The January 24, 1955 issue of Life magazine featured this fantastic movie poster for Underwater, starring Jane Russell and Richard Egan as a SCUBA-diving, treasure-hunting couple.
A couple of weeks later, in the February 7 issue the poster artwork was changed.
A month after that, in the March 7 issue this story appeared. A model sued, claiming her image had been ripped off, putting the painting of Russell's head on a painting of the model's body. You can read the details here:
Frankly, I don't know what happened. We're talking a couple of artists, a couple of models (and Jane Russell's face) a couple of pieces of artwork (a cover for Collier's magazine, and the movie poster.) If a judge dismissed the case at least model Lyn Jones got a little bit of notoriety. Two pages in Life was worth a lot in those days. Interestingly enough, there is yet another version of the poster artwork on page two of the story.
I have never seen the movie, Underwater. I googled it and came up with a clip on the TCM website. For curiosity's sake, if it becomes available to me I'll catch it.
4 comments:
Reminds me Jacqueline Bisset in "The Deep". Maybe it was inspired by this movie with the great Jane Russell!
Dave, I remember there was a lot of hoopla around The Deep also that had to do with Jackie Bissett's boobs. It seems a natural to put beautiful girls underwater.
I've seen the movie. Russell looked good in a bathing suit, of course, but it was otherwise routine.
Thanks, Kirk.
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