Le Démon des Femmes (1968) — Novak / Aldrich — French Poster 120x160

This original French cinema poster for Le Démon des Femmes, printed for the film’s 1968 release in France, captures the fevered eroticism and pulp melodrama of Robert Aldrich’s American psychodrama The Legend of Lylah Clare. Designed in the standard grande affiche format (120 x 160 cm), this is a preserved piece of cinematic advertising, folded as originally distributed to French theatres.

The visual treatment is pure provocation: a sensuous, airbrushed illustration of Kim Novak, all tousled peroxide and parted lips, rendered in painterly tones of peach, crimson, and aqua. It’s both lurid and poised — the aesthetic of vintage exploitation elevated by scale and bold graphic control. This image doesn’t just sell a film; it performs it, staging the mythic persona of the self-destructive starlet at the centre of Aldrich’s film. The French retitling — Le Démon des Femmes — reframes the narrative in sharper psychological terms, suggesting possession, danger, and seduction in equal measure.

A textbook example of late-60s poster art at the intersection of eroticism, trauma and myth, and a perfect document of how American cinema was reimagined in French cultural space.

Technical Sheet

Title: Le Démon des Femmes

Artist / Author: Robert Aldrich (director)

Date: 1968

Technique / Printing Method: Offset lithograph

Medium / Materials: Folded cinema poster on paper

Dimensions (cm): 120 x 160

Language: French

Condition: Vintage, original folds, otherwise excellent

Publisher / Editor: MGM / Metrocolor (France distribution)

Printed in France for the 1968 theatrical release