AMPAS |
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |
CSULB |
California State University at Long Beach |
MPAA |
Motion Picture Association of America |
1. Saul Bass Academy Award Acceptance, 16mm black-and-white clip, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
2. Interview with James Hollander, 31 October 2012, Burbank, CA.
3. In 1989 Bass actually designed the moving image logo for the National Film Registry.
4. AT&T seminar manuscript, 1988, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
5. Hollander interview, 2012.
6. Interview with Arnold Schwartzman, 20 February 2013, Los Angeles. Schwartzman went on to direct the Academy Award–winning documentary Genocide (1982). See Arnold Schwartzman, A Persistence of Vision: Arnold Schwartzman Profiles of His Work in Graphic Design and Film (Mulgrave, Australia: Images Publishing, 2005).
7. “A Discussion with Producer Cara McKenney, and Creative Directors Steve Fuller and Mark Gardner,” in The Art of the Title, 19 September 2011, http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/mad-men/. See also a review of Mad Men that calls the Bass-inspired title sequence one of the best ever: http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2013/01/02/the-way-we-were-matthew-weiners-mad-men/.
8. David Geffner, “First Things First,” Filmmaker Magazine 6, no. 1 (Fall 1997), http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/issues/fa111997/firstthingsfirst.php.
9. See “Dexter Intro by Ty Mattson,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9adZ0HRu04.
10. David Peters, “Every Frame Counts,” Eye Magazine 66 (Winter 2007), http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/every-frame-counts.
11. Geffner, “First Things First.”
12. Jeffrey Wells, “Saul Bass in ‘Devil’ Poster,” Hollywood Elsewhere, http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2007/09/saul_bass_in_de.php.
13. An Interview with Saul Bass—Outstanding 20th Century Designer Series, directed by David Cronister, 3 May 1979, DVD 7932-2-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
14. Saul Bass, “A Definition of Creativity,” Design: The Magazine of Creative Art 60 (March–April 1959): 144. See also Saul Bass, “Creativity in Visual Communication,” in Creativity: An Examination of the Creative Process, ed. Paul Smith (New York: Hastings House, 1959), 122–23, in which the anecdote is repeated word for word.
15. Lorraine Wild, “That Was Then, and This Is Now: But What Is Next?” Émigré 39 (1996), http://www.emigre.com/Editorial.php?sect=1&id=18. See also Lorraine Wild, “Europeans in America,” in Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History, ed. Mildred Friedman et al. (New York: Harry Abrams, 1989), 152–69.
16. David Badder, Bob Baker, and Markku Salmi, “Saul Bass,” Film Dope 3 (August 1973): 6.
17. Owen Edwards, “Saul Bass” (unpublished manuscript, ca. 1992), 55, box 21A, file 10, “Biography,” Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. Bass redlined the quote, possibly indicating that it revealed too much.
18. Ibid., 56.
19. Schwartzman interview, 2013.
20. Interview with Mike Lonzo, 19 September 2012, Hollywood.
21. Schwartzman interview, 2013.
22. Bass, “Creativity in Visual Communication,” 127.
23. I’m grateful to Richard Walter, my colleague at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television, for this anecdote.
24. Mamoru Shimokochi, “Art Goodman. A Tribute,” Graphic Design USA 5 (May 2009): 82. Goodman was born on 18 May 1925 and died on 2 October 2008 in Los Angeles.
25. Ibid. When Goodman retired in 1993, Bass apparently refused to make an announcement or throw him a retirement party. Bass didn’t want anyone to know that Goodman was gone. The mythology that Bass did everything had to be maintained.
26. Lou Dorfsman, interview with Andreas Timmer, 6 November 1997, quoted in Andreas A. Timmer, “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: The Film-Related Work of Saul Bass” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1999), 31.
27. Interview with Herb Yager, 27 February 2013, Ojai, CA.
28. Ibid.
29. Interview with Jeff Okun, 23 March 2012, Hollywood.
30. Jennifer Bass and Pat Kirkham, Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2011), 23.
31. Ibid.
32. In both films, Elaine received credit for conception and design, but Saul took sole credit for direction. In the case of Notes on the Popular Arts (1977), Elaine Bass received credit as coproducer.
33. Jack Solomon Agency, “Elaine Bass. Biography,” n.d., Solar Film file, press materials, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
34. American Film Institute Seminar with Saul Bass, 16 May 1979 (Beverly Hills, CA: Center for Advanced Film Studies, 1979). This forty-page, single-spaced document is available only at the American Film Institute’s Louis B. Mayer Library.
35. Telephone interview with Owen Edwards, 18 January 2013.
36. “Saul Bass [Interview],” Designer Magazine, May 1980, 10.
37. Joe Morgenstern, “Saul Bass” (unpublished manuscript, 1994), 33, box 21A, file 2, “Biography—Manuscript,” Saul Bass Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
38. Lonzo interview, 2012.
39. See Wild, “Europeans in America,” 159.
40. Saul Bass, “Cover,” Arts & Architecture 65, no. 11 (November 1948): 2.
41. Saul Bass, “Film Advertising. Filmwerbung. La publicité pour le film,” Graphis 9, no. 48 (1953): 276–89.
42. See Herb Yager, “Saul Bass,” Graphis 33, no. 193 (1977–1978): 392; Henry Wolf, “Saul Bass,” Graphis 41, no. 235 (January–February 1985): 28. For a history of Graphis, see its website: http://www.graphis.com/history/.
43. Catherine Sullivan, “The Work of Saul Bass,” American Artist 18, no. 8 (October 1954): 31.
44. “The West Coast: A Designer’s View,” Industrial Design 4, no. 10 (October 1957): 74.
45. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 10–11.
46. “Bass Badly Hurt on Way to Awards,” Variety, 21 February 1949, 3.
47. See AIGA Medal, http://www.aiga.org/medalist-saulbass/.
48. Reyner Banham, ed., The Aspen Papers: Twenty Years of Design Theory from the International Design Conference in Aspen (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), 5.
49. See “IDCA Bare Bones Filmmaking,” VHS tape, 13077-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
50. That year I hosted a German avant-garde film series at the conference and was able to attend the event honoring Bass.
51. Fred Hift, “And that Cramps Film Ads—Bass,” Variety, 20 November 1957, 7.
52. This is based on an informal and wholly unscientific study in which illustrations of Bass’s work from all known publications were tabulated.
53. Given the rise in Hitchcock’s critical reputation in the last thirty years, those figures would probably look different today.
54. American Film Institute Seminar, 1–2.
55. Letter from Saul Bass to Margaret Kaplan, Harry Abrams & Co., 8 May 1980, box 21A, file 7, “Biography Correspondence,” Saul Bass Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
56. Yager interview, 2013.
57. Founded in 1978, American Photographer ceased publication in 1989, so the book series Documents of American Design probably started immediately afterward. The only book published was Alexey Brodovitch/Andy Gruenberg (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1989). Edwards telephone interview, 2013.
58. Yager interview, 2013. According to Yager, Edwards was on Bass’s payroll.
59. Edwards, “Saul Bass.”
60. Although Morgenstern’s unpublished manuscript at AMPAS is dated 18 October 1994, this was apparently the second draft. There is another undated draft that, based on correspondence, was delivered in April 1994.
61. Letter from Don Congdon to Saul Bass, 13 October 1994; letter from Gillian Casey Sowell (Simon and Schuster) to Don Congdon, 29 November 1994, box 21A, file 7, “Biography Correspondence,” Saul Bass Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
62. Memo from “Wendy” to Saul Bass and Herb Yager, 15 April 1994, ibid.
63. Letter from Herb Yager to Joe Morgenstern, 22 July 1994, ibid.
64. Timmer, “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary,” 227.
65. Noell Wolfram Evans, “Saul Bass: A Film Title Pioneer,” Digital Media F/X, http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/saulbass.html.
66. Emily King, “Taking Credit: Film Title Sequences, 1955–1965” (master’s thesis, Royal College of Art, 1994), http://www.typotheque.com/articles/taking_credit_film_title_sequences_1955–1965_9_conclusion.
67. See, for example, Mary Beth Haralovich, “Motion Picture Advertising: Industrial and Social Forces and Effects, 1930–1948” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1984), and Mark Thomas McGee, Beyond Ballyhoo: Motion Picture Promotion and Gimmicks (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989).
68. Emily King, A Century of Movie Posters, from Silent to Art House (London: Mitchell and Beasily, 2003).
69. Ross Melnick, American Showman: Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry, 1908–1935 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
70. François Truffaut, Hitchcock (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 207–8.
71. Philip Oakes, “Coming On: Bass Note,” London Sunday Times, 9 December 1973, 36.
72. American Film Institute Seminar, 40.
73. Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho (New York: Dembner Books, 1990), 112.
74. See, for example, Philip J. Skerry, The Shower Scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho: Creating Cinematic Suspense and Terror (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press, 2005).
75. Stephen Rebello, “Psycho,” Cinefantastique 16, no. 4/5 (October 1986): 48–77; Rebello, Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.
76. See Hitchcock (2012), directed by Sacha Gervasi, script by John J. McLaughlin, starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren. Wallace Langham is credited with playing the role of Saul Bass in the film, but he only lurks in the background; if he had a speaking line, I missed it.
77. Pat Kirkham, “Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration,” West 86th Street 18, no. 1 (Spring 2011), http://www.west86th.bgc.bard.edu/articles/kirkham-bass-hitchcock.html.
78. Raymond Durgnat, A Long Hard Look at ‘Psycho’ (London: BFI Publishing, 2002). See also excerpts at http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/20/durgnat_psycho/.
79. Mary Glucksman: “Saul Bass: Due Credit,” Screen International, 13 May 1994, 28.
80. David James, The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 14–15.
81. Miriam Bratu Hansen, “The Mass Production of the Senses: Classical Cinema as Vernacular Modernism,” Modernism/Modernity 6, no. 2 (1999): 59–77.
82. According to Andrew Tracy, the essay film has only recently been identified and named by film scholars. Apart from the films of the filmmakers mentioned in the text, Tracy lists Vigo’s À propos de Nice (1930), Ivens’s Rain (1929), Buñuel’s Las hurdes (1933), Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955), Rouch and Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961), Akerman’s Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974), Welles’s F for Fake (1973), Straub and Huillet’s Trop tôt, trop tard (1982), Getino and Solanas’s The Hour of the Furnaces (1968), Portabella’s Informe general . . . (1976), and Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003). Andrew Tracy, “The Essay Film,” http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/deep-focus/essay-film.
83. Quoted in ibid.
84. See Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 250, http://www.manovich.net/LNM/Manovich.pdf.
85. Interview with Jeff Okun, 6 June 2011, Studio City, CA.
86. See 6 Chapters in Design: Saul Bass, Ivan Chermayeff, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, Ikko Tanaka, Henryk Tomaszewski (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997).
1. See An Interview with Saul Bass—20th Century Designer Series, directed by David Cronister, 3 May 1979, DVD PF4720, 7932-2-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
2. Ibid.
3. “The World Masters 1: Saul Bass,” IDEA 38, no. 219 (March 1990): 20.
4. Douglas Bell, “An Oral History with Saul Bass,” 20, 39 (Oral History Project, 1996), Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
5. Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).
6. Interview with Saul Bass, 1979, written, directed, and produced by Prof. Archie Boston Jr., CSULB, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
7. Interview with Albert and Trude Kallis, 26 July 2012, Beverly Hills, CA.
8. Lewis Blackwell, “Bass Instinct,” Creative Review 15 (1 May 1995): 48.
9. Interview with Saul Bass, 1986, written, directed, and produced by Prof. Archie Boston Jr., CSULB, Videotape PF4719, 20459-3, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
10. Interview with Arnold Schwartzman, 21 February 2013, Los Angeles. See also Philip Thompson and Peter Davenport, eds., Dictionary of Visual Language (London: Bergstom and Boyle Books, 1980), 23, which juxtaposes Rand’s 1946 advertisement for Orbach’s with Bass’s Love in the Afternoon (1956) poster, both of which utilize text on a shade that has been pulled down.
11. The best source for biographical information is Pat Kirkham’s authorized essay in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 3–25.
12. “Saul Bass & Associates,” special issue of IDEA (1979): 128. See also Sally Anderson-Bruce, Childhood Fantasies: Champion Kromekote 2000 (Stamford, CT: Champion International Corporation, 1991), in which Bass poses as an archaeologist.
13. Founded in 1875, the Art Students League boasts a stellar list of former students and instructors. The former category includes Winslow Homer, Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, Georgia O’Keefe, Man Ray, Ben Shahn, Red Grooms, Frank Stella, and many others.
14. Morgenstern, “Saul Bass,” 6.
15. See Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass,” 8–9.
16. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 8.
17. Lee Kerry, “The Man with the Golden Mind,” Adweek, 14 September 1987.
18. A Film Daily story notes: “Representing the Guild in the demonstration, given before a large crowd in the street outside, were Ben (RKO) Rogers, Bob (Warner) Fels, and Saul (Warner) Bass.” See Phil M. Daly, “Along the Rialto,” Film Daily 82, no. 116 (June 1942): 4.
19. See Gyorgy Kepes, The Language of Vision (Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1944).
20. Catherine Sullivan, “The Work of Saul Bass,” American Artist 18, no. 8 (October 1954): 31.
21. See Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, The New Vision: From Material to Architecture (New York: Brewer, Warren and Putnam, 1930).
22. Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass,” 10.
23. Quoted in Edwards, “Saul Bass,” 14. Both Edwards and Morgenstern repeat the same anecdote. See also An Interview with Saul Bass—20th Century Designer Series.
24. Quoted in Gerard van der Leun, “That Old Bass Magic,” United Mainliner 25, no. 3 (March 1981): 63.
25. Buchanan & Company advertisement in Variety, 13 May 1947, 10. See also “3½ Million Bally Coin Back of IP Pix,” Film Daily, 22 July 1946, 12, which announced International Pictures’ publicity budget for the coming season, with Bass and Rudin participating in the campaigns.
26. Meredith Keeve, “Saul Bass,” Zoom 34 (February 1988): 63.
27. “Bass Badly Hurt on Way to Awards,” Variety, 21 February 1949, 3.
28. Edwards, “Saul Bass.”
29. “Bass Breezes Back,” Daily Variety, 12 July 1950, 9.
30. “‘Group Think’ Killing Selling Slants?” Variety, 11 February 1959, 3.
31. See reproductions for Death of a Salesman, Decision before Dawn, and The Sniper in Saul Bass’s first documented, published essay: Saul Bass, “Film Advertising; Filmwerbung, La publicité por le film,” Graphis 9, no. 48 (1953): 279. See also the premiere invitation to Death of a Salesman, 20 December 1951, Warner Beverly Hills Theatre, box 336, Scrapbook, Collection 161, Stanley Kramer Papers, UCLA Special Collections.
32. See reproductions of trade ads in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 16–19.
33. “Chatter,” Variety, 27 August 1951, 6.
34. See Ken Coupland, “Saul Bass: The Name behind the Titles,” Graphis 54, no. 316 (July–August 1998): 102; Mary Glucksman, “Saul Bass: Due Credit,” Screen International, 13 May 1994, 27.
35. Kallis interview, 2012.
36. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 21n83.
37. See “The West Coast: A Designer’s View,” Industrial Design 4, no. 10 (October 1957): 74; Sullivan, “Work of Saul Bass,” 67.
38. Interview with Mike Lonzo, 20 September 2012, Hollywood, CA.
39. Interview with James Hollander, 31 October 2012, Burbank, CA.
40. Both Edwards and Morgenstern name Elaine as the first employee Bass hired. According to Edwards, Bass met Elaine, who was a design student, at the 1957 Aspen Conference and hired her there. He claims Bass’s marriage to Ruth was already shaky because she didn’t appreciate or understand Saul’s work. See Morgenstern, “Saul Bass,” 32; Edwards, “Saul Bass,” 50.
41. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 24.
42. Yager, for his part, maintained that Marsh knew nothing about marketing. When Yager came on board in 1974, Marsh insisted on reading and correcting every letter Yager wrote. When Yager resisted, Marsh complained to Bass, but Marsh soon realized that Bass had given Yager authority over all financial matters, so he left the firm voluntarily. Interview with Herb Yager, 27 February 2013, Ojai, CA.
43. Sullivan, “Work of Saul Bass,” 28.
44. See reproductions in ibid., 29–31; Ludwig Ebenhöh, “Saul Bass, USA,” Gebrauchsgraphik 27, no. 11 (November 1956): 12–21; Georgine Oeri, “Saul Bass,” Graphis 11, no. 59 (1955): 258–65·
45. Quoted in R. Roger Remington and Barbara Hodik, Nine Pioneers in American Graphic Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 4.
46. See van der Leun, “That Old Bass Magic,” 64.
47. For example, according to a Bass account executive, they were billing Rockwell International $75,000 to $90,000 a month, for a total of almost $2 million, in 1968. See LogoDesignLove, “The Cost of a Bass Logo,” http://www.logodesignlove.com/saul-bass-logo-cost.
