Saul Bass’ title sequences
“PROJECTIONISTS – PULL CURTAIN BEFORE TITLES”.
This is the text of a note that was stuck on the cans when the reels of film for “The Man With the Golden Arm” arrived at US movie theatres in 1955. Until then the credits were referred to as ‘popcorn time.’ Audiences resented them and projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished.
Saul Bass’ powerful title sequence for “The Man With the Golden Arm” changed the way directors and designers would treat the opening titles.
In Bass’ own words: “My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film’s story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it.”
Bass created some of the best title sequences ever for some of the best directors who ever lived (Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese) and some of the best films ever made (Vertigo, North by northwest, Anatomy of a murder, Spartacus, Goodfellas).
Most of the title sequences Bass designed are available on blu-ray and DVD. I’ve located 46 of the 55 title sequences he created. Below you’ll find an overview with links to blogposts featuring over a thousand stills and dozens of videos.
20 years after his death Bass’ work is still very much alive, yet few people who claim to be inspired by him have seen much of his work. Here’s your chance to see a fraction of the work Bass has done during his long and prolific career: Saul Bass’ title sequences.
“For the average audience, the credits tell them there’s only three minutes left to eat popcorn. I take this ‘dead’ period and try to do more than simply get rid of names that filmgoers aren’t interested in.
I aim to set up the audience for what’s coming;
make them expectant.”
— SAUL BASS
“I began as a graphic designer and as part of my work I created many film symbols for ad campaigns. During that period I happened to be working on the symbols for ‘Carmen Jones’ and ‘The man with the golden arm’ for Otto Preminger. At one point in our work Otto and I just looked at each other and said: “why not make it move?” It was really as simple as that.”
— SAUL BASS – “Bass on titles,” 1977
- 1955
- title sequence
- “The End”
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM
- Directed by:
- Otto Preminger
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Arnold Stang, Darren McGavin
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- Lettering:
- Harold Adler
“‘The man with the golden arm’ woke everybody up and said: “This is what the potential is for main titles. You thought this was just a throw-away kind of thing where we just put the type up and noone really designs it.” And Saul Bass said: “Hey, wait a minute designers, directors, here’s an opportunity for us, to take advantage of this real estate at the beginning of a movie and use it to help tell the story or just use it to make something real interesting or beautiful,” and everybody woke up.”
— KYLE COOPER, designer of the Se7en title sequence,
in the documentary “Saul Bass, title champ,” 2008
- 1956
- title sequence
- “The End”
STORM CENTER
- Directed by:
- Daniel Taradash
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Brian Keith, George Sanders, Paul Kelly, Joe Mantell
- Studio:
- Columbia Pictures
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1957
- title sequence
- “The End”
SAINT JOAN
- Directed by:
- Otto Preminger
- Starring:
- Richard Widmark, Richard Todd, Anton Walbrook, John Gielgud, Jean Seberg
- Country:
- USA, UK
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1957
- title sequence
- “The End”
THE YOUNG STRANGER
- Directed by:
- John Frankenheimer
- Starring:
- James MacArthur, Kim Hunter, James Daly, James Gregory, Whit Bissell
- Studio:
- RKO Radio Pictures
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
“Bass fashioned title sequences into an art, creating in some cases, like Vertigo, a mini-film within a film. His graphic compositions in movement function as a prologue to the movie – setting the tone, providing the mood and foreshadowing the action.”
— MARTIN SCORSESE
“There’s a story about someone seeing the titles for Wyler’s ‘The Big Country’ (1958) and remarking to Saul that it “didn’t look like a Saul Bass title sequence.” He was taken aback, because for him, there was no such thing as “a Saul Bass title sequence.”
