Opening titles of B-movies

Mr. Bali Hai has compiled a fair-sized gallery of B-movie opening titles. I've seen a few of these movies, and it's probably safe to say that the titles are the best parts.

Psychotronic titles

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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lukus

Some of these are beautiful – really amazing rich playful typography. Evocative and I imagine quite daring in their day?

Anyway – puts a lot of modern graphic design to shame. Why is so much commercial graphic design so derivative and dull? It seems that most graphic design products today either need to be an homage to a previous style / idea or (more cynically) a complete rip off. Must have been nice to be a designer in an age where you couldn’t possibly see the wood for the trees.

There’s enough material here to keep a modern advertising ‘creative’ in fresh ideas for at least 5 years.
Craigger1

Many of these are prime candidates for the Mystery Science Theater treatment!
MrBaliHai

As always, thanks for the link, Mark.

A lot of these films are actually extremely well-made, well-acted, and highly entertaining, so don’t assume that they’re all crap, or you’ll be denying yourself many hours of highly enjoyable movie entertainment. Of course, many of them are indeed awful, and awfulness hath its charms too.
misterdna

Since only one of my grandpa’s movies are listed here, I can safely say some movies were left out. Just IMDB Cameron Mitchell and look at the titles alone of his most recent 30-40 movies…
Anonymous

“B Movie” is not an appropriate label for many of these films. The term “B Movie” has evolved over the years and is today used much more loosely than before 1949. Nevertheless, the term originated to describe pictures made under the studio system as the second feature in a double bill. The studio system began to decay after an antitrust suit ended in 1948 forced the majors to give up their theaters. Change didn’t happen overnight, but over time, B Movie came to refer to movies that were in some way like the B pictures of the studio system.

Therefore, big-budget pictures of fifties, like Forbidden Planet (1956) are clearly not B Movies. It’s probably erroneous to refer to big-budget movies of any era, such as Casino Royale (1967), as B Movies. It’s also a clear mistake to refer to movies about B Movies as B movies, such as Amazon Women on the Moon (1987).

There really seem to be quite a number of genres represented in this collection.

Of course, the labeling does not diminish my enjoyment of these wonderful title cards!
Roach

Those who love B-movies (and yeah, most of these aren’t, but still) might like a movie I just watched – Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0996966/) Seems like a very Bboing-y type of film. Great fun.
dacker

He misssed “C.H.U.D.” and
Death Race 2000″.
Jonathan Howells

These are so great!

I just love vintage movie titles/type! Yeah, Shill Pages came to mind immediately for me too.

I did a small homage to Shill’s collection (specifically some Noir Film Titles)here:
http://graphicdefiner.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/noir-film-title-cards/
Mark Simonson

These are “psychotronic” movies, not B-movies. What other film category would include both “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Bride of the Monster”?
Antinous

I’ve seen about three quarters of these movies. I’ll take John Agar and Mara Corday over Brad and Angie any day.
Art Carnage

Mark obviously doesn’t know the meaning of “B-Movie”. Many of these are features. Just because a movie is bad, doesn’t make it a B-Movie.
obscurica

I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned this site for movie title pages:

http://www.shillpages.com/movies/index2.shtml

5,703 titles available.
Anonymous

I’ve seen a few of those. I dunno if I’d call them all B movies, but then maybe my standards are low. ;)

Such cool title screens on some of those, the one pictured in this post being one of the best. You just don’t see such style in modern films. It’s all about blank-eyed sex and blowing stuff up.

Excuse me, I have to go rub aspircream on my hips and yell at those dang kids now.
Antinous

It’s too bad that the titles don’t link to IMDb.
alisong76

The titles promise SO MUCH, but I just know they’d be horrible. Best just to leave it to the imagination.
kitty packard

I concur with all above sentiments.
Cheers for posting this! :)
OM

…Another good genre of title cards to study are those from films between ~1930 and 1945, as a majority of them were excellent examples of Art Nuveau/Art Deco styling with regards to such styles for display art.
pilcrow

@OM. Absolutely agree. Looking through these titles, I am left to wonder how many have served as inspiration to type foundries thru the years. In fact, Several of these titles appear uncannily similar to House fonts on my machine.
IMSA12

I don’t care how one defines the term “B movie”, 2001: A Space Odyssey does not fit that definition by any means.
Bonnie

Why am I just NOW finding out about “Attack of the Puppet People?!”
Anonymous

I’ve seen most of these and some NOT EVEN as MST3K fodder. I disagree. They’re great! The others I’ve been looking for but some are really difficult to find. Delightful opening titles and delightful stupid movies that are a testament to the human spirit.