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The history of the English-language lobby cards for the James Bond films: Part I of III
By: Simon Firth
Published:
2025-12-20
2025-12-20
This is part I of III of an exclusive article series on the From Sweden with Love website. Click here for Part II.
Lobby cards are 11x14 inch cards that are, as the name suggests, displayed in the lobby of the cinema. They aren’t to be confused with the 10x8 inch Front of the House (FOH) UK cards, or US Colour Still Sets that are displayed at the Front of House. It was earlier mentioned that prices for these cards remain moderate. The trend amongst sellers and galleries of film memorabilia is to sell some of these perceived higher value cards as singles, as opposed to, as complete sets as they were initially provided to the cinemas. Certainly this is an exercise in capitalistic profiteering but if there is a market for this method of transaction, then one must assume it is there to be exploited.
This article refers only to the UK, US and English language International output – no comment can be made on European and foreign language International Lobby Card sets. The Bond series to this point in history (2025) numbers 27 official and unofficial films, and has produced a total of no less than 60 lobby card sets numbering 492 cards (TBC – please note question concerning Russia/Love entry), the tally for which can be found at the end of this article series.
The Sean Connery and Geroge Lazenby era of lobby cards
It all began with Dr. No (1962) and, to start strong, this film came with what has become the author’s favorite lobby set. Each card has a large image set to the right and a simple working of the poster graphic to the left with the title and poster byline. The cards are simple, well laid out and display the 60's process to tint, or ink in, everything to a colour different from what it was in the film. To wit, Bond's trousers in Jamaica in the film were blue - they were inked red for some of the cards. The same process can on occasion be seen applied to his shirt. The reason the stills were inked in was that the UK’s National Screen Service, or NSS, was only ever given black & white stills to work from and it was up to the colourist to decide what best worked for the lobby card. Indeed, they probably never even saw most of the films they worked on. Probably, this could be best exemplified by a Superman reissue lobby card from the TV series depicting Superman’s tights as being mustard yellow – evidently, they had never read the comic either. Even though the NSS numbers found on the bottom right of the card are 62/410, a coding signifying that this was the 410th film in the year of 1962 to have advertising material created for it, the movie was not released in the US until May 1963.
The UK lobby cards for the 1962 James Bond film Dr No. All rights reserved.
Card 1 utilised US Press still number DN-44 and shows the daylight version of what became the day-for-night shot of Bond being captured by Dr No’s dragon guards. No attempt was made to replicate the finished look of the film but then, if trousers were not to match the wardrobe department’s choice, one can assume this was of minor importance. Card 5 was inspired by press still number DN-2; the inker changed the blue shirt and trousers to red and green respectively. Perhaps he was taken with the primary colours. Card 6 was copied from press still number DN-8. This card perhaps best exemplifies the inkers challenge in that the still very barely demonstrates the coast line between sand and sea, and thereafter the line between sea and horizon. Since it was not obvious to the colourist, the card is thus presented with a sand-scape horizon to sky, and all memory of the ocean is lost. In the press still, and in the film, the edge of the sand lies at the feet of Andress. Otherwise, the shots selected for the set are well chosen and all scenes appear in the final film.
From Russia with Love (1963) followed with a set that was photographed, or printed, in black and white and then tinted, or washed, to give it a red tinge. Various reasons for this have been offered but the most oft recurring one was that those responsible for the marketing wanted to push the political “red-ness” of the film. This would appear to be a credible reason as both of the US 1 Sheet posters for the film also followed the black, white and red colour scheme. While the lobby images are generous in size, it nonetheless remains the least obviously glamorous of the series. However, perhaps due to what may later be seen as various printers sharing the duties to produce the marketing material, there are in fact two slightly differing sets of From Russia with Love cards. The ‘two’ sets differ both by the tint and a slight juxtaposition of card numbering of the first five cards. One set is purple-tinted and the other set is rose-tinted. Again, only the first five cards are numbered differently -- cards #6, #7 and #8 feature the same photos in both sets. For example, Bond in bed was printed as Nos. 3 and 4, the Helicopter chase was printed as Nos. 2 and 3.
UK lobby card number 6 for the 1963 James Bond film From Russia with Love. All rights reserved.