48. Adam Duncan Harris, “Extra Credits: The History and Collection of Pacific Title and Art Studio” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2000), 222.
49. Ebenhöh, “Saul Bass, USA,” 12.
50. Press book for Carmen Jones (20th Century–Fox, 1954), 4, microfilm, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
51. Joanne Stang, “Movie (Title) Mogul,” New York Times, 1 December 1957, D1.
52. Quoted in Pamela Haskin, “Saul, Can You Make Me a Title?” Film Quarterly 50, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 11.
53. Ibid., 12.
54. Truffaut, Hitchcock, 207–9.
55. “Saul Bass: Portfolio of a Versatile Designer’s Work,” Print 15, no. 3 (May–June 1961): 35–46.
56. “West Coast: A Designer’s View,” 74.
57. See Ebenhöh, “Saul Bass, USA,” 20: “Saul Bass who works as a designer in Hollywood is a typical representative of even that American style.” See also Sullivan, “Work of Saul Bass,” 28.
58. Richard Caplan, “Designs by Saul Bass,” Industrial Design 5, no. 10 (October 1958): 88.
59. “Andy Parker aka Regular Joe,” National Bohemian beer commercial, 1 minute, 217268-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
60. See Business Screen Magazine 24, no. 4 (1963): 381.
61. See “Apples and Oranges—Food for Thought. How CBS Sells a Concept,” Telefilm 8, no. 5 (May 1963): 30–31, 38.
62. According to Klynn’s obituary, “Herbert Klynn, former UPA President and longtime president of Format Productions collaborated with Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Saul Bass, and Ray Bradbury” on the film, but Bass may have done only the titles at the end of the film. See “Herbert Klynn Obituary,” Variety, 8 February 1999, 91.
63. See Mina Hamilton, “N.Y. World’s Fair Film Preview,” Industrial Design 11 (April 1964): 35–36, 40–43; Mina Hamilton, “Films at the Fair II: A Comparative Review,” Industrial Design 12 (May 1964): 40–41.
64. Bass also traveled to the Philippines in 1974 to photograph the Major Kurtz headquarters set, where the film’s climax occurs. Approximately 178 35mm slides of the shoot survive. See “Apocalypse Now—On Set Photography,” Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
65. James Powers, “Saul Bass Plans Short Feature on Social Changes,” Hollywood Reporter 217, no. 7 (19 July 1971): 2.
66. “Cable Column: An Interview with Saul Bass,” Z Magazine 2, no. 3 (August–September 1975): 21.
67. “Saul Bass Busy Writing, Directing Theatrical Project,” Hollywood Reporter 253, no. 7 (September 1978): 8.
68. See Telex from Yamaguchi to Saul Bass, 1 July 1983, Quest Data Service File, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
69. “Saul Bass & Associates Changes Its Moniker,” Daily Variety, 13 October 1978, 6; “Saul Bass & Associates,” special issue of IDEA (1979): 132.
70. Steven Heller, “Why Design Declined at CBS: A Conversation with Lou Dorfsman,” Print 44, no. 6 (November–December 1990): 100. Although Dorfsman doesn’t specify dates, one negotiation apparently took place in 1973, after Dorfsman’s mentor at CBS, Frank Stanton, retired.
71. Bass also did the initial title designs for Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), but his concept of having a woman wrapped in videotape or showing videotape from a VHS cassette unspooling to form the image of a woman was not pursued by Soderbergh or Harvey Weinstein, the film’s producer. See box 111A, file 9, “Sex, Lies, and Videotape—titles,” Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
72. Yager interview, 2013.
73. See the English translation of the original German at http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/das-bauhaus/idee/manifest.
74. Lorraine Wild, “Europeans in America,” in Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History, ed. Mildred Friedman et al. (New York: Harry Abrams, 1989), 168.
75. Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (New York: Paul Theobald, 1965).
76. See Jan-Christopher Horak, “The Films of Moholy-Nagy,” Afterimage 13, no. 1/2 (Summer 1985), reprinted in Jan-Christopher Horak, Making Images Move: Photographers and Avant-Garde Cinema (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1997).
77. “Brooklyn Drafts New Art Policy,” New York Times, 10 May 1942.
78. Lorraine Wild, “Modern American Graphics II: The Birth of a Profession,” Industrial Design, July–August 1983, 56.
79. Sullivan, “Work of Saul Bass,” 31.
80. Moholy-Nagy, New Vision (1930), 14, 60.
81. Timmer, “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary,” 13–14.
82. Interview with Saul Bass (CSULB, 1986). See also Moholy-Nagy, New Vision (1930), 58.
83. Moholy-Nagy, New Vision (1930), 30, 35.
84. Ibid., 32.
85. Kepes, Language of Vision, 13.
86. Gyorgy Kepes, “Education of the Eye,” More Business 3, no. 11 (November 1938), quoted in Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969), 197.
87. Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass,” 5.
88. Ibid., 10.
89. Kepes, Language of Vision, 221.
90. Ibid., 17–27.
91. Ibid., 44–51.
92. Ibid., 59.
93. Ibid., 20; Daily Variety, 1 November 1950, 16.
94. Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass,” 28.
95. Kepes, Language of Vision, 67.
96. Ibid., 98.
97. Ibid., 130.
98. Ibid., 200.
99. Ibid., 207.
100. Ibid.
101. Ibid., 92, 220; Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 161.
102. See a reproduction of the advertisement in Dick Hess and Marion Muller, Dorfsman & CBS (New York: American Showcase, 1987), 68.
103. See Kepes, Language of Vision, 87, 183. See also Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 19, 33.
104. Kallis interview, 2012.
105. Janet Staiger, “Announcing Wares, Winning Patrons, Voicing Ideals: Thinking about the History and Theory of Film Advertising,” Cinema Journal 29, no. 3 (Spring 1990): 8.
106. See a selection of silent and early sound movie ads in Russell C. Sweeney, Coming Next Week: A Pictorial History of Film Advertising (New York: Castle Books, 1973).
107. Emil T. Noah Jr., Movie Gallery: A Pictorial History of Motion Picture Advertisements (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Noah Communications, 1980), 11.
108. See a reproduction of the ad in Joe Morella, Edward Z. Epstein, and Eleonor Clark, Those Great Movie Ads (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1972), 294.
109. Ibid., 81.
110. Sullivan, “Work of Saul Bass,” 28.
111. Advertisement for Hard, Fast, and Beautiful in Daily Variety, 6 September 1951, 6.
112. Reproduced in Ebenhöh, “Saul Bass, USA,” 18.
113. “Fatalistic Fugue: Bonjour Tristesse,” Newsweek, 20 January 1958, 89–90, quoted in Lowell E. Redelings, “The Hollywood Scene,” Hollywood Citizen News, 22 January 1958, 7–8.
114. Interview with Saul Bass (CSULB, 1986).
115. James Woudhuysen, “Bass Profundo,” Design Week, 22 September 1989, 17.
116. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 43.
117. See “Rainbow Bass—alphabet,” box 37A, file 9, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. A letter dated 5 May 1983 from Art Goodman (box 37A, file 38, “Art Goodman,” ibid.) indicates the typography was submitted for an award but didn’t win.
118. Fred Hift, “And that Cramps Film Ads—Bass,” Variety, 20 November 1957, 7.
119. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 42, 214–15.
120. Interview with Jeff Okun, 23 March 2012, Hollywood, CA.
121. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 167.
1. Bass was probably involved in the credits for The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 (1974) but did not receive credit, and he certainly contributed to the credits for The Human Factor (1979), which uses elements from Bass’s poster for the film.
2. See Army Archerd, “Just for Variety,” Daily Variety, 15 February 1966, 2; “Ray, Wilson to Film ‘The Alien’ for Col.,” Daily Variety, 12 June 1967, 1.
3. Interview with Jeff Okun, 6 June 2011, Studio City, CA.
4. Interview with Mike Lonzo, 20 September 2012, Hollywood, CA.
5. Interview with Saul Bass, KTTY Channel 11 Los Angeles, 27 November 1977, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
6. Saloment Cort, “‘The Compleat Filmmaker’—From Title to Features,” American Cinematographer 58, no. 3 (March 1977): 289.
7. American Film Institute Seminar, 3.
8. For example, see Hazel Flynn, “Something Wild Is Strange Enigma,” Los Angeles Citizen News, 18 May 1962, clipping files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. Flynn wrote: “The main titles are by Saul Bass and they are the most original item about the whole production.”
9. Mike Fessier Jr., “Lay ’Em in the Aisles with a Title,” Daily Variety, 27 October 1964, 39. Bass continued to design posters and other graphic materials for Wilder.
10. “Movies: Man with a Golden Arm,” Time, 16 March 1962, 46.
11. Ken Coupland, “Saul Bass: The Name behind the Titles,” Graphis 54, no. 316 (July–August 1998): 104.
12. Michaela Williams, “Satire of a World Premiere,” Chicago, 13 November 1965, The Searching Eye reviews, box 10A, file 44, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
13. “Do Film Critics Extol ‘Bass Credits’ to Slur (by Contrast) the Director?” Variety, 17 June 1964, 5.
14. Arnold Schwartzman, “Saul Bass: Anatomy of a Mentor,” Baseline International Typographics Journal 22 (1996): 21.
15. As Time magazine noted as early as 1962: “At 41 Bass is easily the highest priced man in his field.” “Movies: Man with a Golden Arm,” 46.
16. The Margaret Herrick Library’s Bass Collection contains budgets only from films made in the 1980s and later.
17. Letter from Saul Bass to Tom Andre (Anthony-Worldwide production manager), 11 June 1957, Gregory Peck Papers, Margaret Herrick Library Special Collections, AMPAS.
18. Lowell A. Bodger, “A Modern Approach to Film Titling,” American Cinematographer 40, no. 8 (August 1960): 477.
19. See, for example, memo from Al Tamarin to Myer P. Beck, “Advertising and Publicity Budget,” 10 December 1956, box 14, Stanley Kramer Papers, UCLA Library Special Collections.
20. Rebello, Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, 100.
21. Henry Wolf cited a figure of $50,000 for Spartacus. See Henry Wolf, “Saul Bass: Some Short Takes on a Long Friendship” (unpublished manuscript on Henry Wolf stationery), box 39A, file 41, “Henry Wolf,” Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. See also Bodger, “Modern Approach to Film Titling,” 477; Fessier, “Lay ’Em in the Aisles,” 39; A. D. Murphy, “Only a Pittance for Pix Titling,” Daily Variety, 31 October 1967, 46.
22. “Pix Owe Much to Credits. Opening Runoff Now Getting Lotsa Flair, Flash, Mood-Setting Motifs,” Variety, 11 September 1957, 7, 19.
23. Fred Foster, “New Look in Film Titles,” American Cinematographer 43, no. 6 (June 1962): 357, quoted in Jason Gendler, “Saul Bass and Title Design: Intention and Reception, and Production Integration” (paper presented at Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Los Angeles, March 2010).
24. Vincent Canby, “Panic: An Industry Staple,” Variety, 21 September 1960, 4.
25. Pauline Kael, “Fantasies of the Art House Audience,” Sight & Sound 31, no. 1 (Winter 1961–1962): 8.
26. Joseph Mathewson, “Titles Are Better than Ever,” New York Times, 16 July 1967.
27. Coupland, “Saul Bass: Man behind the Titles,” 104.
28. See Jean Firstenberg, “From the Director’s Chair: Credit Where Credit Is Due,” American Film 9, no. 6 (April 1984): 80.
29. Cort, “‘The Compleat Filmmaker,’” 291.
30. That’s Entertainment II file, box 13A, file 30, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
31. Interview with Saul Bass (CSULB, 1986).
32. Mary Glucksman, “Saul Bass: Due Credit,” Screen International, 13 May 1994, 28.
33. Cort, “‘The Compleat Filmmaker,’” 290.
34. “Saul Bass [Interview],” Designer Magazine, May 1980, 24.
35. Jack Haley’s That’s Entertainment! (1974) used no fewer than eleven different narrators, including Astaire, Kelly, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Elizabeth Taylor.
36. This whole sequence was originally planned to come at the end of the titles, after the head title. See That’s Entertainment II file, box 13A, file 29, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
37. The Bass estate possesses a complete set of storyboards for A River Runs through It, which envisioned a montage of images and crosscutting between shots of the river, a desk with family photographs, and various homemade flies on the desktop. Much of this was reworked in the early titles before the sequence transitions to historical photographs of the town. See A River Runs through It file, box 26, folder 498, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. The long tracking shots along a nineteenth-century desk holding books, portraits, and artificial flies survive as 35mm rushes in the Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
38. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, The New Vision (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005), 46.
39. For an early example of this style of head title, see Her Man (1930), cited in Deborah Allison, “Beyond Saul Bass: A Century of American Film Title Sequences,” Film International, 30 January 2011, http://filmint.nu/?p=202.
40. Originally, Donald O’Connor’s name was supposed to appear on the gong. See That’s Entertainment II file.
41. See George Stanitzek, “Vorspann (Titles/Credits, Générique),” in Das Buch zum Vorspann, ed. Alexander Böhnke, Rembrent Hüser, and Georg Stanitzek (Berlin: Vorwerk, 2006), 14. For the English translation, see George Stanitzek, “Reading the Title Sequence (Vorspann, Générique),” Cinema Journal 48, no. 4 (Summer 2009): 44–58.
42. Charles Michener with Martin Kasindorf, “Old Movies Come Alive,” Newsweek, 31 May 1976, 48.
43. Gordon Cow, Films and Filming, August 1976, 39. See also Stephan Farber, New West, 24 May 1976, 97; Penelope Gilliat, New Yorker, 24 May 1976, 134; Vincent Canby, New York Times, 17 May 1976, 40; Hollis Alpert, Saturday Review, 29 May 1976, 46.
44. Quoted in Pamela Haskin, “Saul, Can You Make Me a Title?” Film Quarterly 50, no. 1 (Fall 1996).
45. Merle Armitage, “Movie Titles,” Print 5, no. 2 (1947): 44.
46. Joanne Stang, “Movie (Title) Mogul,” New York Times, 1 December 1957, D1.
47. Fessier, “Lay ’Em in the Aisles,” 39.
48. “Saul Bass,” short segment, American Movie Classics Channel, 1994.
49. David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 25.
50. Bodger, “Modern Approach to Film Titling,” 476.
51. See “Pix Owe Much to Credits,” 7; Fred Hift, “And that Cramps Film Ads—Bass,” Variety, 20 November 1957, 7, 24.
52. Quoted in Jaan Uhelszki, “Film: The Art of Motion Graphics in Film,” Soma 18, no. 7 (September 2004): 86.
53. Grant Tume, “Design for Living,” Detour Magazine, March 1996, 32.
54. André Gardies, “Am Anfang war der Vorspann,” in Böhnke et al., Das Buch zum Vorspann, 21.
55. The Chop Suey Alphabet font was designed by Ross F. George in 1935. See Harris, “Extra Credits,” 134.
56. Thierry Kuntzel, “Die Filmarbeit, 2,” Montage/AV 8, no. 1 (1999): 25–84.
57. Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson, Classical Hollywood Cinema, 25.
58. Tom Conley, Film Hieroglyphs: Ruptures in Classical Cinema (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), ix.
59. Gardies, “Am Anfang war der Vorspann,” 27.
60. Conley, Film Hieroglyphs, ix.
61. See “The True Story behind MGM’s Main Title Design,” http://www.mgm-movie-titles-and-credits.com/main-title-design.html.
62. See Deborah Allison, “Promises in the Dark: Opening Title Sequences in American Feature Films of the Sound Period” (PhD diss., University of East Anglia, 2002); Harris, “Extra Credits”; and Gemma Solana and Antonio Boneu, Uncredited: Graphic Design & Opening Titles in Movies (Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2007).
63. Pat Kirkham, “Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration,” West 86th 18, no. 1 (Spring 2011), http://www.west86th.bgc.bard.edu/articles/kirkham-bass-hitchcock.html.
64. Peter Hall, “Opening Ceremonies: Typography and the Movies, 1955–1969,” in Architecture and Film, ed. Mark Lamster (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000), 129.
65. Coupland, “Saul Bass: Man behind the Titles,” 103.
66. Solana and Boneu, Uncredited, 13.
67. Allison, “Beyond Saul Bass.”
68. Peter Decherney even argues that duping was part of the early industry’s business model. See Peter Decherney, Hollywood’s Copyright Wars: From Edison to the Internet (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
69. Julia May, “The Art of Film Title Design throughout Cinema History,” Smashing Magazine, 4 October 2010, http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/04/the-art-of-the-film-title-throughout-cinema-history/. See also Yael Braha and Bill Byrne, Creative Motion Graphic Titling for Film, Video, & the Web (London: Focal Press, 2011), 47.
70. Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson, Classical Hollywood Cinema, 26.
71. Adam Duncan Harris, “Das goldene Zeitalter de Filvorspanns: Die Geschichte der Pacific Title and Art Studios,” in Böhnke et al., Das Buch zum Vorspann, 123. See also Harris, “Extra Credits.”
