By Design: The Joe Caroff Story

I was very excited to watch this documentary to actually get into the mind of the man/people who designed some of the most iconic posters of the 20th century. I have to agree with the reviewer who said it's a bit slow and on the dull side.

How did his company grow and where did he find his people? How did his family grow and where are his children and possible grandchildren now? Are they in the business?

SO many questions that went unasked and therefore, unanswered.

I did appreciated when he gave insight into the posters that he did do and why. If only there had been a bit more of that.

However, it is still a documentary worth the watch. You'll learn a lot you didn't know!

Joe Caroff is going to turn 102 in a month or two, but that's not why he got a documentary about him. Caroff designs images: the striking red and black poster for WEST SIDE STORY, the '007' that becomes a gun for the franchise, the skyscraper typeface for Woody Allen's MANHATTAN, and many, many more.

In contrast to the auteur theory of cinema, I have long insisted it is an intensively collaborative medium. This documentary casts light on a small but important corner of it: the fellow who designs the posters and logos and such, whose work gives you your very first impression of what you will spend money for. By offering a series of them, you can gain an idea of the importance of the man's work.

All that is good, but that's the the limit of the excellence of this movie. Like an old-time Tin Pan Alley composer on tour, saying "And then I wrote...." and playing the next tune, Caroff has some brief, unilluminating thoughts on the subject, and then goes on to the next bit of design. He's a a guy I want to know more about, how his mind works, how he comes up with these ideas, how I can do it too. In the end, like a SF writer asked where he gets his ideas from, and replying "Schenectady", Caroff's response is "the subconscious."

This is a documentary about the life and work of an engaging, intelligent, extremely talented artist that is, alas, a bit on the dull side. Perhaps that is because, apart from the great movie posters Caroff designed and drew, there is nothing about this fellow's long, successful, and seemingly happy life to grab the viewer. Thus the posters take center stage, which is fine except that once you've seen them then that's really it. I mean, it's not as if Caroff gives us much insight into the creation of them aside from a perfunctory line or two about making the "Manhattan" poster mirror the Manhattan skyline or the 007 poster rendering the 7 into a gun. Nor does he provide us with interesting anecdotes about the films his posters advertise or the people with whom he worked other than that Woody Allen is a cold fish, which we already know, and Sean Connery practiced his golf swing on the set of "A Bridge Too Far". Not exactly Joan Collins stuff, to take just one example of a non dull show biz documentary subject.

Bottom line: An honest poster of this doc would, I am afraid, feature a buncha zzzz's. C plus.

PS... Caroff was 101 when this thing was made. Amazing. Guy has all his marbles (and then some) plus he looks younger than I am and I'm in my early seventies. I'll have whatever he's eating. Or drinking.