This article had its genesis in 2005 and has been steadily added to as time, new information and new finds permit. The author having been interested in the marketing of the Bond films for four decades, it is an unlikelihood that something would be unearthed that would be new to both this scriber and the likes of Graham Rye, the noted owner of the 007 Magazine and Archive. In 2013, a lobby card was purchased from eBay that broke those rules; a card from the film, From Russia with Love. It was in poor condition, it displayed the UK poster artwork to the left, it had a yellow background and there was a b/w still of FOH size to the right. Devoid of NSS and card numbering; displaying strange implementations of the 007 logo of the time, an A rating and only one of the four girls from the UK art in evidence, its only clue as to its origins, as suggested by Mr. Rye, was in the painting over and partial covering up of the girl in ways reminiscent of the Irish alterations to the From Russia with Love UK quad poster. Could it have been a specially commissioned lobby card set for the Irish market? The composition later introduced to the film’s artwork for the South African market also allowed comparison of artistic similarities between poster and lobby card; most notably the tonality of the yellow background and the boxed 007 logo. That said, and to add further confusion, Kinekor, the film’s distributors for South Africa, released a similarly ‘black and white image with a yellow back ground’, set of eight lobby cards. Kinekor’s and UA’s logos were prominent on this latter set. For the single, and currently ‘homeless’ card, only a sole UA logo was included. Was South Africa treated to two sets of cards for this film? Returning to the ‘homeless’ card with the 007 logo, at present, it is unknown how many cards comprised this set. Did it conform to the accepted eight-cards-set or, as to be introduced below pertinent to the UK’s Lobby Card consideration to the following two James Bond films, a similar number to this country’s sets of four? It is also unknown what other images were used for the remaining cards.
Colour, albeit tinted, was once again introduced for the Lobby Card sets for Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965) with sets that had generous sized images and the titling at the bottom. However, the Thunderball set utilised inking to almost fluorescent proportions by this time and two of the cards had, what would appear to the casual observer as, images from scenes that weren’t included in the film; namely Paula attacking all the frogmen with a knife, and the scene with Largo briefing the men on the beach. These images are actually posed shots for the sole purpose of publicizing the film. However, as they were used for the context of advertising scenes from the film to the general cinema going public, they will, or could to an audience less discerning than the readers of this webpage, continue to be referred to as ‘unused scenes’. In one card, Bond is shown to be sporting a green scuba outfit; this is due to similar reasons for colour anomalies as were presented in the Dr No set.
UK lobby card number 1 for the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. All rights reserved.
UK lobby card number 4 for the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. All rights reserved.
Two US Lobby Card sets were produced Goldfinger. The more common set has the card numbers centered. The less common set has the numbers set further to the right but still left of the NSS information. Thunderball (1965) also had two sets produced; the only differences here being that card numbers 2 and 5 were switched, together with the Copyright text having being reset closer to the image. To perhaps better clarify what is meant by there being two slightly differing sets, it is likely that two printing companies were used and that, for reasons best known only to themselves, things were positioned slightly differently. But to a collector, this is what makes their wheels go round.
Two colour lobby card sets were produced by the UK for Goldfinger and Thunderball. They were both sets of four and utilized images from the UK FOH (Front of House) sets. The Goldfinger set carried no titling while the Thunderball set had boxed titling in the bottom corners. For poster and lobby card marketing, the Producers carved up of the universe between West and East Hemisphere. This allowed in each Hemisphere for one Producer’s name to come first, top and centred, let’s say. Albert R. Broccoli held the West Hemi where his name came first; Harry Saltzman the East Hemi for the prominence of his name on the advertising. For this UK Lobby set, Saltzman was given the honour. The UK cards had a thicker quality to them and were also slightly glossy as opposed to their American matt counterparts.
The UK lobby cards for the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball. All rights reserved.
You Only Live Twice (1967) was the first set to be printed in true colour as opposed to inked-in or tinted colour – a lovely set with the artwork and titling once again reverting to the left. It was with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) that the designers took a departure from the norm by including a couple of cards depicting crew members at work – one card recorded a crew member brushing lint from Telly Savalas’ jacket; another showed cast and crew surveying a mountainside. Quite how this considered thinking was supposed to add excitement to an advertising campaign for a film already suffering from on-set events is beyond understanding; perhaps it is just another example of the marketing mishaps pertaining to this particular film. That said, perhaps not. If one does not count a distant shot of the ‘star’ of the newest James Bond film in the aforementioned photo of the crew on the mountainside, this lackluster set features only two images of George Lazenby, and both of these present him in a kilt leading one to question whether there was an element of masochism on the part of the marketers. Perhaps by this point, what else could one do to inadvertently kill a campaign. ‘To against just how many inconceivable odds can we subject the success of this movie?’ Whether this was just sloppiness on the part of the designers or a conceived part of the overall campaign to de-emphasize the one-shot Bond actor, it is up to speculation. In 1967, Transamerica bought United Artists; a purchase that lasted for a period of 15 years and it is from the US release of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1970 that the Transamerica name started to make an appearance under the UA logo.
