Casablanca Poster Artist Reveals Key Element Missing from Early Drafts

 

Jeffery Scott Fraser invests in Job Pose, a company working to improve the methods used to match employers with people seeking jobs. Also the owner of Alaska’s Tsaina Lodge, Jeffery S. Fraser counts the 1942 classic Casablanca as his favorite movie. 

In a 2013 interview with the design blog UnBeige, artist and movie poster designer Bill Gold revealed that early drafts of his iconic Casablanca poster were missing a key prop that ties the whole poster together: Humphrey Bogart’s gun. The image of Bogart pointing his gun while wearing a white fedora and trench coat is lifted from the film’s finale, in which Bogart uses said gun to shoot the Nazi commander who was chasing him.

In the interview, Gold relayed that the Casablanca poster was one of his first, and that he’d thought a montage showing all of the film’s major characters would be enough. Upon review, however, the powers-that-be requested Gold add more excitement to the scene, inspiring him to add Bogart’s gun to the poster. 

Now in his 90s, Bill Gold is responsible for a number of other iconic film posters, including those for The Exorcist, Unforgiven, A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, and Alien.