The Exorcist (1973) movie posters
Shown above is the One Sheet poster designed by Bill Gold for the 1973 supernatural horror film The Exorcist. The film is based on the novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty, first published in 1971.
The film’s title is set in Gemini, a typeface shown in Photo-Lettering’s Alphabet Thesaurus Vol. 3 and also Photo Lettering’s One Line Manual of Styles, both published in 1971. The latter volume shows four weights, labelled Gemini 4 through 7. The weight used on the poster looks to be Gemini 5 or 6. This typeface choice may have been directly influenced by a 1972 paperback edition of Blatty’s novel published by Bantam Books, which also uses Gemini.
Additional text on the poster is either set in or based upon Kabel.
Several other posters including a British Quad version feature the same typographic choices. An advance promotional poster designed by Dan Perri (22.25″ × 31.25″, see the end of this post) uses Weiss Initials No. 2, just like the dust jacket for Harper & Row’s first edition of The Exorcist.
Listings for Gemini show four weights, labelled 4 through 7. The weight used on the poster looks to be Gemini 5 or 6.
British Quad (30″ × 40″) poster
Special poster (18.5″ × 24.75″)
This advance promotional poster (22.25″ × 31.25″) designed by Dan Perri uses Weiss Initials No. 2, just like the dust jacket for Harper & Row’s first edition of The Exorcist.