72. Allison, “Beyond Saul Bass.”
73. See http://www.shillpages.com/movies/index2.shtml.
74. Armitage, “Movie Titles,” 43.
75. Allison, “Beyond Saul Bass.”
76. Deborah Allison, “Innovative Vorspanne und Reflexivität im klassischen Holllywoodkino,” in Böhnke et al., Das Buch zum Vorspann, 94–101.
77. Everett Aison, “The Current Scene: Film Titles,” Print 19, no. 4 (July–August 1965): 29.
78. Ibid.
79. Saul Bass, “Film Titles—A New Field for the Graphic Designer,” Graphis 16, no. 89 (May–June 1960): 209.
80. Harris, “Das goldene Zeitalter de Filvorspanns,” 126.
81. Braha and Byrne, Creative Motion Graphic Titling, 48.
82. Angela Aleiss, “The Names behind the Titles,” Variety, 8 December 1997, 86.
83. Ibid., 56.
84. David Geffner, “First Things First,” Filmmaker Magazine 6, no. 1 (Fall 1997), http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/issues/fa111997/firstthingsfirst.php.
85. Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller, Designs Writing Research: Writing on Graphic Design (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 5.
86. Interview with Saul Bass (CSULB, 1986).
87. Paul Rand, Design Form and Chaos (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 3.
88. Peter Bil’ak, “In Search of a Comprehensive Type Design Theory,” Typotheque.com, http:/wwtypotheque.com/articles/in_search_of_a_comprehensive_type_design_theory.
89. Lupton and Miller, Designs Writing Research, 62.
90. Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, 3rd ed. (Vancouver: Hartley and Marks, 2005), 19.
91. Ibid., 20–24.
92. Jim Supanick, “Saul Bass: To Hit the Ground Running . . . ,” Film Comment 33, no. 2 (March–April 1997): 73.
93. Memo from Morrie Marsh to Saul Bass, 9 March 1973, “Bass on Titles” box, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. See also Title Reel memo, 3 October 1968, ibid.
94. Memo from Saul Bass to Morrie Marsh, Re: Dave Adams distributed Title Reel, 6 January 1972, “Bass on Titles” box, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. See also memo, Pyramid Films, 10 May 1977.
95. Okun interview, 2011.
96. “Gleanings from a Gondola,” Variety, 8 September 1982, 7.
97. Review of Bass on Titles, EFLA (1978): 10, 109.
98. Kimberly Elam, Expressive Typography: The Word as Image (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990), 1.
99. John R. Biggs, Basic Typography (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), 15.
100. Elam, Expressive Typography, 32.
101. Ibid., 31.
102. Biggs, Basic Typography, 40.
103. Dawn Ades, “Function and Abstraction in Poster Design,” in The 20th Century Poster: Design of the Avant-Garde (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 61.
104. Martin Solomon, The Art of Typography: An Introduction to typo.icon.ography (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1986), 148.
105. I’m referring not to typographic color here, which indicates the intensity of the type as set en masse, but to its conventional usage. Michael Beaumont, Type: Design, Color, Character & Use (Cincinnati, OH: Northern Lights Books, 1987), 78.
106. Alan Casty, The Dramatic Art of the Film (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 57. See also James Monaco, How to Read a Film: The Art, Technology, Language, History and Theory of Film and Media (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 86.
107. Kepes, Language of Vision, 54, critiqued the golden mean because he saw it as an absolute value that was supposedly based on nature; this hindered the free expression of dynamic rhythm on the page—a rhythm based on sensory relationships rather than mathematics. Bass also had little use for the golden mean. See Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass,” 38.
108. Philip B. Meggs, A History of Graphic Design (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983), 379.
109. Bringhurst, Elements of Typographic Style, 23.
110. Meggs, History of Graphic Design, 380.
111. Solomon, Art of Typography, 15, 42.
112. Rebello, Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, 57, 100–101. Bass asked for and got three 16mm prints of the Psycho titles for his personal archive. This must have become standard practice for Bass & Associates, because the estate collection includes 16mm titles for most of Bass’s films.
113. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 404n87.
114. Psycho file, box 6A, file 33, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. Bass’s published description of the titles is slightly shorter.
115. Raymond Durgnat, A Long Hard Look at “Psycho” (London: BFI Publishing, 2002), 20.
116. James Counts, “Just the Beginning: The Art of Film Titles,” http://www.twenty4.co.uk/03-articles/ArtofFilmTitles/main.htm (no longer available). I’m grateful to Melissa Dollman, who pointed me to this source in her unpublished paper “Moving Words” (UCLA, 2005).
117. Hitchcock had previously used an image of venetian blinds being raised and lowered behind the credits for Rear Window (1953), which also addresses the issue of voyeurism.
118. Higher Learning file, box 4A, file 2, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. The file also includes a diagonal grid drawn in pencil on cardboard.
119. Ibid., box 3A, files 39, 40, 41. The production had a budget of $40,000, but it actually cost only $25,357. The design firm received $30,000, payable in installments at contract signing, approval of final design, and completion.
120. Ibid.
121. Ibid.
122. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, vi.
123. Martin Scorsese, “Saul Bass 1920–1996: A Celebration of an Extraordinary Life” (unpublished manuscript, 1996), quoted in Kirkham, “Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration.”
124. Coupland, “Saul Bass: Man behind the Titles,” 105.
125. Martin Scorsese, interview by the British Film Institute, 11 February 1993, VHS tape, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
126. Timmer, “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary,” 121.
127. Goodfellas file, box 3A, file 37, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
128. Ben Brantley noted in his film review: “From its opening credits, which whizz off the screen like souped-up getaway cars, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas stays in breathlessly high gear.” Elle, November 1990, clipping in Goodfellas production file, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
129. Josh Wolski, “Goodfellas, Not Coming to a Theater Near You,” 8 August 2005, http://notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_goodfellas.php.
130. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 271.
131. Ibid.
132. Bass described his titles for Saint Joan as follows: “The title opens with bell symbols, in the form of bell clappers, swinging back and forth across the screen. They swing and advance towards the viewer and fade as they enlarge to screen-filling size. In the interim, new clappers emerge from the background and swing across the screen. They too advance and grow in size. This process is repeated throughout the title as the credits appear and disappear. However, the general effect is one of the screen filling more and more with the ethereal, swinging bell symbols, until finally a few white clappers are introduced, one of which advances and dominates the entire screen. At the apex of this clapper’s forward movement the symbol for the film (a figure holding a broken sword) materializes within it, followed by the final credit.” “Saint Joan titles description,” box 10A, file 25, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
133. Tom Eckersley, Poster Design (London: Studio Publications, 1954), 35.
134. Joanne Stang, “Movie (Title) Mogul,” New York Times, 1 December 1957, 86.
135. “Behind the Title,” Newsweek, 20 January 1958, 89–90, box 1A, file 46, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
136. Gene Moskowitz, “Bonjour Tristesse,” Variety, 15 January 1958, 6.
137. “Titles Description,” box 2A, file 48, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS, first published in Bass, “Film Titles,” 209.
138. Josh Wolski, “Bonjour Tristesse, Not Coming to a Theater Near You,” 8 August 2005, http://notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_bonjourtristesse.php.
139. Memo from Myer P. Beck to Stanley Kramer, 18 December 1956, box 14, Publicity folder, Stanley Kramer Papers, Collection 161, UCLA Library Special Collections.
140. Memo from Al Tamarin to Myer P. Beck, “Advertising and Publicity Budget,” 10 December 1956, box 14, Stanley Kramer Papers, UCLA Library Special Collections.
141. The Pride and the Passion, box 6A, file 27, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
142. See Mark Vallen, Art for a Change blog, http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2010/06/goya-los-caprichos-in-los-angeles.html.
143. See The Pride and the Passion production file at the Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS, reproduced in part in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 170.
144. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 163, 191.
145. See the original trailer at http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/196871/Pride-and-The-Passion-The-Original-Trailer.html. Fredenthal’s sketches were also published in Life magazine and the exhibitors’ manual, and they were available for purchase through the National Screen Service. Fredenthal (1914–1958) was a well-known American watercolorist and illustrator (e.g., he illustrated the novel Tobacco Road). The trailer cost $7,500, according to the publicity budget for the film. See memo from Al Tamarin to David V. Picker, “Overall Campaign,” 8 February 1957, box 14, “The Pride and the Passion” production files, Stanley Kramer Papers, UCLA Library Special Collections.
146. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 397n10.
147. Bass, “Film Titles,” 209. The article reproduced thirty-six color frames from the film.
148. “Behind the Title,” Newsweek, 20 January 1958, 90.
149. Art Cohn, Michael Todd’s Around the World in 80 Days Almanac (New York: Random House, 1956), 11–16.
150. Strictly speaking, the Oxford English Dictionary traces the etymology of cameo’s meaning as “a bit part in a film” to a 1950 novel by Edmund Crispin. Todd was apparently the first to use the term to denote major stars in walk-on parts, although this has yet to be accepted by the OED.
151. See Morgenstern, “Saul Bass,” 44.
152. “Bass Obtains Release from ‘80’ Ad Chore,” Daily Variety, 19 July 1956, 2.
153. Richard Warren Lewis, “Box Office Bait by Bass: A Designer Masters the Fine Art of Hooking an Audience,” Show Business Illustrated, 23 January 1962, 50.
154. Jack Harrison, “Around the World in 80 Days,” Hollywood Reporter, 18 October 1956, 3. See also Fred Hift, “Around the World in 80 Days,” Variety, 24 October 1956, 6; Sherwin Kane, Motion Picture Daily, 18 October 1956, 6.
155. D. R., “Around the World in Eighty Days,” Monthly Film Bulletin 24 (1957): 94.
156. Hollis Alpert, “What Goes on Here,” Woman’s Day, March 1961.
157. See, for example, http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/?p=15567; http://www.afilmcanon.com/journal/2009/6/20/anderson-around-the-world-in-eighty-days-1956.html.
158. “Suit Charges Todd ‘Pirated’ Epilog for ‘80,’” Daily Variety, 28 December 1956, 2.
159. “Saul Bass Answers ‘Plagiarism’ Charge with Suit for 600G,” Daily Variety, 18 January 1957, 2.
160. “250G ‘80 Days’ Suit over Epilog Settled,” Daily Variety, 8 July 1958, 3.
161. Noell Wolfram Evans, “Saul Bass: A Film Title Pioneer,” http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/saulbass.html.
162. Reprinted in Georgine Oeri, “Saul Bass,” Graphis 11, no. 59 (1955): 260.
163. Gerard Blanchard, “Saul Bass: Génériques et Languages,” Communications et Languages 40 (1978): 78, 80.
164. A document in the production file, “Credit Provisions,” contains five pages of notes on specifications for text size and billing for the actors’ credits. See Gunther Schiff to Stanley Kramer, 21 January 1963, box 62, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” Stanley Kramer Papers, UCLA Library Special Collections.
165. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World reviews file, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
166. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 41–42.
167. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Mad,_Mad,_Mad,_Mad_World.
168. The high costs of making three-camera, wide-screen films led the Cinerama company to stop production of its original system after the release of How the West Was Won (1962). Cinerama continued the brand with Ultra Panavision 70, which used anamorphic lenses to project onto the curved screen. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was the first single-camera Cinerama film. See http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingup2.htm.
169. Bob Allen, “Designing and Producing the Credit Titles for ‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,’” American Cinematographer 44, no. 12 (December 1963): 706–7. The same color scheme as a monochromatic background strongly suggests that Bass created the last twenty seconds of the It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World trailer, where the title appears word by word as the title song is heard. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sla845GW9YM.
170. It is also odd that Stanley Kramer, who worked with Bass on numerous projects over a fifteen-year period, never mentions the designer in his autobiography. See Stanley Kramer with Thomas M. Coffey, A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: A Life in Hollywood (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1997). Bass is also missing from Donald Spoto, Stanley Kramer: A Life (New York: Putnam, 1978).
171. Philip K. Scheuer, “‘It’s a Mad World Challenge to Sanity,” Los Angeles Times, 5 November 1963, pt. 4, 11.
172. Tube, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” Daily Variety, 5 November 1963, 5.
173. Gene Arngel, “Mad Money Millions for Kramer and UA,” Film Daily, 5 August 1965, 1, 5. See also memo from Leon Goldberg to Arthur Krim, 11 May 1966, Re: Stanley Kramer Pictures, box 127, folder “Sale Correspondence MW,” Collection 161, Stanley Kramer Papers, UCLA Library Special Collections.
174. Allen, “Designing and Producing the Credit Titles,” 707. Normally, theatrical curtains rose in four or five seconds.
1. Morella, Epstein, and Clark, Those Great Movie Ads, 44.
2. Harris, “Extra Credits,” 227.
3. Fred Hift, “And that Cramps Film Ads—Bass,” Variety, 20 November 1957, 24.
4. AT&T Corporate Program (1969), 16mm film, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS. A New Look for the Bell System is the Academy’s title for the film.
5. Morella, Epstein, and Clark, Those Great Movie Ads, 44.
6. Foster Hirsch, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), 195–96.
7. Otto Preminger, An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, 1977), 109. See also Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 196. There is some controversy about whether Preminger is remembering the story correctly. Bass denied working on The Moon Is Blue. See Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass,” 67. Andreas A. Timmer quotes Bass’s assistant, Brad Roberts, who said Bass designed the birds for the VHS release of the film in 1980. See Timmer, “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary,” 134n4.
8. “Chatter,” Variety, 9 December 1955, 11.
9. “Chatter,” Variety, 13 December 1955, 9.
10. See Bass on Titles. See also Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 244. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 398, includes a photo of the Fox Wilshire marquee in Los Angeles, showing only the symbol for Exodus.
11. See Saul Bass interview, Man with the Golden Arm, typed transcript, box 4A, file 21, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS; Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 242.
12. See Robert M. Wendlinger, “Strong ‘Arm’ Methods: Roger Lewis of UA Discussed Unusual Ad Campaign for ‘Golden Arm,’” Hollywood Reporter, 1955, in box 4A, file 21, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS; “Saul Bass,” short segment, American Movie Classics Channel, 1994.
13. “The Man with the Golden Arm,” Hollywood Reporter, 27 December 1955, 5–11.
14. Robert J. Landry, “Anatomy of a Campaign,” Variety, 10 June 1959, 7.
15. See the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YljTxWFTtCk.
16. Art Goodman drew the Advise and Consent poster, but it was Bass’s idea. Bass said the film would blow the lid off Washington, leading Goodman to suggest opening up the dome of the Capitol. Interview with Mike Lonzo, 20 September 2012.
17. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 149.
18. Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass,” 44.
19. King, “Taking Credit,” http://www.typotheque.com/articles/taking_credit_film_title_sequences_1955–1965_6_musical_statues_spartacus_1960. See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 192.
20. Hift, “And that Cramps Film Ads—Bass,” 24.
21. Ibid.
22. Morella, Epstein, and Clark, Those Great Movie Ads, 109.
23. “Bureau of Missing Business,” Variety, 20 August 1958, 12.
24. Ervine Metzl, The Poster: Its History and Its Art (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1963), 18.
25. John Barnicoat, Posters: A Concise History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985), 7.
26. Maurice Rickards, The Rise and Fall of the Poster (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), 20.
27. Epes Winthrop Sargent, “Ten Years of Film Advertising,” Moving Picture World 31, no. 10 (10 March 1917): 1489.
28. Steve Schapiro and David Chierichetti, The Movie Poster Book (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979), 9.
29. Universal Film Manufacturing Company advertisement in Moving Picture World 19, no. 8 (21 February 1914): 909.
30. Sargent, “Ten Years of Film Advertising,” 1489.
31. See Epes Winthrop Sargent, “Advertising for Exhibitors,” Moving Picture World 11, no. 10 (9 March 1912): 860; “The Question of Posters,” Moving Picture World 12, no. 3 (20 April 1912): 205; Abraham Nelson, “Posters Cause Comment,” Moving Picture World 25, no. 5 (31 July 1915): 856.
32. J. B. Clymer, “Posters, Pertinent and Impertinent,” Moving Picture World 14, no. 8 (23 November 1912): 778; W. Stephen Bush, “New Lights on Posters,” Moving Picture World 28, no. 5 (29 April 1916): 777.
33. “New ‘Pearl White’ Poster,” Moving Picture World 14, no. 12 (12 December 1912): 1179.
34. “Paramount’s Convertibles,” Moving Picture World 36, no. 9 (1 June 1918): 1282.
35. “History of the Movies and the Movie Poster,” http://www.fffmovieposters.com/movieposterhistory.php.
36. Schapiro and Chierichetti, Movie Poster Book, 14. See also Gregory J. Edwards, The International Film Poster (Salem, NH: Salem House, 1985), 68–69; Edwin Poole and Susan Poole, Learn about Movie Posters (Chattanooga, TN: iGuide Media, 2002), 310–14.