— MARTIN SCORSESE – “Saul Bass’ cinematic art”
February 2010 issue of Architectural Digest
- 1960
- title sequence
- “The End”
OCEAN’S ELEVEN
- Directed by:
- Lewis Milestone
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
Source: the Universal blu-ray (2015)
1960- title sequence
- “The End”
SPARTACUS
- Directed by:
- Stanley Kubrick
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- Artists:
- Elaine Mack, Gerald Trafficanda, Art Goodman
- Fonts used:
- Clarendon
- 1960
- title sequence
- “The End”
EXODUS
- Directed by:
- Otto Preminger
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Peter Lawford, Lee J. Cobb
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1961
- title sequence
- “The End”
WEST SIDE STORY
- Directed by:
- Robert Wise
- Starring:
- Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1961
- title sequence
- “The End”
SOMETHING WILD
- Directed by:
- Jack Garfein
- Starring:
- Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker, Mildred Dunnock, Jean Stapleton
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- Fonts used:
- Akzidenz Grotesk
“So important have the titles become that they can be a menace to the movie itself. The titles for the 1962 production of ‘Walk on the wild side,’ for example, were so arresting and so widely acclaimed that the film is remembered for little else.”
— DAVID ZEITLIN
LIFE magazine, 7 february 1964
- 1962
- title sequence
- “The End”
WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
- Directed by:
- Edward Dmytryk
- Starring:
- Laurence Harvey, Capucine, Jane Fonda, Anne Baxter, Barbara Stanwyck
- Studio:
- Columbia Pictures
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1962
- title sequence
- “The End”
ADVISE & CONSENT
- Directed by:
- Otto Preminger
- Starring:
- Franchot Tone, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Gene Tierney, Burgess Meredith
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1963
- title sequence
- “The End”
NINE HOURS TO RAMA
- Directed by:
- Mark Robson
- Starring:
- Horst Buchholz, José Ferrer, Valerie Gearon, Robert Morley, Harry Andrews
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1963
- title sequence
- “The End”
THE VICTORS
- Directed by:
- Carl Foreman
- Starring:
- Vincent Edwards, Albert Finney, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Eli Wallach
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1963
- title sequence
- “The End”
THE CARDINAL
- Directed by:
- Otto Preminger
- Starring:
- Tom Tryon, Romy Schneider, Carol Lynley, John Saxon, John Huston
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1966
- title sequence
- “The End”
NOT WITH MY WIFE, YOU DON’T!
- Directed by:
- Norman Panama
- Starring:
- Tony Curtis, Virna Lisi, George C. Scott, Carroll O’Connor, Richard Eastham
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1976
- title sequence
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT, PART II
- Directed by:
- Gene Kelly
- Starring:
- Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Doris Day, Elizabeth Taylor
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- 1979
- title sequence
THE HUMAN FACTOR
- Directed by:
- Otto Preminger
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, John Gielgud, Derek Jacobi, Robert Morley, Joop Doderer
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
“I want everything we do – that I do personally, that our office does – to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether a client understands that that’s worth anything, or that a client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things. Even if nobody cares.”
— SAUL BASS, Bass on Titles, 1977
- 1987
- title sequence
BROADCAST NEWS
- Directed by:
- James L. Brooks
- Starring:
- William Hurt, Albert Brooks, Holly Hunter, Jack Nicholson
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- Fonts used:
- Bodoni
- 1988
- title sequence
BIG
- Directed by:
- Penny Marshall
- Starring:
- Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia, John Heard, Jared Rushton
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
- Fonts used:
- Benguiat
- 1991
- title sequence
PREMINGER: ANATOMY OF A FILMMAKER
- Directed by:
- Valerie A. Robins
- Starring:
- Otto Preminger, Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Caine, Burgess Meredith
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
“Saul Bass wasn’t just an artist who contributed to the first several minutes of some of the greatest movies in history; in my opinion his body of work qualifies him as one of the best film makers of this, or any other time.”
— STEVEN SPIELBERG
“Saul Bass 1920–1996: A celebration of an extraordinary life,” 1996
- 1995
- title sequence
A PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH MARTIN SCORSESE THROUGH AMERICAN MOVIES
- Directed by:
- Martin Scorsese, Michael Henry Wilson
- Starring:
- Martin Scorsese
- Country:
- USA
- Title design:
- Saul Bass
“There was only one Saul Bass. He was a gentleman, a brilliant raconteur, a marvelous collaborator and, as I’ve said before, a truly great artist. And – let’s be honest – a giant.”
— MARTIN SCORSESE – “Saul Bass’ cinematic art”
February 2010 issue of Architectural Digest