Robin Johnson

Most of the Times Square posters have some identifying information on them — a copyright notice, the film’s local distributor, a code number — but not this one, so we have to go on what’s on it.

The logo and the artwork are from the UK movie poster, which was also (the artwork at least) used across Europe. The text is in English, and the AA is a now-replaced British Board of Film Censors rating. (Also, I got this item from a seller in England. Back in April. Current events kept me from doing anything with it until recently.) So I think I’m safe saying that what we have here is a piece of British Times Square promotion, probably produced by EMI Films, almost certainly in early 1981, basically pushing Robin Johnson’s status as Robert Stigwood’s “female Travolta.” As we’ve seen, starting from almost the second the film was released, the promotion tactics became focused ever more closely on its third-billed star, a situation that would continue around the world for the next two years. And in my opinion, an unfortunate victim of this strategy was Robin herself, as the unflichingly honest criticisms she gave of the movie in her interviews caused RSO to reappraise her value, ultimately deciding that her willingness to trash their product in public outweighed her talents as an actress in that product, causing RSO never to cast her in anything again, while simultaneously keeping her under contract so she couldn’t use her obvious abilities in the service of some other film company to compete against Robin-less RSO projects. Again, in my opinion.

So much for a face of the 80s. But even more to the point… that’s an illustration. It isn’t really her face. Obviously the illustration by poster artist Cummins was used so people would make the connection between this poster and the movie poster, but still… Maybe if I find the time I’ll doctor up a version of what I think this poster should have looked like.

If anyone cares, the image here isn’t really an accurate representation of what the actual physical object looks like, because I’ve cleaned it up so much. It is a good representation of what you’d see if you were looking at the poster, though.

Would you like to know more?

Times Square U.K. Movie Poster
Times Square Movie Poster, Belgium
Locandina Times Square (Movie Poster, Italy)
“Toda la Basca!” … a Times Square – Times Square movie poster, Spain