Not sure the below link counts as a DVD cover but as it was
made by MGM as part of their godawful VHS releases in 1995, I guess it's
justified. If this E mail is read by Lee Pfeiffer, he'll know about how
badly Bond has been mistreated by DVD artwork, so you could pick almost
any of the cut-and-paste-head-jobs as examples (specifically in the
absolutely dire booklets that came with the 1999 Special Edition
DVDs,which often replaced people's heads onto different bodies, reversed
pictures, mistook pics from one film for another - such as having pics
from 1983's Never Say Never Again in the booklet for 1967's You Only Live
Twice! - and even enlarged the pistols from tiny little Walther PPKs to
huge scary looking Die Hard style 9mm things!)
Anyway, this is
hilariously bad and sums up the Death by Photoshop attitude MGM had at the
time.
Dan Gale
Retro Responds: Thanks, Dan-- although it isn't a DVD cover, the same image was indeed used on the VHS issue at the time. For the record, the photo of Roger Moore originated as a publicity still from Live and Let Die, though they've done more filtering of his facial features than Joan Rivers has ever experienced. I do recall the infamous Never Say Never Again photo on the box for You Only Live Twice. I had some dealings with MGM at the time and when I brought it to their attention, they panicked because they did not even own the rights to Never Say Never Again at the time and there was bewilderment about how the photo even ended up in their archive. My favorite blunder is the MGM laser disc for Dr. No that featured a prominent photo of Adolfo Celi from Thunderball on the back cover. Apparently, MGM never had to send the final sleeve art to Eon Productions for approval, thus lower-level management could sign off on these masterworks of cheesy art. Thankfully, saner heads seem to be prevailing in recent years. Though most DVD sleeves are bland and uncreative, they have cut down on the number of embarrassing bloopers. - Lee Pfeiffer