37. Eugene A. Hosanksy, “The Current Scene: Film Posters,” Print 19, no. 4 (July–August 1965): 22.
38. Bruce Hershenson, “A History of Movie Posters,” http://www.reelclassics.com/Articles/General/posters-article.htm.
39. Stephen Rebello and Richard Allen, Reel Art: Great Posters from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen (New York: Abbeville Press, 1988), 118.
40. “Carmen Jones Art,” in 34th Annual of Advertising and Editorial Art and Design (New York: Longmans, Green in association with Art Directors Club of New York, 1955), n.p. [303]. See also Judith Salavetz, Spencer Drate, and Sam Sarowitz, eds., Art of the Modern Movie Poster: International Postwar Style and Design (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008), 440, which names Carmen Jones as Bass’s first poster design. Kallis and Bass won an Art Directors Club Award for a Quanta Airlines advertisement in 1956. See 35th Annual of Advertising and Editorial Art and Design (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956), n.p. [no. 60].
41. Edwards, International Film Poster, 73.
42. Hosanksy, “Current Scene,” 20.
43. Toot Buj, “Buy American,” Film Comment 44, no. 3 (May–June 2008): 20. Williams argues the same point in reference to Bass’s title designs. See David E. Williams, “Initial Images,” American Cinematographer 79, no. 5 (May 1998):
92.
44. Salavetz, Drate, and Sarowitz, Art of the Modern Movie Poster, 440.
45. The poster design of silhouettes was also used for other materials, including the premiere invitation and billboards. What convinced me that Bass must have designed the poster is the fact that a whole campaign was organized around the image; in addition, the design for United Artists’ press releases includes a square image of a map of Nuremberg (red and black) split into fifteen fragments, a design feature seen in many Bass designs, including the end titles for The Big Knife and Four Just Men. See Judgment at Nuremberg press releases, box 38, folder “Publicity Jan,” Collection 161, Stanley Kramer Papers, UCLA Special Collections.
46. It has been argued that Bass did not design the poster for West Side Story. See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 107.
47. Some Bass one-sheet posters now sell for more than $1,000: a very good quality Vertigo poster was sold at auction in 2011 for more than $4,900, The Man with the Golden Arm sold for $1,500 in April 2012, and Anatomy of a Murder went for $2,400 in 2010. See the auction history site at eMovieposter.com, http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/search/film%253A%2520VERTIGO%2520%28%2758%29/archive.html.
48. Quoted in Hosansky, “Current Scene,” 20.
49. Armin Hofmann, “Thoughts on the Poster,” in The 20th Century Poster: Design of the Avant-Garde, ed. Dawn Ades (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 91.
50. The artist for The Big Country was Morton Dimondstein. See AIGA Archives, http://designarchives.aiga.org/#/entries/Saul%20Bass/_/detail/relevance/asc/34/7/16212/big-country/1.
51. Quoted in Selden Rodman, Conversations with Artists (New York: Devin-Adair, 1957); later published in “Notes from a Conversation with Selden Rodman, 1956,” in Writings on Art: Mark Rothko, ed. Miguel López-Remiro (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006).
52. See Lynn Spigel, TV by Design: Modern Art and the Rise of Network Television (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 52.
53. “The West Coast: A Designer’s View,” Industrial Design 4, no. 10 (October 1957): 129.
54. Phyllis Tanner and Maury Nemoy are credited as artists on the poster. See AIGA Archive, http://designarchives.aiga.org/#/entries/Saul%20Bass/_/detail/relevance/asc/50/7/17655/the-man-with-the-golden-arm/1.
55. See 37th Annual of Advertising and Editorial Art and Design (New York: Longmans, Green, 1958), n.p. [nos. 64, 65], which lists Saul Bass and Henry Markowitz as the artists. The same source credits Goodman and Bass for the Love in the Afternoon poster.
56. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 128; http://www.moviepostershop.com/bonjour-tristesse-movie-poster-1958. The actual one-sheet poster in the author’s possession confirms that the reproduction in Bass and Kirkham is accurate.
57. The last 40 seconds of the 1:36-minute trailer features the face in blue and pink, as the credits silently pop in and out; it ends with the message: “Next Attraction in This Theater” in the Bass type for Tristesse. Previously, the trailer showed several scenes without comment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-RCRulvXgQ.
58. As Martin Scorsese notes in reference to Bonjour Tristesse’s logo: “This suggests Modigliani and Matisse but also recalls haute couture and the sophisticated advertising design of the time.” Martin Scorsese, “Anatomy of a Synthesist,” New York Times Magazine, 29 December 1996, 44.
59. “Porgy and Bess, Unused Production Elements,” 16mm, color reversal, 4:45 minutes, 16778-2-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
60. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 165.
61. See Stanley Wolpert, Nine Hours to Rama (New York: Random House Books, 1962).
62. Steven Heller, “The Man with the Big Book Look,” Print 56, no. 2 (March–April 2002): 48.
63. Hollywood Reporter, 16 January 1962, 3. See also Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 398.
64. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 148.
65. Stanley Wolpert, Nine Hours to Rama (New York: Bantam Books, 1963).
66. Metzl, The Poster, 170. Metzl’s prejudice against credits, expressed at least twice in the text, is a bit odd, given his invocation that posters be both advertising and art.
67. Purchased from the Bass estate by Jim Northover, the posters for Grand Prix, Exodus, and The Fixer were among those exhibited. See http://www.oipolloi.com/bass-notes-the-film-posters-of-saul-bass.
68. “Preminger Picture Nearly Flawless,” Hollywood Reporter, 14 December 1955, 3. See also “Man with the Golden Arm,” Motion Picture Herald, 17 December 1955, 706.
69. Quoted in Leo Goldsmith, “The Man with the Golden Arm, Not Coming to a Theatre Near You,” 2005, http://www.notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_manwgoldenarm.php.
70. Harris, “Extra Credits,” 228.
71. Wendlinger, “Strong ‘Arm’ Methods.”
72. “Man with the Golden Arm,” box 4A, file 27, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
73. For example, five MPAA companies abstained from voting on the film. See W. R. Wilkerson, “Trade Views,” Hollywood Reporter, 9 December 1955, 1. Meanwhile, a second scene of Sinatra preparing heroin with a spoon and matches was cut to appease with New York State censor. See “Preminger Voluntarily Cuts Scene from ‘Arm,’” Variety, 14 December 1955, 37. See also “L.A. Radio Stations Refuse to Air Spot Plugs for ‘Man with Golden Arm,’” Daily Variety, 19 December 1955, 9. Finally, the Legion of Decency gave the film a B rating. See “Legion ‘B’-Rates Preminger Pic, Denied Seal,” Variety, 28 December 1955, 13.
74. “The Man with the Golden Arm,” typed manuscript, n.d., box 4A, file 19, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
75. Jack Moffitt, review of Man with the Golden Arm, Hollywood Reporter, 14 December 1955, 3. Gene Moskowitz wrote: “Novel titles have been produced by Saul Bass.” See his film review in Variety, 14 December 1955, 6.
76. Jan-Christopher Horak, Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 35–36.
77. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 66.
78. Ibid., 55.
79. Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 219.
80. “Pickford to Star in The Library,” Variety, 21 November 1951. See also “Mary Pickford Hops out of Stan Kramer’s ‘Fire’ Because It Isn’t Tinted,” Variety, 19 September 1952, 1; Hollywood Reporter, 25 September 1952, 1.
81. See “Polishing Library,” Daily Variety, 1 June 1955, 8; “Upcoming Pic, ‘The Library’ to Sneer at Book-Burners’ Fear of Ideas,” Variety, 6 July 1955, 1.
82. “Legion of Decency ‘Separately’ Classifies Col’s STORM CENTER,” Daily Variety, 10 July 1956, 1.
83. “Inside Stuff—Pictures,” Variety, 8 July 1959, 17.
84. Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 284–85. Uris’s novel remained on best-seller lists for eighty weeks and sold 400,000 hardback and 3 million paperback copies.
85. There is some controversy about whether Otto Preminger or Kirk Douglas broke the blacklist. Preminger first announced publicly in January 1960 that Trumbo would receive credit for Exodus. Trumbo had earlier written the script for Spartacus, under a pseudonym, but Douglas did not make a similar announcement until September 1960. Nevertheless, it was Douglas who received an award from the Writers Guild for breaking the blacklist. See Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 327–28. Ceplair confirms that Douglas overstated his case. See Larry Ceplair, “Kirk Douglas, Spartacus, and the Blacklist,” Cineaste 37, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 11.
86. See “Add Preminger Pros & Cons,” Variety, 3 February 1960, 24; advertisement in Hollywood Reporter, 29 March 1960, 29, reprinted in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 139.
87. See “Exodus Production Elements Unused Title Sequence,” 16mm, black and white, 5812-2-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS. Images of the surf would reappear in Preminger’s In Harm’s Way.
88. See Doug Bennett, “Military Stencil Typeface History,” http://www.imagemaking.us/2011/10/military-stencil-typeface-history-by.html.
89. The trailer also ends with yellow flames engulfing the screen after the Exodus logo appears in white and the title in pink on a blue background, reprising an earlier title shot at the beginning of the trailer. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmcjfCQMKfA.
90. “Man with Gold Arm (Navy Rank), Plus Guts’ Cue to Prem’s World Sell,” Variety, 31 March 1965, 13.
91. In Harm’s Way, “Script Covers,” box 4A, file 9, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
92. In Harm’s Way, “Titles Description,” box 4A, file 12, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
93. All quotes in this paragraph are from review sheet, “Cape Fear Storyboards for Promotion,” box 2A, file 8, Saul Bass Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
94. Thomas Krag and Tim Volsted, eds., Title Sequence Seminar: Saul and Elaine Bass, 25 April 1995 (Copenhagen: National Film School of Denmark, 1995), 46.
95. The logo was used in the poster and on all advertising. Bass also designed an elaborate press book for the campaign, which was made to look like a congressional attaché case. The press book was included in my 2002 exhibition “Saul Bass—Designer” at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum.
96. U.S. House of Representatives, Our Flag (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1989), http://www.usflag.org/colors.html.
97. See “Robson Adds ‘9 Hours’ to His 20th Slate,” Daily Variety, 3 October 1961, 1; Hollywood Reporter, 16 January 1962, 13.
98. James Powers, “Nine Hours to Rama,” Hollywood Reporter, 18 February 1963, 3; Harrison Carroll, “Nine Hours to Rama Powerful,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 9 May 1963; Philip K. Scheuer, “Gandhi Story Makes Powerful Screen Epic,” Los Angeles Times Calendar, 3 March 1963, 3; Tube, “Nine Hours to Rama,” Variety, 20 February 1963, 6; Raymond Levy, “Nine Hours to Rama,” Motion Picture Herald, 6 March 1963, 762.
99. John Coleman, “Bass Relief,” New Statesman, 1 March 1963.
100. Interview with Jeff Okun, 6 June 2011, Studio City, CA. The biggest challenge was finding a bulk fabric that looked like a handkerchief.
101. Stuart Klawans, “Film,” Nation, 1 January 1990.
102. Jason Woloski, “Not Coming to a Theatre Near You,” http://www.notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_warroses.php.
103. Quoted in John Naughton, “Credit Where Credit’s Due . . . ,” Empire 57 (March 1994): 54.
104. Quoted in Krag and Volsted, Title Sequence Seminar, 47.
105. “Shirley Thomas from Hollywood,” radio broadcast, 23 October 1955, 5:30 p.m., KFI-NBC, transcript in The Big Knife, “Publicity File,” box 1A, file 43, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
106. Jean-Pierre Piton, Robert Aldrich (Paris: Edilig, 1985), 41.
107. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 35.
108. Allan Sekula, “The Body and the Archive,” in The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography, ed. Richard Bolton (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 343.
109. The play opened on 15 January 1952 and closed on 1 May 1952, after 161 performances. Universal supposedly paid six figures for the film rights. See Hollywood Reporter, 23 February 1954, The Shrike production file, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
110. According to an unsubstantiated note on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Bonner literally died onstage in July 1955, playing the same role at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, less than ten days after the film opened.
111. The Shrike (1955) publicity brochure, production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
112. Blogger “The Siren” argues that misogyny is at the very core of the film, despite June Allyson’s strong performance. See http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/2012/01/shrike-1955.html.
113. A. H. Weiler, “The Shrike (1955) Tamed ‘Shrike’; Film Wife Less Deadly than One in Play,” New York Times, 8 July 1955, http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D00E0DD103AE53BBC4053DFB166838E649EDE.
114. Murray Schumach, The Face on the Cutting Room Floor: The Story of Movie and Television Censorship (New York: William Morrow, 1964).
115. David Badder, Bob Baker, and Markku Salmi, “Saul Bass,” Film Dope 3 (August 1973): 2.
116. The next Bass title on the list of the 250 greatest films of all time is Goodfellas, at 171. See http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012/critics/.
117. See Timmer, “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary,” 131n62. Timmer quotes a letter from Bass to Herb Coleman, dated 26 February 1959, describing Whitney’s work as well as the color timing of the sequence.
118. Tom Sito, Moving Innovations: A History of Computer Animation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013), 26–28.
119. According to Emily King, Vertigo and Psycho were made with the help of Harold Adler, who worked at National Screen Service (where The Seven Year Itch was also produced). Adler comments on the precision of Bass’s storyboards but notes that Bass needed help translating them to film, which may or may not have been true. See King,“TakingCredit,” http://www.typothequecomarticlestaking_credit_film_title_sequences_1955–1965_5_spiralling_aspirations_vertigo_1958.
120. Quoted in Pat Kirkham, “The Jeweller’s Eye,” Sight & Sound 7, no. 4 (April 1997): 18.
121. Donald Spoto, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures (Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books, 1976), 299–300.
122. See Moholy-Nagy, New Vision (2005), 175.
123. Vertigo, “Title Description,” box 13A, file 39, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. Strangely, Bass insists that the opening shots of the title sequence were in black and white before being tinted red. The original trailer for Vertigo also employed the Lissajous light form, which appears immediately after a close-up of a dictionary definition of vertigo (almost matching Bass’s definition here), followed by the film’s title shot. See the Vertigo trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5jvQwwHQNY.
124. Robin Wood, Hitchcock’s Films (New York: Paperback Library, 1970), 78.
125. Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold, Foto-Auge, Photo-Eye, Oeil et Photo (Stuttgart: Akademischer Verlag GmbH., 1929).
126. Although John and Penelope Motimer received screen credit, the original novel by Miriam Modell was adapted by Walter Newman, Charles Beaumont, Ira Levin, Dalton Trumbo, and Arthur Kopit. See Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 400–401.
127. See “Bunny Lake Is Missing,” Daily Variety, 9 April 1965, 5. The ad reproduced the poster with a note to the left in Bass’s own hand: “Starts shooting in London today.”
128. See “Bunny Lake Is Missing,” Box Office, 18 October 1965; Robe, “Bunny Lake Is Missing,” Daily Variety, 5 October 1965, 3, 10. The latter writes: “The simple but effective titles by Saul Bass, will, as usual, carry over into the film’s entire advertising and promotion campaign.”
129. Bunny Lake Is Missing title description file, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
130. In Spartacus, the palm rather than the back of the hand is visible, but otherwise, the image is identical.
131. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 54.
132. Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), 106. See also Andrew Sarris, Confessions of a Cultist: On the Cinema, 1955/1969 (London: Simon and Schuster, 1971), 212–14.
133. Frankenheimer abandoned scriptwriter Lewis John Carlino’s happy ending, which united the subject with his original family, and instead made him a victim of the malevolent corporation he had hired. See Stephen Bowie, “John Frankenheimer,” http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/great-directors/frankenheimer/. See also Peter Wilshire, “A Key Unturned: Seconds,” http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/18/seconds.html.
134. Seconds, “Storyboards,” box 11A, file 4, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
135. Okun interview, 2011.
136. Lonzo interview, 2012.
137. All the footage was apparently shot first with a normal lens, then projected onto a distorted mirror surface and rephotographed while moving the mirror to create further distortions.
1. Philip B. Meggs, “Saul Bass on Corporate Identity,” in Design Culture: An Anthology of Writing from the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, ed. Steven Heller and Marie Finamore (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 72.
2. Sergei Eisenstein, “A Dialectical Approach to Film Form,” in Film Form: Essays in Film Theory (New York: Harvest Books, 1949), 54.
3. Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass,” 12. See also Mary Glucksman, “Saul Bass: Due Credit,” Screen International, 13 May 1994, 27.
4. Reproduced in Ludwig Ebenhöh, “Saul Bass, USA,” Gebrauchsgraphik 27, no. 11 (November 1956): 18.
5. It is possible that Bass met Nalpas while working on The Seven Year Itch at National Screen Service. Interview with Mike Lonzo, 20 September 2012.
6. “Saul Bass [Interview],” Designer Magazine, May 1980, 10.
7. American Film Institute Seminar, 24.
8. Lars-Olaf Beier and Walter Midding, Vorspann: Zum Werk von Saul Bass (Hamburg: North German Television [NDR], 1991), VHS tape, 28308-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
9. Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 44.
