STAN FREBERG HERE...Saul Bass Remembered
Stan Freberg here. We lost a great graphic designer not long ago, most famous for being the first one to make movie titles as interesting as the movie itself: Saul Bass, my personal friend for 39 years. More on Saul, in a minute. [:60 SPOT BREAK]
Freberg again. For years, movie titles appeared as boring lines of typography, title after title. Saul Bass changed all that. Starting with a series of movies for Otto Preminger - the jagged arm in "The Man With The Golden Arm," a cat walking along a fence for "A Walk On The Wild Side," and "Advise and Consent," in which he lifted up the dome of the Capitol, and inserted the titles in the hinged space.
Bass created a new genre: titles that were as interesting, and in some cases more interesting, than the picture itself. He did "West Side Story," "Spartacus" and "Exodus": for "Mad, Mad World," he put the credits at the end of the movie. He and his designer wife, Elaine Bass, won an Oscar for the short subject, "Why Man Creates."
The New York Times recently referred to Saul as, "...the man who invented the opening credit sequence as a free-standing 'movie before a movie,' and elevated it into an art." You can say that again.
He was a total design genius who designed everything from Kleenex boxes to my letterhead, featuring "The Great Seal of Freberg, Ltd." I'm proud to have known Saul Bass personally for almost 40 years, and to have called him my friend.
We'll miss you, Saul.
Stan Freberg here.
Copyright (C)1996, Stan Freberg/Freberg, Ltd. (but not very) Distributed by Dick Brescia Associates and Radio Spirits, Inc.