French Antique-style title font from 1967’s “The 25th Hour”

Question

A great title sequence from 1967. Font is quite similar to Buffalo Western in the cap R, but differs significantly in the M and S. Never been able to pin this one down! Title designer was Jean Fouchet, who lived and worked in France, mostly on French language films, if that helps narrow down the search.

Answer 1

I think it’s Abilene. This phototype interpretation of a French Clarendon was shown by Lettergraphics in California in 1968, which seems to be a match in terms of time and place. It has that Q and R, and other details match, too. Attached is a glyph set as well as a showing in which I streteched the caps and numerals to 200% of their width. Note that the starting sample was pretty small. If you started from a larger size, I reckon that hairlines would stay thinner.

 

Comments

incredible — seems dead-on! thank you!

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You’re welcome!

It looks like you have good still images from the titles. If you can spare a couple of minutes, we sure wouldn’t mind having a quick post about this use on Fonts In Use.

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will do!

Answer 2

Looks like a squared-off version of Page Aldine, but the Q is all wrong.

 

The 25 could be mimicked with Playbill, which is also good for a number of other letters (still not a match for the Q or R, however).