10. Amos Gitai, Carmel (Tel Aviv: Munio Gitai Weintraub Architecture Museum, 2012), 40, 42.
11. Looking for Mr. Goodbar, “Title Art,” Richard Brooks Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
12. Beth Laski, “Art Rings ‘Clockers’ Alarm: Ads Redone after Gripes from Preminger Films,” Daily Variety, 24 September 1995, 1, 17.
13. E-mail from Sean Savage, Academy Film Archive, to the author, 21 September 2012. A 16mm negative of the sequence, completed up to the cinematographer’s credit, survives in the Saul Bass Papers. Rebello quotes an unnamed Bass employee as the source for the existence of these Anatomy credits but notes: “Bass contends the story is untrue, and that the only similarity between the sequences was the use of ‘bars’ as a graphic motif.” See Stephen Rebello, “Psycho,” Cinefantastique 16, no. 4/5 (October 1986): 74.
14. See http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/archiveitem/10998570.html. The French poster doesn’t include the corpse, which is visible at the bottom of the frame of the American half-sheet.
15. Anatomy of a Murder, “Record of Work Done” file, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
16. Ibid.
17. Timmer, “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary,” 75.
18. See the original trailer for Anatomy of a Murder at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54muV-xIhIU.
19. Winfried Günther, “A Shot Conveys an Outlook,” in Stanley Kubrick (Frankfurt: Deutsches Filmmuseum, 2004), 57.
20. See “Kubrick ‘Spartacus’ Director; Mann Out,” Daily Variety, 16 February 1959, 1, 4. The battle scenes were apparently shot in both the San Fernando Valley and Spain. I have found no sources that actually list Bass as having directed the battle scenes, although he may have been present at the California shoot. Reproductions of the Spartacus storyboards indicate that Bass also designed a gladiator sequence and the gladiator cages. See Spartacus—sequence storyboard illustrations by Saul Bass, box 13A, file 21, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
21. Martin M. Winkler, Spartacus: Film and History (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), 4.
22. B. D., “Spartacus,” Monthly Film Bulletin 28, no. 324 (January 1961): 6. See also Bosley Crowther, “Spartacus,” New York Times, 7 October 1960, 28. For a positive review, see Brendan Gill, “Love and Slavery,” New Yorker, 15 October 1960, 133.
23. Bass was hired to do the battle scenes, which were originally supposed to be merely hinted at: “I was working on the battle, because at first, it wasn’t going to be a big epic picture, just reasonable . . . 2 or 3 million dollars. So they thought it would be very interesting to do a symbolic battle, and they thought symbolic battle . . . that’s Saul Bass, so they called me in and I was working on a symbolic battle. Then things started getting a little out of hand, budget rising—it was now about 4 or 5 million—so they said, let’s have a little more . . . let’s do an impressionistic battle. So I redid the whole thing. Well, they were enlarging the picture, putting more and more things in, and finally they said—Well gee, we can’t go down the line and then have somebody look through the window and say ‘That’s a helluva battle going on down there’ . . . what we need is an all out battle. So by this time I was the battle expert, and that’s how I wound up doing what for me is this most unlikely thing.” Quoted in King, “Taking Credit,” http://www.typotheque.com/articles/taking_credit_film_title_sequences_1955–1965_6_musical_statues_spartacus_1960, and in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 197.
24. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 193–94.
25. King, “Taking Credit,” http://www.typothequecomarticles/taking_credit_film_title_sequences_1955–1965_6_musical_statues_spartacus_1960.
26. “Injury Jinx Plagues Film,” Los Angeles Examiner, 6 July 1960, Facts of Life production file, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
27. See Tube, “The Facts of Life,” Daily Variety, 14 November 1960, 3; “The Facts of Life,” Limelight, 17 November 1960, production file, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
28. “Sexy Eyes over Hope’s Shoulder,” Life, 17 March 1961, 109.
29. Based on their style, Art Goodman was probably responsible for executing the Facts of Life titles, as he was for the Advise and Consent poster.
30. The Saul Bass Papers include production elements of the following commercials: Speedway 79 (1955), Sun detergent (1956), National Bohemian beer (1957), Olin Mathieson (1960), Band-Aid (1962), Mennen baby products (1962), Rainier beer (1968), Mattel Toys (1969), Bridgestone tires (1968), Chevrolet OK cars (1971), RCA (1968), Michigan Bell (1972), Olympia beer (1975), Dixie Cups (1975), Rayovac batteries (1975), Girl Scout cookies (1977), Matushista (1978), Security Pacific Bank (1979), Millar Gooseberries (n.d.), and Hallmark cards (n.d.). Bass may have produced more commercials, but these are the only ones that survive.
31. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 96.
32. See Business Screen Magazine 24, no. 4 (1963): 381.
33. The Mennen Baby Magic commercial is on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20zxateRV44&feature=fvwrel.
34. See this Mennen Genteel Baby Bath soap commercial on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T-C6bMp1Vw.
35. Bass’s Mennen Genteel Baby Bath soap commercial survives in the Saul Bass Collection, 22403-1, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
36. The Bass Collection has sixty- and thirty-second commercials for Mattel’s Toy and Hobby Book, Peanuts wind-up toys, and Toot Sweet, all from the same period, but they may have been used only for reference.
37. RCA “The Kid” commercial, 16mm color, 1 minute, 84138-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
38. It has been argued that this commercial was not produced by Bass, but there is no documentary evidence either way. Given that it was found in the Bass Collection, I believe there is enough formal evidence to claim that it was produced by Bass. See e-mail from Jennifer Bass to the author, 6 April 2013.
39. Kepes reproduces Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending the Stairs (1912), Herbert Matter’s advertisement for the Container Corporation of America, and Harold E. Edgerton’s photograph “Golfer” (n.d.). See Kepes, Language of Vision, 180–82.
40. Most of the posters and advertisements for the film have a decidedly un-Bass-like look to them, but Bass’s record of work for the film indicates that he designed at least one trade advertisement. See Attack! “Record of Work,” box 1A, file 26, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
41. David Badder, Bob Baker, and Markku Salmi, “Saul Bass,” Film Dope 3 (August 1973): 1.
42. Edwin T. Arnold and Eugene L. Miller, The Films and Career of Robert Aldrich (Nashville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986), 69.
43. Super Panavision 70mm was in fact almost identical to Todd-AO. West Side Story was also produced in Super Panavision 70. See http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingsp1.htm.
44. “Saul Bass Gets Tricky,” Hollywood Reporter, 20 October 1966, 13.
45. “Bass Doing Effects,” Hollywood Reporter, 29 June 1966, 9. See also “Dialogue on Film: John Frankenheimer,” American Film 14, no. 5 (March 1989): 24. Bass stated that Albert Nalpas edited the sequences with him. See American Film Institute Seminar, 8.
46. “Cinerama Makes Deal with Frankenheimer/Lewis,” Hollywood Reporter, 30 November 1964, 1, 4; “‘Grand Prix’ 1st Film Securing Cinerama Mantling sans Release,” Daily Variety, 30 November 1964, 1; “MGM to Finance Release Cinerama Prod’n, ‘Grand Prix,’” Daily Variety, 10 September 1965, 1.
47. “Casting ‘Prix’ on MGM Lot; Pic Rolls May 22,” Daily Variety, 15 February 1966, 20.
48. Grand Prix, box 3A, file 33, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
49. “Grand Prix,” Film Daily, 5 August 1966. In addition, a new 70mm, high-speed color film processor was used at MGM labs for release prints. See “MGM Using New ‘Prix’ Processor,” Daily Variety, 1 December 1966, 3.
50. “Grand Prix Gross Tops Mil in Cinerama Dome Run,” Daily Variety, 23 October 1967, 3; “Cinerama to Earn More than $5 Million,” Hollywood Reporter, 21 April 1967, 1, 3.
51. “Ways of Winning,” New Yorker, 31 December 1966, 60; Pry, “Grand Prix,” Daily Variety, 22 December 1966, 3, 15.
52. Pauline Kael, “A Sense of Disproportion,” New Republic, 14 January 1967, 41–42.
53. Bosley Crowther, “Screen: Flag Is Down at Warner for ‘Grand Prix,’” New York Times, 22 December 1966, http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F07E7D8123CE43BBC4A51DFB467838D679EDE.
54. Stephen Bowie writes on the Senses of Cinema website: “The indifference of the all-not-quite-star-cast toward the material is matched by Frankenheimer’s indifference toward them, as if the director didn’t want the Ferraris upstaged by any showy acting. See http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/great-directors/frankenheimer/.
55. According to some sources, it was apparently Elaine Bass’s idea to have the screen go silent.
56. See Hal Hinson, “Mr. Saturday Night,” Washington Post, 25 September 1992, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/mrsaturdaynightrhinson_a0a79f.htm; Peter Travers, “Mr. Saturday Night,” Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews-mr-saturday-night-20010227.
57. Jeffrey Wells, “Another Battle between Artistic Truth and Mass Appeal: And the Loser Is . . . ,” Los Angeles Times Calendar, 18 October 1992, Mr. Saturday Night production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
58. Marilyn Moss, “Mr. Saturday Night,” Box Office, December 1992, R-87, Mr. Saturday Night production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
59. Julie Salamon, “Mr. Saturday Night,” Wall Street Journal, 24 September 1992. See also Todd McCarthy, “Mr. Saturday Night,” Daily Variety, 14 September 1992, 3, 12, who writes: “The title sequence by Saul and Elaine Bass hilariously sends up the preparation of Jewish food faves.” Janet Maslin characterized the title sequence as “vivid,” “complete with cabbage stuffing.” See Janet Maslin, “Billy Crystal, in Directorial Debut, Stars as Obnoxious Stand up Comic,” New York Times, 23 September 1992, http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B06E3D6123AF930A1575AC0A964958260.
60. Michael Sragow, “Shtick Shifts,” New Yorker, 5 October 1992, 162–64.
61. The hands reportedly belonged to Elaine Bass, who had a huge hand in creating the title sequence (no pun intended).
62. The Basses were apparently not happy with Billy Crystal’s abrasive commentary. They subsequently created the sequence as a stand-alone film without narration and with different music. Their version, dated 1993–1994, remains in the Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS. See e-mail from Sean Savage to the author, 15 March 2013.
63. V. I. Pudovkin, Film Technique and Film Acting (New York: Grove Press, 1970), 97.
64. The whole film takes place on one empty set with the actors mingling as the camera roams between them, intercut with photos and other visual material to illustrate points the speakers are making. Bob Aller, who worked as a production assistant on Bass on Titles, directed. It is also possible that Gene McGarr directed at least some of the film, as he was the announced director in Variety: “Gene McGarr will direct a Westinghouse promo film for Saul Bass & Ass., marking the first time in the 20 year history of Bass’ company that someone other than Bass will direct one of its films.” Both the announced writer and cameraman were credited in the film. See “Pix, People, Pickups,” Daily Variety, 3 May 1976, 3.
65. Interview with Herb Yager, 27 February 2013, Ojai, CA. The first physical indication of Bass’s involvement is a telephone memo from a secretary to Bass dated 3 January 1978, in which Michael Britton (Wildwood Productions) confirms an honorarium of $10,000 for Bass and $15,000 for a writer on project. The first letter of agreement is dated 25 January 1978. See also letter from Michael Britton to Herb Yager, 1 March 1978, re “Alternative Energy Source Film,” Solar Film, “Film Agreements,” box 12A, file 87, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS; “Saul Bass Busy Writing, Directing Theatrical Project,” Hollywood Reporter, 7 September 1978, 8.
66. Allan Richards, “Lola Redford and Ilene Goldman: Consumer Action Now,” Mother Earth News, July–August 1972, http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-community/interview-redford-goldman/zmaz72jaztak.aspx.
67. Solar Film script dated 22 November 1976: “Caging the Sun.” The final approved script is called “Solar Energy” and is dated 1 May 1979, box 12A, file 53, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
68. The budget was allocated as follows: live-action sequences, $82,549; animation, $114,300; postproduction, $120,850. See letter from Rafael de la Sierra (Warner Communications) to Michael Britton (Wildwood Productions), 10 April 1979, “Film Agreements,” box 12A, file 87, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
69. Clarke Taylor, “Redford’s Solar Film Screens,” Los Angeles Times, 6 March 1980, production file, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
70. See Solar Film, “Log Book Dailies, Shot Charts,” box 12A, file 105, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
71. Nancy Collins, “Redford Shines at Premiere of His ‘Solar Film,’” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 18 March 1980, A10.
72. Lee Grant, “Robert Redford Finds a Place in the Sun,” Los Angeles Times, 29 March 1980, 8.
73. Among its film festival awards were the Golden Cine Eagle Award; Gold Medal, Chicago Film Festival; Golden Mercury, Venice Film Festival; Bronze Medal, Huesca Short Film Fest (Spain); Golden Cindy IFPA (Information Producers of America); Bronze Medal, Columbus Film Fest; Diploma Ekofilm International Fest (Czechoslovakia); and Diploma Aspen International Film Fest.
74. Lee Grant, “Robert Redford Finds a Place in the Sun,” Los Angeles Times, 29 March 1980, 8.
75. Charles Champlin, “Solar Film Having an Extended Run,” Los Angeles Times, 9 May 1980, production file, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
76. Dale Pollack, “Live Action Shorts up for Award,” Los Angeles Times, 29 March 1980, sec. 2, 9.
77. Stanley Mason, “Saul and Elaine Bass: A New Film on Solar Energy,” Graphis 37, no. 232 (September–October 1981): 156–59.
78. Robert Redford noted in a letter to Saul Bass dated 25 November 1980: “The issue of theatrical distribution is much more complex. I agree with you that there is more to be done here and that our original expectations were never really met.” Box 12A, file 95, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
79. See letter from Lyn Adams (Pyramid Films) to Saul Bass, 5 November 1980, Solar Film, “Pyramid,” box 13A, file 8, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
80. Letter from Sheldon Renan (Pyramid) to Saul Bass, 20 March 1980, box 13A, file 8, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. Pyramid offered 22.5 percent on the gross dollar for normal print sales and rentals, 50 percent of the net on sublicensing, and $5,000 against royalties, payable no later than eighteen months after the nontheatrical release. However, Warner’s legal department blocked the deal for months, even though Pyramid was already promoting the film.
81. Letter from Michael Britton (Wildwood) to Lyn Adams (Pyramid), 8 June 1981, Solar Film, “Pyramid,” box 13A, file 8, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
82. The Solar Film, press release, Wildwood Enterprises, production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
83. Interestingly, as Sean Savage from the Academy Film Archive has confirmed, all 16mm prints still bore the original title, although the credits were changed to add Elaine Bass’s directorial credit. See e-mail from Sean Savage to the author, 15 March 2013. In a letter from Saul Bass to Michael Britton, 14 August 1980, he acknowledged Elaine’s contribution to the film: “The fact is, as you know, that the film is overwhelmingly a product of my work and Elaine’s work.” In fact, Bass credited Elaine in a way he never did for other designers working in his office, even when they took the lead on projects. See “Correspondence with Various Subcontractors,” box 14A, file 95, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
84. Interview with Jeff Okun, 23 March 2012, Hollywood, CA.
85. Earlier outlines and treatments of the film apparently included at least one more animated section—a dialogue about solar energy, similar to the “A Digression” dialogue between snails in Why Man Creates. Another outline included at least three animated sections. Solar Film, “Press Materials,” box 13A, file 6, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
86. The “Big Trouble” animation sequence originally included the following before getting to the discovery of coal as an energy source: cottage industries, water power, population explosion, inventions, steam, and wood. See letter from Saul Bass to Stan Hart, 11 September 1978, and script attachment, box 12A, file 24, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
87. The actual roll text in the print does not end with a question mark.
88. Krag and Volsted, Title Sequence Seminar, 67.
1. Quoted in Marjorie Perloff, “The Avant-Garde Phase of American Modernism,” in Cambridge Companion to American Modernism, ed. Walter B. Kalaidjian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 195.
2. See Jan-Christopher Horak, “Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler’s Manhatta,” in Horak, Lovers of Cinema, 267.
3. Sergei Eisenstein, The Film Sense (London: Faber and Faber, 1948), 83, quoted in Scott McQuire, “Immaterial Architectures: Urban Space and Electric Light,” Space and Culture 8 (2005): 126.
4. Kepes, Language of Vision, 154. Opposite this discussion, Kepes reproduces a Bernice Abbott photograph, “Night View” (1932), taken from a high angle looking down on nighttime New York.
5. Interview with James Hollander, 31 October 2012, Burbank, CA.
6. Sullivan, “Work of Saul Bass,” 67.
7. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 3.
8. See Mike Connolly, “Rambling Reporter,” Hollywood Reporter, 16 December 1952, 2. See also the production history of the film in the American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures, http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=51652.
