Serpico (1973)
“Many of his fellow officers considered him the most dangerous man alive—an honest cop.”
Serpico is a 1973 American biographical crime film starring Al Pacino. It’s based on the book by Peter Maas and was directed by Sidney Lumet.
IMP Awards credits this poster to the advertising firm Diener-Hauser (AKA Diener Hauser Bates), and it was possibly designed by Paul Crifo. Ed Benguiat says in this 2000 talk (01:06:44) he created the title/logo itself, using “just a plain typeface.” This typeface appears to be Cadence as shown in Lettergraphics’ 1976 catalog, horizontally expanded. Castcraft’s Encyclopedia of Phototype Styles from 1978 shows the same face with the alias Marcher. Ed Benguiat was the art director of Photo-Lettering, Inc., a competitor of Lettergraphics. PLINC had a similar design in their own library, Pacella Decatur, but several of its letterforms including E L R require modifications to match the movie logo, which would be inconsistent with Benguiat’s statement. [edit: Cadence is credited to Ray Cruz in a Schaedler catalog].
The small type is set in Eurostile. Judging from the top of t, the tagline seems to be in a phototype version of Venus Extended (dreiviertelfett?). Digital approximations include Vonness Expanded (Font Bureau, 2007) and Venusian Bold Extended (Wooden Type Fonts, 2018).
One-line sample from Lettergraphics: The Complete Library, Collectors Edition, 1976.
Still from the film trailer.
Adaptation of the movie poster for the cover of the soundtrack album with music by Mikis Theodorakis.
The Italian movie poster maintains the typographic choices made for the US original, but adds another (extended) style of Eurostile.
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Trailer titles in HD (from the blu-ray)