Friday, 29 January 2010

The Island at the Top of The World

In 1974, Disney brought out an adventure movie called Island at the Top of the World. I was about 12 or 13 at the time and I remember walking past this poster on the way to school every day whilst it was showing at the local cinema in Redruth. Actually, I didn't walk past it, I would stop for several minutes to admire the artwork. It's a shame I can't find a decent image of it on the net...or find out who the artist* was.

*Bryan Bysouth - as supplied by Steve Gardner (see comment below - thanks Steve!)

I now own a full size cinema poster for this but have never had the wall space to hang it up. One day maybe...

A man and his dog in Redruth contemplate whether Island at the Top of The World will be worth watching

The other version for the film below, is also a fabulous piece of movie artwork (although a bit of a spoiler if you look at the state of the airship in this one...). They just don't make 'em like this any more as the saying goes. More often than not the posters were better than the actual films.

click on image for a closer look

You can see more of Bryan Bysouth's work here.

5 comments:

kk said...

Did you ever go and see the film?

Steve Cox said...

I think I saw it on TV in the late seventies. Couldn't remember it so I bought the DVD a while back. Can't say it was worth the £3.99 I paid for it. Donald Sinden does Donald Sinden brilliantly in it though and some nice shots of some fijords.

Stephen Gardner said...

Hey Steve, I remember this one and the artist was a guy called Bryan Bysouth. He also did the poster for The Osterman Weekend and When Eight Bells Toll. I always wanted to do a movie poster but when I came to America Drew Struzan was doing all of them for me.

Steve Cox said...

Cheers Steve. I should have known his name. There was an article in one of the Sunday papers about his work and I think there might have been an exhibition a few years ago. I added a link to some more of his work at the bottom of the post.

Stephen Gardner said...

Great link, I had no idea he was that prolific.