9. See “Feldman Pays 225G for ‘7 Year Itch,’” Hollywood Reporter, 20 February 1953, 1; Los Angeles Daily News clipping, 8 March 1953, and unidentified clipping, 12 May 1954, Seven Year Itch production files, microfilm, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
10. “Main Titles by NSS!” Variety, 10 August 1955, 17.
11. According to George Axelrod, who was interviewed for the DVD edition of the film, he and Wilder fought huge battles with Joseph Breen’s MPPC Office and were forced to eliminate or rewrite numerous lines of dialogue.
12. Land, “The Seven Year Itch,” Daily Variety, 8 June 1955, 6.
13. Jack Moffitt, “The Seven Year Itch,” Hollywood Reporter, 3 June 1955, 3; the Showman’s and Motion Picture Daily reviews are quoted in “Main Titles by NSS!”
14. Quoted in Lowell E. Redelings, “Men behind the Scenes,” Los Angeles Citizen News, 24 October 1955, box 23A, file 8, “Clippings,” Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
15. In Billy Wilder’s Filme (Berlin: Verlag Volker Spiess, 1980), 389, Neil Sinyard and Adrian Turner argue that the opening and closing of boxes refer to the game of confusion in Feydeau’s farces.
16. Susan Reed and Doris Bacon, “Director Billy Wilder Puts His Legendary $22 Million-or-So Art Collection on the Auction Block,” People, 13 November 1989, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20115935,00.html.
17. See “Four Just Men,” Dinosaur TV website, http://www.78rpm.co.uk/tv4.htm.
18. Titles for Four Just Men, 16mm print, 11693-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
19. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 44.
20. Apparently, Bass produced a title sequence for The Young Stranger that consisted solely of graphics; it is in the Saul Bass Collection, 57998-1, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS. Like the published version, Bass’s original begins with the camera zooming in and around a close-up pencil drawing of a young man’s face; then it continues panning to a close-up of the eye before cutting to a second pencil-drawn image of a young man walking away, his back to the observer, while the camera zooms in on the back of his head for Frankenheimer’s directorial credit. The final version dissolves to a young male student walking on campus, immediately after the costarring credits. It is highly likely that Bass removed his name from the final credits—which are included in the original version—due to these changes. Was Frankenheimer unable to pay for all the designs, or did he think they were too weird, leading him to abbreviate the graphic portion? Although the Bass Papers include photos of the graphic designs, no correspondence survives to clear up this issue. See “The Young Stranger,” box 14A, file 40–41, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
21. See Leonard J. Leff, “Hitchcock at Metro,” Western Humanities Review 37, no. 2 (Summer 1983): 97.
22. In Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 182, this image is still overlaid with a grid, but it isn’t in the film.
23. The elevator metaphor is evoked by Bass himself in his official description of the sequence; see North by Northwest, “Title Description,” box 4A, file 35, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. Beth Gilligan’s description of the sequence doesn’t mention the element of the counterweight; see North by Northwest, 2005, http://www.notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_nxnw.php.
24. Spoto, Art of Alfred Hitchcock, 353.
25. “Violent green” is Bass’s adjective in the official description of the titles, box 4A, file 35, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
26. Hitchcock is seen most famously as an annoyed reader on the London subway in Blackmail (1929), in Victoria Station in The Lady Vanishes (1938), on a train in Shadow of a Doubt (1943), leaving a train with a cello case in The Paradine Case (1947), boarding a train with a bass in Strangers on a Train (1951), and sitting on a bus in To Catch a Thief (1955).
27. Art, “Alcoa Premiere,” Variety, 18 October 1961, 35, reprinted in Variety Television Reviews 1923–1988 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1989).
28. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054513/plotsummary; Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, eds., The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows: 1946–Present (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999), 7, 24.
29. See Connie Bruck, When Hollywood Had a King (New York: Random House, 2003), 162, 186; Dennis McDougal, The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood (New York: Crown Publishers, 1998), 189–91, 193.
30. See Al-Zalean, March–June 1963 and September–October 1964; e-mail from Carol Ellis, director, University of South Alabama Archives, 6 May 2011.
31. See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 294. The brochure’s cover features a highly abstract, modernist design of green, blue, and purple bars, similar to the design concept for Frank Sinatra’s album Tone Poems of Color (1956) and Bass’s Psycho titles.
32. Alcoa advertisement, Wall Street Journal, 21 February 1963, 12.
33. See “Alcoa Changes Its Trademark,” Industrial Marketing 38 (February 1963): 120; “Alcoa’s Public Relations Department Played Key Role in Introducing New Logo,” PR News, 23 December 1963, reprinted in David P. Bianco, ed., PR News Casebook: 1,000 Public Relations Case Studies (Detroit: Gale Research, 1993), 1574.
34. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 296.
35. See “Alcoa New Mark TV Commercial,” 15014-1, 16159-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
36. “In London,” Daily Variety, 24 August 1965, 4.
37. Reprinted in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 295.
38. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the main titles would be completed the week of 26 June. See “‘West Side’ Windup,” Hollywood Reporter, 27 June 1961, 10.
39. Bass recalled that the opening for West Side Story was “a take-off on the earlier title design for North by Northwest.” See Morgenstern, “Saul Bass,” 42.
40. In an extra on the 2003 DVD release, Robbins states that he had been trying to produce a modern version of Shakespeare’s play since the 1940s. However, since Robbins had no film directing experience, he was relegated to codirector status. See also Lars-Olav Beier, Der unbestechliche Blick. Robert Wise und Seine Filme (Berlin: Bertz Verlag, 1996), 87.
41. “West Side Story,” Filmfacts, 3 November 1961, 245–48. See also Daily Variety, 7 December 1960. Robbins completed the prologue and the musical numbers “America,” “Cool,” and “I Feel Pretty.” See Beier, Robert Wise und Seine Filme, 88.
42. Arthur Knight, “Romeo Revisited: West Side Story,” Saturday Review, 14 October 1961, 40.
43. See James Powers, “West Side Story Hailed as B.O. Smash, Great Film Work,” Hollywood Reporter, 6 October 1961, 3; Whit, “West Side Story,” Variety, 27 September 1961, 6.
44. Todd McCarthy, “Jets Have Their Way Onscreen,” Daily Variety, 5 June 2009, 8. See also James D. Ivers, “West Side Story,” Motion Picture Herald, 4 October 1961; Frank Leyendecker, “West Side Story,” Box Office, 4 October 1961, all in production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
45. It has been suggested that the dancing figures, visible in the production’s letterhead, were altered by the studio to be more figurative. See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 199.
46. See the auction history and images for West Side Story at http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/film_title/WEST%2520SIDE%2520STORY%2520%28%2761%29/archive.html.
47. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 200–201. Ascertaining credit here is as complicated as the sequences Bass designed for Psycho and Spartacus.
48. See the anecdote in T. J. Edwards, “West Side Story, 1961 Road Show Feature,” Cinema Sightlines website, http://cinemasightlines.com/roadshow_westsidestory.php.
49. Marino Amoruso and John Gallagher, “Robert Wise: Part One ‘The RKO Years,’” Grand Illusions (Winter 1977), quoted in Frank Thompson, Robert Wise: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 82.
50. David Badder, Bob Baker, and Markku Salmi, “Saul Bass,” Film Dope 3 (August 1973): 4.
51. See the sequence on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7tL7-gXjPk. I’m grateful to Arnold Schwartzman for alerting me to this film.
52. Although there is no documentation, the trailer’s construction indicates that Bass may have been involved. See West Side Story trailer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G31aw3R0x4.
53. Eugene Archer, “Capturing Something Wild for the Camera,” New York Times, 8 July 1960, production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
54. See Hollywood Reporter, 3 June 1961.
55. Interview with Jack Garfein, 19 September 2010, Los Angeles.
56. Albert Johnson, “Jack Garfein: An Interview,” Film Quarterly 17, no. 1 (Autumn 1963): 36.
57. “Something Wild,” New Yorker, 30 December 1961, 45.
58. “Films of the Quarter,” Film Quarterly 15, no. 3 (Spring 1962): 71.
59. See, for example, J. Hobermann’s 2006 review in the Village Voice, http://www.villagevoice.com/2006–12–19/film/method-to-her-madness/.
60. Hazel Flynn, “Something Wild Is Strange Enigma,” Los Angeles Citizen News, 18 May 1962, production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
61. Johnson, “Jack Garfein,” 36.
62. Flavia Wharton, “Something Wild,” Films in Review, February 1962, 110.
63. A Star Is Born (1954), trade advertisement, reproduction in the possession of Al Kallis.
64. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 52, 396.
65. Thanks to Dino Everett, director of the Hugh Hefner Film Archive at the University of Southern California, who graciously gave me access to the show.
66. See Playhouse 90: Journey to the Day, broadcast 22 April 1960, tape available at Archive Research and Study Center, UCLA Film and Television Archive.
67. See Playhouse 90 opening description, box 16A, file 28, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
68. Hal Erickson, Syndicated Television: The First Forty Years, 1947–1987 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989), 168–69.
69. See the Westinghouse magazine advertisement in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 49.
70. “PM East [TV] Opening Description,” box 16A, file 29, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
71. Tube, “Ocean’s Eleven,” Variety, 10 August 1960, 6.
72. For a detailed history of the film’s production, as reflected in the press, see The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, vol. 6, Feature Films, 1961–1970 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971).
73. See “Lawford to Vegas,” Daily Variety, 31 October 1958, 5; “Ocean’s Start Date,” Daily Variety, 25 November 1958, 18; “Bill of the Year (’60): Frankie, Dino & Sammy,” Weekly Variety, 4 November 1959, 1, 58.
74. See Los Angeles Examiner, 7 August 1960, 9, 12.
75. Unidentified Hollywood Reporter clipping, “Ocean’s Eleven, Clippings,” box 4A, file 77, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
76. Tube, “Ocean’s Eleven,” Variety, 10 August 1960, 6.
77. Blog post by Mark Webster, Ocean’s Eleven, 23 April 2009, http://motiondesign.wordpress.com/.
78. According to James Hollander, the Bass office created hundreds of drawings to visualize the creative process of designing a new corporate logo for executives at AT&T. Interview with James Hollander, 31 October 2012, Burbank, CA.
79. Martin Scorsese, interview by the British Film Institute, 11 February 1993, VHS tape, 15163-1-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
80. Quoted in Pat Kirkham, “Bright Lights, Big City,” Sight & Sound 6 (January 1996): 12–13.
81. E-mail from Sean Savage to the author, 15 March 2013.
82. Beier and Midding, Vorspann: Zum Werk von Saul Bass.
83. Letter from Douglas Owens (Universal Pictures) to Saul Bass, 21 September 1994; letter from SEB to Martin Scorsese, 26 October 1994 (includes Bass’s actual sketch below the designers’ signatures), “Letterhead,” box 2A, file 2, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
84. Letter from Elaine and Saul Bass to Barbara De Fina, 19 June 1995, sent via fax, “Casino Costs,” box 2A, file 18, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
85. Mick LaSalle, “Scorsese’s ‘Casino’ Comes up Broke/Stone’s the Only Ace in a Bad Hand,” San Francisco Chronicle, 22 November 1995, http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Scorsese-s-Casino-Comes-Up-Broke-Stone-s-the-3018766.php.
86. Janet Maslin, “A Money-Mad Mirage from Scorsese,” New York Times, 22 November 1995, 9; Peter Travers, “Casino,” Rolling Stone, 22 November 1995, http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/casino-19951122. Travers wrote: “With Casino, based on material from Nicholas Pileggi’s nonfiction book (names have been changed and events altered for the film), Scorsese tries to weave visual poetry out of warped ambitions.”
87. In the correspondence for Casino, the Basses specifically request to see the footage of the Exodus flames, which may or may not have been recycled here.
88. The Capitol Records album (SM-1573) was released in 1961. See http://www.discogs.com/Stan-Freberg-Presents-The-United-States-Of-America-Vol-1-The-Early-Years/master/281065. The show’s bumper was also produced by Bass and included the same extreme low-angle shot of pedestrians found in Something Wild.
89. Walter Herdeg, ed., Film and TV Graphics: An International Survey of Film and Television Graphics (Zurich: Graphis Press, 1967), 79.
90. Tube, “Stan Freberg Presents Chinese New Year’s Eve,” Daily Variety, 6 February 1962, 16.
91. “National Bohemian Beer—Record of Work Done,” box 62A, file 20, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
92. “Lights Out,” “Peanut,” and “Don’t Touch that Dial,” 16mm, 21768-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
93. There were numerous commercials for Rainier beer, including “Awakening” (twenty seconds), “Storm and Clearing” (thirty seconds), and “Aerial” (one minute), dated 28 December 1966. See “Rainier Brewing Company Storyboard Descriptions,” box 64A, file 29, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, and the 16mm color prints, 17608-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS. These are the least Bass-like of any of his work, so he may have been only minimally involved in their production.
94. “Andy Parker aka Regular Joe,” National Bohemian beer, 16mm, 21768-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
95. Ibid., 78788-1.
96. See “Burnt Match,” “Peanut,” and “Lights Out,” National Bohemian beer, 16mm, 21874-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
1. The literature on this phenomenon is voluminous. See Tom Gunning, “An Unseen Energy Swallows Space: The Space in Early Film and Its Relation to American Avant-Garde Film,” in Film before Griffith, ed. John L. Fell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 355–66.
2. Letter from Geoffrey Shurlock (MPAA/PCA) to David Susskind, 16 March 1956, Production Code Administration files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
3. “Edge of the City,” Daily Variety, 26 December 1956, 3.
4. Bosley Crowther, “Edge of the City,” New York Times, 30 January 1957, http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D04E6DF143EE23BBC4850DFB766838C649EDE.
5. Edwin Fancher, “Movies: Edge of the City,” Village Voice, 3 April 1957, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Pd4QAAAAIBAJ&sjid
=EIwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6609,4662036&dq=movies&hl=en.
6. The DVD version of Edge of the City, distributed by Warner Brothers Home Video, is missing the rectangular light patterns.
7. American Film Institute Seminar, 14.
8. “Uris Scripts Wyler Film,” Hollywood Reporter, 9 May 1957, 2.
9. Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: William Wyler (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), 382.
10. Letter from Gregory Peck to Leon Roth, 11 April 1957, Gregory Peck Papers, Margaret Herrick Library Special Collections, AMPAS, quoted in Jason Gendler, “Saul Bass and Title Design: Intention and Reception, and Production Integration” (paper presented at Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Los Angeles, March 2010).
11. The Big Country press book, production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
12. Axel Madsen, William Wyler (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 333.
13. For technical details about Technirama, see http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/techniramaspecs.htm.
14. Saul Bass, “Thoughts on Film,” in Communication: The Art of Understanding and Being Understood, ed. Robert O. Bach (New York: Hastings House, 1963), 23.
15. Herman, Talent for Trouble, 392. See also Michael Freedland, Gregory Peck (New York: William Morrow, 1980), 151.
16. W. R. Wilkerson, “Trade Views,” Hollywood Reporter, 25 August 1958, 2.
17. Bosley Crowther, “War and Peace on Range in ‘Big Country’; Gregory Peck Stars in Wyler’s Western; Action-Packed Film Scores Violence,” New York Times, 2 October 1958, 44.
18. P. J. D., “The Big Country,” Monthly Film Bulletin, 12 November 1958, 14.
19. “The Big Country,” Time, 8 September 1958, 96, quoted in Madsen, William Wyler, 333.
20. The Big Country poster reproduced in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 174, is not one of the release posters; it is Bass’s own preferred silk-screen design.
21. “Graphics—Mr. Saul Bass,” in International Television Design Conference (London: BBC Television Centre, 1962), 8.
22. Chris Fujiwara, The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger (New York: Faber and Faber, 2008), 299.
23. “Report Cardinal Spellman Frowns on ‘Cardinal’ Film as Invasion of Privacy,” Daily Variety, 10 August 1955, 2.
24. Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 370.
25. “Two Soviet Directors Arrive to Observe Preminger Megging ‘The Cardinal’ Here,” Daily Variety, 6 May 1963, 1.
26. “Cardinal Rentals Pass $7 Million Mark,” Hollywood Reporter, 22 May 1964, 1.
27. Bosley Crowther, “Episodes of a Man of the Cloth: ‘The Cardinal’ Opens at the DeMille,” New York Times, 13 December 1963.
28. Irene Thirer, “The Cardinal,” New York Post, 13 December 1963, quoted in Hirsch, Otto Preminger, 385.
29. Hollis Alpert, “A Cardinal’s Chronicle,” Saturday Review, 7 December 1963, 32. See also Hazel Flynn, “Otto Preminger Oozes Optimism,” Los Angeles Citizen News, 8 December 1963, box 2A, file 11, “Clippings,” Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
30. In the strangest placement of a Bass design in any trailer, the logo and poster are shown twice, but only briefly in the background as set decoration. Was this done to avoid the payment of further royalties? See The Cardinal trailer, which is a mini “making of” movie, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdH2ivqB1Uc.
