"Mr. Bakshi says ..."

It has only been last week that I revisited one of the favourite NOT Tolkien quotes on the net, here for you on Patreon (Opens in a new window). Inspired by a comment Becky Dillon made on Facebook I then proceeded to ask Ralph Bakshi a question:

Dear Mr Bakshi, the Tolkien fan community has been wondering a very long time about the text on one of the most famous fantasy film posters ever done - "The  Lord of the Rings" as illustrated by the most wonderful Tom Jung. Could you shed some light on who added the text? Most of it seems to be  a Nathaniel Hawthorne quote (taken from his first novel, "Fanshawe"), and a lot of people interested in Early American Literature/ Gothic Lit  would love to know who did it. I would be delighted to hear from you.

Now, I know that Ralph Bakshi is still very active, particularly on his Twitter (Opens in a new window) and Instagram (Opens in a new window) feeds. And if you are interested in film making in general and a behind the scenes look how Hollywood has been working the last 100 years he is someone who tells it all, brutally frank, as one of the supposedly last 'independent' directors without lasting attachment to any of the 'Majors.' You can read up on much of this with one of the best interviews with him (Opens in a new window) from 2014.

He is not getting younger, of course, but he is still around, rather angry, as usual, and I received an answer in due course:

Hello Marcel.
Mr.  Bakshi says the poster was assembled by the advertising department at  United Artists. He thinks a copywriter there came up with that quote.  Thank you for your interest in this film.
Bakshi Studio

So, if no miracle happens and someone who worked with United Artists at the time speaks up on this that will be all I can do to find out more about the origin of the quote on a very special film poster. A film poster that hung in my room for quite a while when I was a kid beside a framed copy of Caspar David Friedrich's Das Eismeer (Opens in a new window), I think.

The original concept art by Tom Jung can be seen above [(c) Bonham Auctions] and it was sold last December for US$ 27,575 (€ 23,702) (Opens in a new window) including premiums (there was a massive sale of Tom Jung artwork.) It seems to have been sold as Lot 360 at the Hollywood Auction 25 (Opens in a new window) with Profiles in History on July 28, 2006 - for $16,000. The preliminary pencil illustration below seems to have been sold in 2011.

Original art by Tom Jung (c) Tom Jung, United Artists et al.

Oh, and by the way: Only few people know that there was a second film poster out there. It was quite "usual" at the time to have at least two different styles to use, possibly due to cultural differences in film poster taste. It was also done by Tom Jung.

Please note: He was one of the most prolific film poster artists (Opens in a new window) out there. Unfortunately, most of these artists never got rich as they were paid by the project they were working on with a lump sum - and all other rights were signed away. If you would like to know more about Tom Jung there really is only this one decent article (Opens in a new window) on him on the net.

Original art by Tom Jung (c) Tom Jung, United Artists et al.

This post was originally published (Opens in a new window) on Sept 27, 2020.