Another case where the 6 Bass/Kallis drawings are better than the ads that were eventually used for the film.

The Virgin Queen No. 1

The Virgin Queen No. 2

The Virgin Queen No. 3

The Virgin Queen No. 4

The Virgin Queen No. 5

The Virgin Queen No. 6

Two of these Bass/Kallis drawings made it into ads, according to the pressbook for “The Virgin Queen.” None were used as posters for the film.

First, here’s Bass/Kallis ad No. 1 translated into consumer ad mat 404 (please forgive the fact that my photo of the ad is rather askew)

And here is Bass/Kallis ad No. 6 translated into consumer ad mat 405:

Pat Kirkham, the professor and design historian who co-authored the book “Saul Bass: A Life of Film and Design,” spoke to Al Kallis in 2003 during her preparation of that book. Though only two pieces of the previously unseen work Kallis did for Bass is shown in the book, Kirkham does mention seeing most if not all of the movie work and writes in the book that Kallis’ rough illustrations that he did for Bass “are more dynamic and more sensitive to ‘negative space’ than the published ads. Some [of Kallis’] ‘roughs’ included sketch portraits of film stars as placement markers for photographs but some studios saved money by using sketches rather than photography.”

The links below take you to the other Bass/Kallis work in this story:

“Magnificent Obsession” — Universal-International — release/premiere date: Aug. 4, 1954

“A Star is Born” — Warner Bros. — Sept. 29, 1954

“Carmen Jones” — Twentieth Century Fox — Oct. 5, 1954

“The Racers” — Twentieth Century Fox — Feb. 4, 1955

“Not as a Stranger” — United Artists — June 28, 1955

“The Shrike” — Universal-International — July 7, 1955

“The Virgin Queen” — Twentieth Century Fox — July 22, 1955

“Mister Roberts” — Warner Bros. — July 30, 1955

“My Sister Eileen” — Columbia — Sept. 22, 1955

“The Rose Tattoo” — Paramount — Dec. 12, 1955

“The Conqueror” — RKO — Feb. 22, 1956

“On the Threshold of Space” — Twentieth Century Fox — March 29, 1956