31. See The Cardinal, “Titles Description,” box 2A, file 15, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
32. Edward Dmytryk, It’s a Hell of a Life but Not a Bad Living (New York: New York Times Books, 1978), 247.
33. Michael Bierut, “Catching the Big One,” ID: The International Design Magazine 42, no. 1 (January–February 1995): 48.
34. “Feldman Packaging ‘Wild Side’ for UA; Capucine to Star,” Daily Variety, 24 January 1961, 1.
35. “Actor Harvey No Fan of Feldman,” Variety, 9 May 1962, 5.
36. “Feldman Cancels Wild New Orleans; Complains of City Fathers’ Hostility,” Daily Variety, 20 February 1962, 1.
37. Nic Francis, “Bass PHASE IV,” Screen ’n’ Heard, March 1973, 10.
38. Interview with Arnold Schwartzman, 20 February 2013, Los Angeles.
39. Walk on the Wild Side, “Titles Description,” box 13A, file 49, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
40. Quoted in Francis, “Bass PHASE IV,” 10.
41. See Hedda Hopper, “Old World Charm Seen as Decadence,” Los Angeles Times, 15 February 1962, pt. IV, 20; Brendan Gill, “Walk on the Wild Side,” New Yorker, 24 February 1962, 111.
42. See Philip K. Scheurer, “Walk on the Wild Side Tame?” Los Angeles Times, 8 March 1962; “Walk on the Wild Side,” Show Business Illustrated, April 1962.
43. Hazel Flynn, “‘Wild Side’ Film Suspense Shocker,” Los Angeles Citizen News, 8 March 1962. See also James D. Ivers, “A Walk on the Wild Side,” Motion Picture Herald, 7 February 1962; Lawrence H. Lipskin, “A Walk on the Wild Side Strong,” Hollywood Reporter, 29 January 1962, 3.
44. Dennis McLellan, “Judith Crist Dies at 90; Film Critic ‘Most Hated by Hollywood,’” Los Angeles Times, 8 August 2012.
45. Judith Crist, “This Week’s Movies,” TV Guide, n.d., clipping in “Walk on the Wild Side,” box 13A, file 44, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
46. See the entry in Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/266205#eid43330280.
47. A photo of the theater and a brief description of the film are available on the 1964 World’s Fair website, http://www.worldsfairphotos.com/nywf64transportation-travel.htm.
48. From Here to There, “Awards,” box 3A, file 24, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
49. See the Pyramid Films catalog description. The 16mm film rented for $15 and could be purchased outright for $130.
50. “From Here to There,” Cue Magazine, 11 July 1964.
51. Undated review from Hollywood Reporter, From Here to There, “Clippings,” box 3A, file 25, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS; “Turn Your Dream to Reality,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 12 July 1964. See also “New York Fair,” Time, 3 July 1964.
52. See Moholy-Nagy, New Vision (2005), 38, 183, 202; Kepes, Language of Vision, 74.
53. See http://www.worldsfairphotos.com/nywf64/kodak.htm.
54. “Saul Bass’ ‘Searching 1-Eye’ Spotlights Eastman Kodak’s Tiptop Exhibit,” Variety, 29 April 1964, 178. A second industrial film, produced in-house by Kodak, was shown in a smaller theater in the pavilion, also on the half hour.
55. Myron A. Matzkin, “Movie Maker,” Modern Photography, July 1964, 111.
56. Sean Savage notes in a 15 March 2013 e-mail: “The film was projected first as a 35/70 interlocked projection onto a single screen. The imagery is checker-boarded between the two strands of film, one falling away to make room for the other. And as for versions, I’m pretty convinced a shorter dual-system edit replaced the first version during its run in the Kodak Pavilion. There was a third, possibly unfinished single-strand 35mm version, and the 16mm Pyramid version had a completely new narration.”
57. See Kodak publicity brochure, Groundbreaking at the New York World’s Fair, 1964–65 (New York: New York World’s Fair Corporation, 1962), 6, http://www.worldsfairphotos.com/nywf64/booklets/kodak-groundbreaking-8-21-62.pdf.
58. The index card states: “Photo, pavilion proposal.” See “Eastman Kodak Co.—Record of Work Done,” box 50A, file 21, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMAPS. See also Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 92–93; Saul Bass & Associates v. United States, no. 373-68, U.S. Court of Claims, July 19, 1974, http://www.leagle.com/decision/19741891505F2d1386_11626.xml/SAUL%20BASS%20&%20ASSOCIATES%20v.%20UNITED%20STATES.
59. “Saul Bass Producing Eastman Kodak Short,” Hollywood Reporter, 19 September 1963, 8; “Moppet Lane ‘Eye-d,’” Daily Variety, 1 October 1963, 3.
60. See Ute Eskildsen and Jan-Christopher Horak, eds., Film und Foto der zwanziger Jahre (Stuttgart: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1979); Jan-Christopher Horak, “Film and Foto: Towards a Language of Silent Film,” Afterimage 7, no. 5 (December 1979).
61. The Searching Eye, “Misc. 1970,” box 10A, file 38, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
62. Quoted in David A. Sohn, “The ‘Eyes’ Have It,” in Pyramid Films, The Searching Eye brochure, reprinted in Media & Methods, September 1970.
63. See Jacob Deschin, “Novel Pavilion Has Various Program of Shorts and Picture Services,” New York Times, 19 April 1964; Bosley Crowther, “The Screen: Creative and Exhilarating,” New York Times, 23 April 1964, 1, 12; Bosley Crowther, “Advance in Art of Cinema Seen in Film at World’s Fair,” New York Times, 10 May 1964; Bosley Crowther, “Once More to the Fair,” New York Times, 5 September 1964.
64. “Come to the Fair. Meet Me at the Kodak Picture Tower,” New York Times, 26 April 1964, sec. 11.
65. Deschin, “Novel Pavilion”; The Searching Eye, “Clippings,” box 10A, file 36, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
66. James Powers, “H’wood Mastery Marks World’s Fair Films,” Hollywood Reporter, 29 May 1964, 3.
67. Matzkin, “Movie Maker,” 111. See also Ralph Miller, “Kodak Opens Fair Exhibit with Bass’ ‘The Searching Eye,’” New York World-Telegram and Sun, 16 April 1964, 44; “World’s Fair ‘Sells’ Photography,” Photo Weekly, 27 April 1964; Judith Crist, “Guilded Tokens and New Techniques,” New York Herald Tribune, 31 May 1964, 21; “Lens Lines,” Camera 35 (June–July 1964); Irving Desfor (Associated Press), “Imaginative Movies Fascinate Fairgoers,” Pomona Progress Bulletin, 21 June 1964.
68. “Kodak Pavilion a World’s Fair Success,” Kodak press release, 15 October 1965, http://www.nywf64.com/easkod10.shtml.
69. The logo later appeared on Kodak’s mid-1960s 16mm Pageant projectors. See http://cdn.krrb.com/post_images/photos/000/104/824/P1120391_large.jpg?1362076100.
70. See “Sol Lesser Signs Sandy Lane,” Box Office, 3 August 1964, production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
71. See Sohn, “The ‘Eyes’ Have It.”
72. According to an article published in September 1986, the film was “not yet in theatrical release.” See “The Making of Quest,” Step-by-Step Graphics 2, no. 5 (September–October 1986): 36.
73. Interview with Herb Yager, 27 February 2013, Ojai, CA.
74. See “Saul Bass & Associates,” special issue, IDEA (1979). See also the statement by Saul and Elaine Bass in Marsha Jeffer and Pauline G. Weber, Study Guide to Quest (Santa Monica, CA: Pyramid Films, 1985), 3.
75. Quoted on the M. Okada International Association website, http://www.moainternational.or.jp/en/intro/intr01.html.
76. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 253.
77. “Production Budgets QUEST, Dated March 1981,” box 9A, file 4, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
78. Letter from Saul Bass to Ray Bradbury, 8 December 1980. Per a signed letter of agreement dated 24 December 1980, Bradbury was paid $22,500 for the first and final shooting scripts. See “Ray Bradbury,” box 7A, file 33, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
79. Quoted in Jeffer and Weber, Study Guide to Quest, 3.
80. In a letter to Takahiro Yamaguchi dated 24 July 1981, Saul Bass reported on his preproduction work to church officials, noting that “adhering to our budget creates still more work—that is finding unique ways to achieve very costly effects at a price we can afford, without a loss of quality.” See “Overseas Data Service,” box 8, file 27, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
81. Interview with Jeff Okun, 23 March 2012, Hollywood, CA.
82. Telex from Herb Yager to Takahiro Yamaguchi, 7 November 1983, “Quest Film Festivals,” box 8A, file 6, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
83. See “Quest Film Festivals,” box 8A, file 6, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
84. The Pyramid print of Quest is available on YouTube in its entirety: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcb-M5a4Uy8&feature=related.
85. Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968).
86. Paul Ricoeur, “Narrative Time,” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (Autumn 1980): 184.
87. Jeffer and Weber, Study Guide to Quest, 3.
88. The falling rocks were slowed down by overcranking to as much as sixty-four frames per second. See “The Making of Quest,” 46.
89. Bass inserted a similar game between a baboon and a child in shot 87 of the deleted original ending for Phase IV. I’m grateful to Sean Savage for pointing this out to me. E-mail from Sean Savage to the author, 15 March 2013.
90. Memo from Masa Miura to Dick Huppertz, 25 November 1981, “Overseas Data Service,” box 8A, file 27, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
91. Ibid.
92. Jeffer and Weber, Study Guide to Quest, 4.
93. Ibid.
94. Carole Wade and Carol Tarvris, Psychology, 3rd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1993). The cover is reproduced in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 377.
95. Carole Cox, “Electric Media: New Short Films for the Humanities,” English Journal 74, no. 7 (November 1985): 96.
96. See “The Making of Quest,” 40.
97. See the landscape drawing in ibid., 38.
98. Ricoeur, “Narrative Time,” 184.
1. “Print Personality: Saul Bass,” Print 11, no. 6 (May–June 1958): 18.
2. See “Col Acquires ‘Cowboy’ from Horizon Pictures,” Daily Variety, 15 January 1953, 6; Mike Connolly, “Rambling Reporter,” Hollywood Reporter, 21 June 1954, 2.
3. See Los Angeles Times, July 1956, quoted in the American Film Institute catalog, http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=52509.
4. Dalton Trumbo’s writing credit was reinstated by the Writers Guild in 2000. See Hollywood Reporter, 4 August 2000.
5. Jean-Louis Rieupeyrout, “Au pays du Western,” Cinéma 61, quoted in Will Wehlig, ed., Delmar Daves (Oberhausen: Verlag Karl Maria Laufen, 1972), 101–2.
6. James Powers, “Cowboy,” Variety, 12 February 1958, 6; Bosley Crowther, “Cowboy,” New York Times, 20 February 1958. See also “Thank You Note to Critics,” Daily Variety, 13 March 1958, 7–11.
7. Derek Prouse, “Cowboy,” Monthly Film Bulletin 25, no. 290 (1958): 31.
8. See Newsweek, 17 February 1958, 106; Time, 17 February 1958, 64; New Yorker, 1 March 1958, 107; Saturday Review, 1 March 1958, 26.
9. Stephen Harvey, Directed by Vincente Minnelli (New York: Museum of Modern Art/Harper and Row, 1989), 263.
10. “‘4 Horsemen’ Reins Handed Blaustein,” Daily Variety, 11 July 1958, 1.
11. Thomas Quinn Curtiss, “Four Horsemen to Ride Again,” New York Herald Tribune Paris, 17 August 1960, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
12. Harvey, Directed by Minnelli, 264.
13. See Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse trade advertisement in Daily Variety, 13 September 1961, 29. It uses the torn-paper design Bass would later use for Bunny Lake Is Missing.
14. The montages survive in the Saul Bass Papers; see The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, “Production Elements, Unused War Montages.” It has been argued that Elaine and Saul spent months looking for World War II footage for The Victors, yet Mike Lonzo, who worked on the Victors, has no memory of Elaine being around. In fact, Elaine Bass may have been misremembering which film she worked on, having pulled the material for Four Horsemen instead. See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 210; interview with Mike Lonzo, 19 September 2012; Mike Lonzo posting, 4 September 2007, http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=44652&forumID&.
15. Jean Douchet, “The Red and the Green: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” in Vincente Minnelli, ed. Joe McElhaney (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009), 42.
16. Existing footage from the actual speech shows a crowd made up exclusively of uniformed Nazi storm troopers, while Hitler himself is seen only in long shot, neither of which suited Bass’s purposes. See the newsreel excerpt at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI9fpBiRCMw.
17. See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 210. The authors confirm that images from San Francisco were used, but again, they suggest that the images were intended for The Victors prologue, for which they were also used.
18. Ibid.
19. In the mid-1960s Bass was seemingly becoming a montage specialist, much as Slavko Vorkapich had been in classical Hollywood. For example, it was announced that he would do an opening prologue for George Roy Hill’s Hawaii (1966) and the titles and special effects for Blake Edwards’s The Party (1968). See Army Archerd, “Just for Variety,” Daily Variety, 15 February 1966, 2; “Ray, Wilson to Film ‘The Alien’ for Col,” Daily Variety, 12 June 1967, 1.
20. “Carl Foreman Turns to Directing,” Daily Variety, 7 December 1960, 1, 4.
21. Bosley Crowther, “The Victors,” New York Times, 20 December 1963; Arthur Knight, “The Victors,” Saturday Review, 14 December 1963, 24.
22. See Harrison Carroll, “Victors Grim Film,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 23 December 1963, B-4; Richard Gertner, “The Victors,” Motion Picture Herald, 27 November 1963; PGB, “The Victors,” Films & Filming, January 1964.
23. J. S., “The Victors Prologue by Saul Bass,” Cinema, February–March 1964.
24. According to Mike Lonzo: “I recall that we worked, off-and-on, nearly six months on this prologue. As it exists now in the film, it is only about half its original work print length. It was a very detailed visual essay on WWI, the aftermath, the rise of the political postwar developments in Germany, the rise of Hitler, and the beginning of WWII—all of which led into the Main Title, and then, in effect, was the historical setup for the film.” Lonzo posting, 2007.
25. The storyboards for The Victors are reproduced in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 212–13.
26. “The Victors—Title Description,” box 13A, file 42, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
27. Unfortunately, the prints available in the Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS, are completely red, so it is impossible to tell what parts of the film were in black and white and what parts were in color.
28. “How to Compare Apples and Oranges,” Broadcasting Magazine, 28 January 1963, 30.
29. Arthur Perles, “TV Sales-Muscle Kayos Mags,” Radio Television Daily, 28 January 1963, 1, 3.
30. “Apples and Oranges—Food for Thought. How CBS Sells a Concept,” Telefilm 8, no. 5 (May 1963): 30.
31. See the cover image in Dick Hess and Marion Muller, Dorfsman & CBS (New York: American Showcase, 1987), 138. See also Radio Television Daily, 13 February 1963, 6–7. For a similar design concept, see General Control Company advertisement (1956) in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 51.
32. Perles, “TV Sales-Muscle Kayos Mags,” 3. The shooting was handled by Format Films, according to this source. See also “How to Compare Apples and Oranges,” 34.
33. “How to Compare Apples and Oranges,” 31.
34. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 77, 156–57.
35. “Apples and Oranges—Food for Thought,” 31.
36. Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 47.
37. The computer punch-hole design would appear as early as 1957 in Bass’s posters and titles for Edge of the City and in a report for the California Test Bureau (1957). However, the design is most obvious in two infomercials made for IBM in 1962, “The History of Invention” and “Cancer Research.” See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 80, 97.
38. Bass had used a coat-wearing figure exposing himself for an advertisement for KLH Research and Development in 1957. See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 77.
39. “AT&T, One Hundred Years of the Telephone,” box 44A, files 10, 15, 19, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
40. “Pantomime Pictures Inc. Tentative Production Schedule 100 Years of the Telephone,” box 44A, file 18, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
41. “100 Years Film Festivals,” box 44A, file 42, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS; Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 102, 408. These sources give two different dates: 1976 and 1977.
42. In fact, Peary claimed that he reached the North Pole in 1909, but Amundsen did not reach the South Pole until 1911.
43. The Academy Film Archive has now fully restored the film, as previous prints were badly faded. The unrestored version is still being distributed by Pyramid Films and can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euh0kEU20V4.
44. Jason Woloski, “Why Man Creates,” http://notcoming.com/reviews/whymancreates/.
45. The same year Bass produced Why Man Creates, IBM financed its own film about creativity and human endeavor, Transformations. Produced and directed by Ralph Sargent, later the owner of Film Technology Inc., the seventeen-minute film was recently screened at “The Real Indies: A Closer Look at Orphan Films” at the Academy Film Archive.
46. “Print Personality: Saul Bass,” Print 11, no. 6 (May–June 1958): 17. See also “Pros & Cons on TV Conformity,” Variety, 30 September 1959, 31.