UK lobby card number 3 for the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice. All rights reserved.
UK lobby card number 7 for the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. All rights reserved.
One last point is that there were again two versions of this On Her Majesty’s Secret Service lobby card set. On one version, under the UA/Transamerica logos, there is a line of boxed black type that reads, “ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK ALBUM BY JOHN BARRY AVAILABLE ON UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS.” On the other version, this space is blank.
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) offered a set of a merely competent style. The film imagery became vastly smaller on the cards’ estate. Credits were afforded greater bandwidth. They would in time be given still more of the ‘estate’...
UK lobby card number 4 for the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. All rights reserved.
The size of the image photos displayed on the lobby cards from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service through to For Your Eyes Only were all 10x8 inches. This is for the simple reason that the NSS used the same photo plates to print both the US FOH stills and the lobby sets. Before this, as far back as 1955, NSS printed separate colour litho stills for most major films. These were of a high quality and were designed to be reprinted in magazines and to be used outside first run theatres. They came in sets of 12 and the scenes were different from the lobby cards. Since they were from original negatives the colours are rich and true to life. Sometime between 1968 and 1969, NSS decided to overhaul operations and cut back on material that wasn’t being used that effectively or indeed at all, so the printing of colour deluxe still sets was terminated. From 1968 until 1985, with few exceptions, the US FOH stills and lobby cards printed at NSS were of the same scenes and were 10x8 in size. Effectively, the lobby cards were now just 10x8 stills with more generous borders. It would be fair to assume the same applied to the UK’s way of thinking when they took over production in 1985 as UK FOH stills are the same as the stills used for the lobbies
The Roger Moore era of lobby cards
The lobby sets for Live and Let Die (1973) through to For Your Eyes Only (1981) all followed the same style as the Diamonds Are Forever set in that the image was placed in the top right corner and the title and minimal credits filled the remaining space. Live and Let Die had an unrelated-to-the-film publicity still of Solitaire and Baron Samedi struggling on the beach. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) showed an image of Roger Moore and Maud Adams as he is being held at gunpoint in the shower scene. As it is angled, Moore is directly under a circular ceiling light giving him a faintly haloed look – intentional? The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) is another set to include a crew scene of the Lotus being filmed underwater.
The UK lobby cards for the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die. All rights reserved.
There are three slightly differing card sets for Diamonds Are Forever, and two sets for Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. All three films manifest the standard American NSS set labeled as Western Hemi(sphere), and the international set labelled as Eastern Hemi(sphere) with no Guidance Rating, no NSS information, and the Broccoli and Saltzman credit reversed to read Saltzman first, then Broccoli. One can see the Eastern/International set experienced a resetting due again to different printers as, while the images are the same, they are slightly offset from their equivalent Western Hemi lobby card.
UK lobby card number 3 for the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun. All rights reserved.
The UK lobby cards for the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. All rights reserved.
Referencing the previously mentioned third lobby set for Diamonds Are Forever, there is some conjecture as to whether there has been a re-release set for this film, or if the printing duties at the time of the main release were simply shared between two unions. The Eastern Hemi set appears to have been printed by two separate unions, namely the GAU (Graphic Arts International Union) and LPIU (Lithographers and Photoengravers International Union). A printing company that was unionised would be authorized to use the union “bug,” also known as a “union logo,” to signify that the material was printed in a union shop. A union bug was, and still is, the property of a union, and not the company. To this end, one lobby set carries the GAU printer union logo which can be seen as a circle next to the "Litho in U.S.A", while the other set carries the LPIU printer union logo, which is diamond shaped.
LPIU became GAU in September of 1972. It is highly possible that since the film was released in December of 1971, these cards were just later printings for the first release of film. What seems to support this is that the Live and Let Die Western and Eastern Hemi sets also sport differing union logos.
