Women Who Make Movies by Sharon Smith
Hardcover edition.
“Sharon Smith’s Women Who Make Movies is an important and timely reference book, the only one of its kind, and it is indispensable to anyone seriously interested in women in film, or in film itself.” — Molly Haskell, Film Critic
The cover uses a film typeface of unclear origin that closely resembles Dave West’s Behemoth Clarendon Italic Swash (PLINC, c. 1967), but is different in many details. It’s shown as Stymie Black Italic in a 1973 Typeshop catalog alongside a Drop Shadow variant, both with numerous swash, biform, and swash biform alternates (up to nine forms for a letter like M, three of which can be seen here). The same range is shown in a 1976 catalog by Lettergraphics as Stymie Black Flair. There’s no real connection to Stymie beyond the name. Tutti Paffuti NF (Nick’s Fonts, 2007) is a digital interpretation.
Paperback edition.
Glyph set from an undated (ca. 1977) Typeshop Selection catalog.
3 Comments on “Women Who Make Movies by Sharon Smith”
Thanks so much, Florian! Look at that 'S’ on the end!
I started working on a project with the Stymie Black Italic and it took me a while to notice, but I figured out it’s extremely strange that it doesn’t have any lower case x.
I’m sure the font does have a lowercase x, as well as non-swash forms for wyz. It’s just that these glyphs weren’t included in that showing. Maybe it was an oversight, maybe they ran out of space. Or it was omitted on purpose, as an anti-piracy measure. The default y is included in the first line, in “Stymie”. I’ll check if I can find another, more complete showing.