47. Saul Bass, “A Definition of Creativity,” Design: The Magazine of Creative Art 60 (March–April 1959): 144.
48. Quoted in Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 382.
49. Saul Bass, “Thoughts on Design. An Oration,” Journal of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts 113, no. 5112 (November 1965): 992.
50. Shirley Smith, “PR Films Coming or Going?” Business Screen 31, no. 5 (May 1970): 34.
51. Morgenstern, “Saul Bass,” 65. Morgenstern is apparently paraphrasing an unidentified manuscript in the Bass Papers, thought to be a seminar for AT&T marketing executives in 1988. Thanks to Sean Savage for making this document available to me.
52. Letter from Saul Bass to William Riley (Young & Rubicam), 30 September 1966, “Why Man Creates Y + R Previews #21,” box 15A, file 5, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
53. See “Why Man Creates Script #1,” box 14A, file 30, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. The file contains more than thirty unnumbered and mostly undated sheets of paper with handwritten notes. One, on Saul Bass & Associates letterhead and dated 2 October 1967, contains more than thirty suggested titles for the film, including Why Man Creates.
54. See letter from Robert A. Sandberg (Kaiser) to SB, 10 December 1970 (which mentions the original contract agreement date), “Why Man Creates Legal,” box 14A, file 53, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
55. Memo from Don Fabun (Kaiser Aluminum News) to SB, 13 February 1967, “Why Man Creates Script #1,” box 14A, file 30, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
56. Although Erik Daarstad is credited as cinematographer, some slates on outtakes indicate that Laszlo Kovacs also shot footage for Bass. See e-mail from Sean Savage to the author, 15 March 2013.
57. “Why Man Creates—Storyboards, Presented to Kaiser,” box 14A, file 50, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
58. This outline is dated 20 November 1967. See “Why Man Creates Early Notes,” box 14A, file 32, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. The final script by Mayo Simon and Saul Bass is dated February 1968 and corresponds to this version, but according to Bass’s handwritten note on the script from 14 July 1975, “Final changes after film shoot may never have been incorporated in an actual updated script version.” See “Why Man Creates Final Script,” box 14A, file 37, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
59. Interview with James Hollander, 31 October 2012, Burbank, CA.
60. “Kaiser Film Wins Plaudits (and $s),” California Business, n.d. [March 1969?], “Why Man Creates Press Clippings,” box 14A, file 44, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
61. Why Man Creates, alternative version, 16mm color reversal positive, 82654-1-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS.
62. See “Why Man Creates Y + R Previews #21,” box 15A, file 5, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
63. Morgenstern, “Saul Bass,” 66.
64. Memo from Hugh Morris to Robert Sandberg, 26 February 1968, “Why Man Creates Y + R Previews #21,” box 15A, file 5, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
65. See Why Man Creates brochure, “Why Man Creates Programs,” box 14A, file 59, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
66. See press release, Laemmle Theatre, 23 August 1968. See also Richard Whitehall, “The Film Scene,” Open City, 6–12 September 1968, “Why Man Creates Reviews,” box 14A, file 44, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
67. See Joe Broady, “Sugar Coated Blurb Pix Big Biz,” Daily Variety, 28 October 1969, 150.
68. The edifice sequence was subsequently broadcast on 8 July 1970 on the Smothers’ Brothers Summer Show. See “Television Review,” Daily Variety, 9 July 1970, 7; “Smothers Brothers Summer Show,” Women’s Wear Daily, 10 July 1970, clipping, “Why Man Creates Reviews,” box 15A, file 1, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
69. See Business Screen 30, no. 7 (July 1969): 500. “Kaiser Film Wins Plaudits (and $s)” notes that, after the film’s Oscar win, Modern Talking Pictures produced 500 new prints.
70. Yaffa Draznin and Hugh Marsh, “Movie Provokes Opposing Views,” Los Angeles Technograph 10, no. 4 (March–April 1969): 5.
71. [Beverly Jeanne Davis], Review of Why Man Creates, Art Education Magazine, October 1969, 49.
72. See David A. Sohn, “See How They Run,” Film News 26, no. 5 (October 1969): 20–21; David A. Sohn, “The Eye of the Observer: Films to Make You See,” Science Activities, January 1970, 10–12.
73. Jason Woloski, “Why Man Creates,” http://www.notcoming.com/reviews/whymancreates/.
74. See letter from Robert A. Sandberg to SB, 10 December 1970; memo from Morrie Marsh to SB, 15 December 1970, “Why Man Creates Legal,” box 14A, file 53, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. Marsh writes that Kaiser’s public relations firm would have distributed the film for free forever, regardless of the $225,000 it invested.
75. The Pyramid agreement was signed on 1 July 1969. See letter from Sandberg to SB, 8 November 1971, “Why Man Creates Legal,” box 14A, file 53, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
76. “Bass Moneymaker,” Hollywood Reporter, 21 November 1977, 11.
77. See letter from Ainsworth (Pyramid) to Morrie Marsh, 11 May 1972, “Why Man Creates Legal,” box 14A, file 53, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. The letter included a royalty check for $37,296.65, which amounted to 25 percent of Pyramid’s income ($149,186) for the period 1969–1971. See also Ainsworth (Pyramid) to Morrie Marsh, 14 February 1973, “Why Man Creates Rentals,” box 15A, file 2, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. This letter included a check for $9,850.43 for the fourth quarter of 1972. Later earning statements indicated the following: $8,4440.93 for fourth-quarter 1975; $10,118.41 for first-quarter 1976; $10,456.75 for second-quarter 1976; $8,426.60 for third-quarter 1976; $9,399.90 for fourth-quarter 1976; and $6,989.77 for first-quarter 1977.
78. See Morgenstern, “Saul Bass,” 64; AT&T seminar manuscript, 1988, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
79. The note with the typed titles is dated October 1967 and is on Saul Bass & Associates letterhead. See “Why Man Creates Script #1,” box 14A, file 30, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
80. AT&T seminar manuscript, 1988, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
81. Saul Bass had designed the corporate logo for Warner Brothers, which Herb Yager characterized as DOA because it put the W in a television frame, just as the company was transitioning to a transmedia conglomerate and changing its name from National Kinney Corporation to Warner Communications. Yager thought Bass just wasn’t paying attention when he designed the logo. Nevertheless, Bass apparently went to the head of National Kinney Corporation and suggested a film that would demonstrate to Wall Street that the diverse entertainment businesses now at the company’s center all fit together. Interview with Herb Yager, 27 February 2013, Ojai, CA.
82. Significantly, Bass used the same introduction for Notes on the Popular Arts, but with disembodied hands typing on a typewriter. This less personal approach was more in keeping with that film’s commercial goals.
83. Roh and Tschichold, Foto-Auge, Photo-Eye, Oeil et Photo, cover.
84. The first edit, shown in February 1968, also included Frank Lloyd Wright in the mix. Sean Savage informs me that there are also outtakes of old-time portraits of “Saul as Old Creator,” indicating that Bass considered placing himself in the pantheon. E-mail from Sean Savage to the author, 15 March 2013.
85. This is confirmed by a photocopy of an article about the Chicago Picasso controversy in the Bass Papers. See D. J. R. Bruckner, “Chicago Unveils, Hails Its Puzzling, 50 Ft. Picasso,” New York Times, n.d., “Why Man Creates Script #1,” box 14A, file 30, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
86. Irving Howe, Literary Modernism (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publishers, 1967), 24.
87. Dr. Dulbecco would eventually win a Nobel Prize for his work in medicine in 1975. See http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/21/local/la-me-renato-dulbecco-20120221.
88. This final sequence is named “The Mark” in previous iterations of the script and cutting continuity, and it refers to humanity’s take on nature.
89. The three sequences are the jumping-jacks scene in traffic, the social worker scene with a cascade of numbers, and the brain surgery scene. Later in the AT&T film he uses a short version of the Hitler montage from The Victors. See AT&T Corporate Program (1969), 16mm print, 1499-1, Saul Bass Collection, Academy Film Archive, AMPAS. The Academy calls the film A New Look for the Bell System; there is no title on the original film.
90. According to Paramount distribution reports from 1985, the film’s overall shortfall was $372,622, after subtracting income from expenses. However, there was apparently a lot of “creative accounting” on Paramount’s side, since it sold the film to television in November 1975 for $1.1 million, when the balance was $1.6 million in the red; a month later, the balance remained at $1.6 million. See Paramount Financial Reports #1 (2 December 1974), #5 (20 December 1975), #20 (31 August 1985), “Phase IV Distribution Reports,” box 5A, file 28, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
91. Nic Francis, “Bass PHASE IV,” Screen ’n’ Heard, March 1973, 11.
92. See “Phase II for Par,” Variety, 22 September 1971, 2; “Saul Bass Will Direct ‘Phase II’ for Paramount,” Hollywood Reporter, 22 September 1971, 1. Simon received $10,000 for his script, but he complained in a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times that his role had been ignored in an article on the making of the film. See letter to the editor, Los Angeles Times, 17 March 1973, clipping in Phase IV production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. See also letter from Ben Margolis to Morrie Marsh, 30 November 1972, and letter from Eric Weissmann (Law Offices of Kaplan, Livingston, Godwin, Berkwitz & Stein) to Eugene Frank (Paramount), 28 June 1972, “Phase IV Legal,” box 6A, file 2, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
93. Hollander interview, 2012. See also Bell, “Oral History with Saul Bass.”
94. A. H. Weiler, “Bass’s Bugs,” New York Times, 30 June 1972. The final shooting script, dated 3 September 1972, consisted of 106 pages of dialogue and 544 shots. See “Phase IV Script,” box 5A, file 21, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
95. “Phase IV Will Roll in London for Par,” Hollywood Reporter, 19 July 1972, 4.
96. See “Phase IV Storyboards,” box 6A, file 22, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS; interviews with Jeff Okun, 6 June 2011, Studio City, CA, and 23 March 2012, Hollywood, CA.
97. See “Film Prod. Pulse,” Variety, 15 November 1972, 34. This chronology is based on an article stating that Bass left London in late November 1973, after thirteen months behind the camera and in the editing room. See Philip Oakes, “Coming On: Bass Note,” Sunday Times, 9 December 1973, 36.
98. MPAA news release, 22 January 1974, Phase IV production files, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
99. Letter from Saul Bass and Paul Radin to Charles Glenn, VP Advertising Publicity & Promotion, 20 September 1973, “Phase IV Publicity,” box 6A, file 14, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
100. Three months after completing the film, Bass wrote: “All goes well on PHASE IV and distribution plans are proceeding apace—having been held up by the problems created at Technicolor by your state of crisis. . . . Our economy is fairly rocky—and this makes for cautious attitudes in business circles, having its inevitable effect on all of us.” Letter from Saul Bass to Arnold Schwartzman, 21 February 1974. On 18 April Bass wrote to Radin: “Still don’t have a release date.” Then again on 7 June: “The picture’s in Yablans’ hands. Evans considers it his (Yablans’) baby now. I am awaiting word as to his intentions about the release date and a release plan.” On 1 October Radin wrote to Bass: “If the picture hasn’t in fact opened anywhere, do you think they will ever release it? I cannot believe it is that bad.” Finally, in a letter to Radin on 28 October, Bass confessed: “Phase IV opened in forty theatres in New York (and is apparently not doing too well). I have not talked to Paramount; I have given up on that completely.” All the letters are in “Phase IV Correspondence,” box 5A, file 27, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
101. New York City preview, 12 August 1974, “Phase IV Previews,” box 6A, file 1, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
102. Kevin Thomas, “Phase IV,” Los Angeles Times, 13 June 1975, pt. IV, 15.
103. See letter from Saul Bass to Paul Radin, 1 September 1974; Bass’s aide-mémoire about a meeting with Yablans and Glenn, attached to Telefax from Saul Bass to Frank Yablans, 10 October 1974; letter from SB to Barry Day, McCann-Erickson Advertising Ltd., London, 11 November 1974, all in “Phase IV Correspondence,” box 5A, file 27, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. As Bass noted in the letter to Day regarding the film’s publicity: “I am pleased you liked it and can only hasten to assure you that I had nothing to do with the posters or the ad campaign generally (although there were a lot of battles between Paramount New York and me).”
104. Bass’s friends wrote: “Some people at the theatre stopped Leon to ask him if you were an Englishman because the picture had a foreign feeling!” Letter from Julia and Leon Winston to Saul Bass, 27 January 1974: “Phase IV Correspondence,” box 5A, file 27, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
105. For many years, the ending montage sequence was believed to have never been made, but it turned up in the Bass Collection at the Academy Film Archive. According to Jeff Okun, the sequence is not the original; rather, Okun re-created it in 16mm in the late 1970s. However, Sean Savage, the Academy’s Bass archivist, questions the veracity of Okun’s statement, given that Paramount’s separation masters of Phase IV have the montage intact. See Bass and Kirkham, Saul Bass, 257; Okun interview, 2012; e-mail from Sean Savage to the author, 15 March 2013.
106. “Phase IV,” Box Office, 16 September 1974.
107. See “Phase IV,” Motion Picture Production Digest, 18 September 1974; “Phase IV,” Audience 75 (September 1974): 15; John Dorr, “Phase IV,” Hollywood Reporter, 2 October 1974, 8; William Wolf, “Phase IV,” Cue, 28 October–3 November 1974; “Phase IV,” Seventeen 33, no. 11 (November 1974); “Phase IV,” Playboy 21, no. 12 (December 1974); J. R., “Phase IV,” Oui 4, no. 1 (January 1975).
108. Jay Cocks, “Phase IV,” Time, 14 October 1974, 10–11.
109. Har., “Phase IV,” Variety, 9 October 1974, 18. See also Frank Rich, “Phase IV,” New York Times, 4 October 1974; Robert C. Cumbow, “Phase IV,” Movietone News 37 (November 1974): 31–32.
110. Thomas, “Phase IV,” 15.
111. Nigel Andrews, “Ant Action,” Financial Times, 18 October 1974. See also Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Phase IV,” Monthly Film Bulletin 41, no. 489 (October 1974): 228.
112. A sign of the film’s growing critical status is its inclusion in a new film series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Beyond the Infinite: Science Fiction after Kubrick.” See https://www.lacma.org/series/beyond-infinite-science-fiction-after-kubrick.
113. Graham J. Murphy, “Phase IV,” Science Fiction Film and Television 3, no. 2 (Autumn 2010). See also Thomas Scalzo, “Phase IV,” Not Coming to a Theatre Near You, http://notcoming.com/reviews/phase4/; “Phase IV—A Film by Saul Bass,” The Hauntological Society, http://thehauntologicalsociety.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00Z&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00Z&max-results=50. Numerous other reviews of the film on DVD can be found on the Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070531/externalreviews.
114. In retrospect, Bass commented on his experience with Phase IV: “I think Phase IV was an interesting but not entirely successful film. Still as a life experience, it was absolutely extraordinary. On the one hand full of anxiety, frustration and even despair. On the other hand, exhilarating and energizing. Talk about life on the edge! Even when it drives you nuts, you are stimulated and engaged. Until then all my work had been relatively short forms: titles, sequences, short films. Long forms are another kind of creative experience. They represent a different sort of creative problem, qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Especially when you have never done it before.” Krag and Volsted, Title Sequence Seminar, 20–21.
115. Vivian Sobchack, Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film (New York: Ungar Publishing, 1987), 88.
116. Ibid., 112.
117. Beier and Midding, Vorspann: Zum Werk von Saul Bass.
118. See “Phase IV drawings,” box 5A, file 29, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS. According to Sean Savage (personal communication, 25 January 2013), the role of Kendra was reduced because Lynne Frederick’s performance was stilted and because Paramount executives were worried there might be some inappropriate sexual chemistry between the underage Frederick and Murphy.
119. This shot, particularly its soundscape of an abstract buzzing noise, immediately recalls the alien slabs at the beginning of 2001.
120. Bass described the toxic yellow desert as a “strangely threatening, but strangely beautiful landscape.” See American Film Institute Seminar, 32.
121. Quoted in Philip Oakes, “Coming On: Bass Note,” Sunday Times, 9 December 1973, 36.
122. Memo from Louis Dorfsman (CBS Broadcast Group) to Saul Bass, 10 December 1974, “Phase IV Correspondence,” box 5A, file 27, Saul Bass Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS.
123. See John Brosnan, Future Tense: The Cinema of Science Fiction (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978), 228. Brosnan argues that Phase IV tries too hard to emulate 2001, but he only had access to the abbreviated ending, “with the two humans being transformed, either by the ants or by the intelligence guiding them, into a new form of life.”
124. Bass apparently lost the original ending, and Jeff Okun claims he re-created it for demonstration purposes. Okun interview, 2012. However, Sean Savage from the Academy Film Archive found the original ending at Paramount and has begun showing the film with that ending.
125. Bart Mills, “The Anty Hero,” Arts Guardian (London), 10 February 1973, 10. Thanks to Sean Savage for pointing out this quote.
126. David James, The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
127. See Manovich, Language of New Media, 250, http://www.manovich.net/LNM/Manovich.pdf.
