Cinema Retro
By Lee Pfeiffer
October 12, 2025
During the 1960s and 1970s, European marketing and
distribution of English language films is looked back on as an era in which
"anything goes" seems to have been the prevailing strategy. This was
particularly true in Italy where the movie poster creations were so striking
they are now highly collectible as retro pop art. An amusing aspect of these
posters is that there was a tendency to promote films as starring contemporary
box office favorites...even if the future superstars were seen only in early
supporting roles. Film historian and Cinema Retro contributor Howard Hughes,
writing for the web site The Film Goer's Guide, takes an amusing and insightful
look into how Lee Van Cleef's wordless supporting role in the 1952 Western
classic "High Noon" was exploited as a starring role when the film
was reissued in the 1960s after he became an international star in Sergio
Leone's "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly". Van Cleef, who had been laboring in minor roles since the early
1950s, suddenly was elevated to major stardom. That was enough incentive for an
Italian film distributor to dust off "High Noon" and reissue it with
a deceitful ad campaign that made it appear Van Cleef was equal to Gary Cooper
(who won the Oscar for his performance) in terms of screen time and importance
to the plot. Not mentioned in Howard's article is another fabrication
pertaining to the Italian movie poster: it shamelessly cribs artwork from the
poster for John Ford's "The Searchers"! One only imagine the reaction of the misled
movie goers when they discovered the "Lee Van Cleef" flick only
features him in a minor, silent role.
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