In my illustration/ cartoon career I only ever did one movie poster that was used. I did one or two others that did not get beyond the rough stage. I had the call from a large ad agency to go in and see an art director and writer to discuss the brief. There was none. I’d been invited to see the film in a viewing theatre belonging to the large film company that had made the film and spent a vary enjoyable afternoon laughing a lot at the tale of a house purchase by a young couple, in the States, that had everything go wrong with the make-over it desperately needed.

After watching the film an executive of the company handed me a wedge of photographs taken on set and said, by way of a briefing: “the star of this movie is the staircase”.

I could understand why. They’d spent a fortune on a hydraulic staircase that would collapse as the young buyer ran up the stairs, and although the actor was almost unknown then they did not want the young Tom Hanks to get hurt. And they no doubt wanted to take more than one take. Hence the hydraulic staircase.

As he runs up the collapsing staircase he grabs for the landing and manages to grip the edge, until his panic stricken wife: the young starlet Shelley Long, came running out of the bedroom and stands on his knuckles.

You can see from this the sort of film it was, slapstick meets Grand Designs gone wrong.

As the exec handed over the photos I had a feeling of dread on what exactly I was going to do. I do not do likenesses and I made it clear that I did not. So no drawings of Hanks and Long. As for the art director of the ad agency, he just said: “Do what you like mate”. Thus saving him from making any effort.

As with all these bigger projects, this was the ad campaign for Europe only, I did some rough ideas and sent them off. They chose one and I went to work on the final drawing. It eventually got into print, but I never liked it. I almost denied it in fact as I disliked what I’d done for it so much. That aside the ad agency were happy enough and I assume the client was. I did not feature the staircase, though in retrospect now I wish I had. It was some relief to me that they plastered the whole drawing with type and text for the final poster, so most of my handiwork was hidden.

I still have the rough, and in common with a lot of drawings I think it’s better than the very final drawing. Here it is below.Found in a plans chest drawer and suffering from some considerable fading as I did all my artwork in those days in magic marker, which fades even if kept in the dark.

If you get the chance to see The Money Pit, I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s my only claim to fame in the film world. I lost quite a bit of sleep over it, so perhaps just as well that it was my only film credit.

My handiwork here was eventually plastered with type and credits for the film, though this is the rough the final was nowhere near like this. You can still find it on the internet, if you really want to but my version is thankfully stored in a corner of the web, not exactly dark web, but not very bright.It’s here: https://www.pastposters.com/cw3/assets/product_expanded/JamieF-AST/money-pit-cinema-quad-movie-poster-(1).jpg