The main sets for Moonraker (1979) and For Your Eyes Only are unremarkable in that they are nicely produced; indeed For Your Eyes Only is the only other main release set to include a crew scene showing Bond and Melina being given a helping hand over the edge of the boat for the keel hauling scene. What is worthy of mention however is that with these two films, MGM decided to experiment for the first and last time with paper lobbies of different content.
There were two Moonraker sets that came as part of a large sheet of paper including two posters and a set of eight ‘cards’. These were called an Advance 1 Stop Poster and the 1 Stop Poster; the first being released as a teaser, the other for the film’s release. The card designs on both 1 Stops were similar to each other in that the film title was centered and against a solid colour background. The card sizes were no longer 11x14; they were reduced to 9.5x12. The Advance 1 Stop held images all included in the final edit of the film and if comment were to be made of the two posters, then, they are basic. The later 1 Stop had a different set of ‘card’ images to the Advance and they happened also to be identical to the main release lobby card set. Again, for reasons of accurate and complete reportage, the two posters with the 1 Stop were final design 1 Sheets differing only in that the right hand poster displayed the credits on a white background.
The UK lobby cards for the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. All rights reserved.
For Your Eyes Only was represented by a total of three sets released at the same time. There were also two sets of large perforated sheets that cinema managers could tear up into 16 individual “cards”, the size still being 11x14. With these, there is less aspect given towards design, the images fill the majority of the space with the film title on a yellow background occupying the full width of the card at the bottom. These two sets were distinct from one another when still in their attached form by the number 1 and 2, bottom left of the sheet. Once they are split up to create the individual cards however, making that distinction for all but two of the 16 cards is not possible without reference. Set 1 was full of shots otherwise seen in most other forms of advertising. Set 2 has the more varied collection of shots plus a production shot of the bob sleigh chase whereby one can see that snow must have been shipped in to the set as the ‘out-of-camera frame’ surrounding scenery is positively verdant. A recently acquired Pressbook for this film that was produced for International Distribution Only confirms that these lobbies were designed for International English language use. It was previously a long held belief that the sets might have been Australian.
The US lobby cards for the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. All rights reserved.
With Octopussy (1983), the presentation is reverted to a generous and welcome full card sized image with just a small square bottom left or right for title and credits. One anomaly to this set is that the image of Moore and Adams kissing at the end of the film on the boat has been reversed; that is to say that Moore’s hair parting is now on the right as opposed to left. This was an often-recurring event in marketing that was sometimes committed for reasons of magazine page layout. Equally, it could have been a genuine error based on printing from a slide or transparency. The relationship between UA and Transamerica had come to an end when MGM bought United Artists. From Octopussy through to The World Is Not Enough (1989), the logo was that of MGM/UA.
The UK lobby cards for the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy. All rights reserved.
Again with A View to a Kill (1985), the image presentation is card sized with title and credits along the bottom. However, for this film production duties were shared, and indeed, duplicated. Until now, all the lobby cards were produced in the US. All cards were numbered 1-8 and used a quality heavy stock paper. At this point for reasons unknown, the UK had started to take over lobby card production duties and for this film, both the UK and the US created a set of eight. The UK card sets removed the NSS numbering and the paper stock was noticeably less impressive. As with the American lobbies using the same images as their FOH stills, the images used for the UK lobbies were identical to those used for the UK Front of House cards. This stopped when FOH still sets stopped being produced at the point of Licence to Kill (1989). The UK designs also included larger poster graphics and more cast and crew credits leading, much later in the series, to a rather frantic presentation. If comparing the US and UK cards depicting Bond on the Eiffel Tower, one can see that they are in fact two different shots taken perhaps a couple of seconds apart. The same can be said for the cards showing Mayday heave the Russian over her head.
The UK lobby cards for the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill. All rights reserved.
Special thanks:
Robert Bryan
Peter Lorenz
Lee Pfeiffer
Phil Lisa
Steve Oxenrider
Jon Ogar
Members at Movie Poster Forum (now defunct) and All Poster Forum
Text by Simon Firth. Copyright © 2025 From Sweden with Love. All rights reserved.
Editor's Note:
The author’s collection is the basis for this exclusive article series. Stay tuned for part II - the Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig eras of English-language lobby cards - to be published soon.
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