Barron, USA, 1973). Designer: András Máté.