Headline · visual lockup

The pattern

This still is filed under Headline · visual lockup.

Define

Headline and picture are one sentence. Remove either half and the claim disappears.

Mechanism

Lockup. The line names what the image will not. The image shows what the line cannot. They are not redundant.

Verdict

We have a picture that completes a short line: wit, contrast, or a second meaning.

Why it works

The Arabic title promises two films in one, a commando and a lover, and the two photos deliver both halves: the star's tense face at the top and a beach embrace at the bottom. The word now showing and the cinema name sit above everything, so the reader knows where to go before he knows the plot. The star names, the studio badge and a note that it is in colour fill the frame of film sprockets that marks the box as a cinema ad.

The big idea

The Arabic title makes Up Periscope two films in one, The Commando in Love: the star's tense close-up gives the danger and the embrace below gives the romance.

The offer

Warner films present James Garner and Edmond O'Brien in Up Periscope, now showing at Cinema Rivoli, in WarnerScope and Technicolor.

The proof

Named Hollywood stars, James Garner and Edmond O'Brien, and the Warner Bros. badge.

Lines from the ad

الفدائى العاشق

The commando in love

"Up Periscope,"

وارنرسكوب ألوان تكنيكولور

WarnerScope, Technicolor

Steal this when

Use it when a product serves two appetites at once and a two-part name plus two matching pictures can promise both in a small space.

The emotion

Written to Excitement. It makes the Say move.

The title The Commando in Love promises two films, the tense close-up and beach embrace deliver both halves, and Now showing at Cinema Rivoli sits above everything.