Something you might have noticed by now with posters from the 1960s is that images were framed to give the viewer an idea of the film's story or they were done so to coincide with a tagline. The latter is certainly the case for the next poster that was found in United States theaters in 1965.
6. Thunderball
The tagline for Thunderball, "Look Up! Look Down! Look Out!," provided the perfect opportunity for the marketing department to select two action sequences from the movie and highlight them on the domestic poster alongside the customary shot of our hero surrounded by scantily clad women. And don't forget to alter the words to include Bond's signature number, 007.
While the poster for Thunderball seems somewhat generic and repeated after 23 films, do keep in mind it was only the fourth picture in the series. Also, the artwork that was chosen for the poster, which was also used in several marketing materials around the globe, is actually pretty exciting and motivates me to want to watch the film, even after seeing it as many times as I have. The jet pack itself makes this movie worth it.
Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the marketing campaign for all domestic and international advertising was similar, so there really isn't anything much better than the U.S. one-sheet poster. What that means is we get to look at some other type of artwork for Thunderball.
This is some fan-made artwork. It certainly differs from the official poster in that it is much more subtle in what it puts on the page. It is similar to posters for films like Alien, Jaws, and The Godfather that provide only one or two images that teases the viewer. The tagline "The oceans are no longer safe" is a little lame, but they do retain the original "The biggest Bond of all," which at the time it was. Although their choice of trying to create an original tagline is a little underwhelming, the faint image of the eye-patched villain and a stealth bomber sitting on an ocean floor is certainly exciting and would pique a person's interest in that upcoming release.
Finally, we have something that isn't a poster at all. In fact, it isn't even for the film version of Thunderball. Instead this is the cover image of the German re-release of Fleming's novel Thunderball. Drawn in 2012 by artist Michael Gillette, this single image of a brunette woman in a wetsuit accomplishes everything Gillette wanted to do with his creation: incorporate the novel's story of underwater action into a sexy image. He certainly accomplished that goal.
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