After researching the Cantina Cover-Up story posted a few weeks ago, I got to thinking about another mystery of sorts that's been lost in the expanse of Star Wars lore -- the release date of the famous Star Wars Style A one-sheet poster by Tom Jung.
I, like most, thought the famous theatrical poster depicting Luke holding the lightsaber over his head was released with the movie's first screening on May 25, 1977. That was, until I heard this:
"When [Star Wars] opened, we didn't have any poster -- we just had photographs outside the building."
When actor Mark Hamill dropped this quote during a 1992 QVC Star Wars special broadcast, I had to rewind my old VHS recording to make sure I'd heard it right (yes, I used to tape the QVC Star Wars specials). At first, I thought it was simply a mistake -- Star Wars must have opened with the famous poster recognized the world over, right? But the more I came up empty-handed looking for proof that a poster was released with the film on opening day, the more convinced I became that maybe Mr. Hamill was on to something.
Actually, to say Star Wars had no theatrical poster on opening day is not entirely accurate. It did have a poster, just not THE poster most of us are familiar with. The blue teaser poster, which carries the film title along with the "A long time ago..." slogan, had reportedly been available since April that year, a fact which seems supported by early press coverage and the famous "Opens May 25th" billboard poster utilizing the same format. But the famous artwork poster illustrated by Tom Jung seems to have been missing in action for the first two months of release.
While researching The Star Wars Poster Book with Steve Sansweet, I'd come across a few clues suggesting the Jung poster, formally called the "Style A", was initially held back. First, nearly all the early photos of theaters showing Star Wars depicted theater fronts without a Star Wars movie poster -- most just grouped photographs of scenes from the movie in the poster marquees. In the lobbies themselves, there were usually more photos and the occasional retail poster for Star Wars pinned up, but not the theatrical one-sheet.
There was also this cryptic clue from the July/August 1977 issue of Mediascene magazine which discussed the advertising campaign for Star Wars:
"By mid-May [1977] a real one-sheet poster was still not on the schedule. Lucas had expressed interest in getting top-name artists like Berkey, Frazetta and Jeff Jones to draw the poster. Both Berkey and Jones submitted samples of their ideas to the Star Wars offices. In the meantime, other artists were also contacted to submit ideas. It was a period of tremendous uncertainty. Finally another text poster was designed in order to allow theatres to display something in regard to the exhibition of the film. While all this was happening, 20th Century Fox went out on their own and hired Tom Jung to do the 'final' poster for Star Wars."
Following the Poster Book's release a few years ago, I posted a blog entry asking readers for definitive evidence that the Tom Jung poster was indeed exhibited on opening day -- May 25, 1977 -- and while I still haven't found proof that the poster existed on that date, I did find a newspaper photo dated two months later on July 27 depicting the poster in front of a Palm Springs, California theater. Another photo shot a week later on August 3 at the Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood also shows the Jung poster tucked into one of the interior walls of the famous venue's forecourt (the street side exhibited lobby card photos of Star Wars scenes -- no posters).
There is, of course, evidence to suggest the artwork existed at the time of release -- newspaper ads depicting a cropped version of Jung's Luke and Leia pose were available almost immediately, as was the Hildebrandt Brothers' more fanciful version of the Tom Jung artwork. The full Jung artwork, however, was not utilized in newspaper advertising until August 22, the date printed on the original ad slicks sent to newspaper press rooms.
So the challenge remains -- do you have evidence the Jung poster was released before late July, 1977? If so, we'd like to hear about it (and better yet, see it!). We welcome any information or linked images in the comments section below...
