Now I know some of you are going to think this is absolutely stupid and completely billy bonkers, but the truth is I've only just been told about it myself, and of course I had to investigate, so I'm going to lay it on you anyway...

Apparently there's this either silly rumour or urban myth, that there's a Gents poster in An American Werewolf in London, the John Landis film from 1981.  No, I couldn’t believe it either, so your intrepid investigative reporter set about this one and here's what I've come up with:-

The story goes like this – it’s the very final scene in the film, it’s where they’ve got the werewolf blokie trapped up the end of a blind alley in London, the character played by Jenny Agutter, herself a good reason for watching a film regardless of the Gents posters on the wall.  She walks up towards it saying something like “Is that you, they’re going to kill you, you know” and she walks past these three or four posters flyposted on the wall and allegedly one of them is a Gents poster.

Right, anyway, so Kevin Turvey wannabe Simon gets onto yer Play.com and acquires this DVD of An American Werewolf in London, regardless of not being a horror aficionado, and sits there ready to analyse it.  Spin forward to final scene…

So, Jenny sets off up the alley (Jenny Agutter and back alleys, now there’s a thought), and yes, she does go past these poster type thingies and bugger me, they’re not really that in focus.  In the end there are two shots of Jenny and the posters, and the first one she’s sort of level with them and so therefore the depth of field on the camera has them more in focus as it’s focusing on her, and then the second shot is a bit more of a close-up and both Jenny and the posters are nearer, but she’s further past them so the camera focusing on her of course makes the posters less in focus than before.  Truth is, you can’t really tell.

Now I was told about this story by me old mate Steve Kendell, who said “I’ve seen the film a few times and I don’t think it is” and I went to see Steve Chambers and Glyn Davies last week and they had a split decision, Glyn saying no and Chambo saying yes.  What has given this story more credence over the years is the fact of many separate London fans saying to the band on different occasions “That American Werewolf film, there’s one of your posters in it”.

The known facts are these; American Werewolf was filmed in London in the latter part of 1980 and released in early 1981 and this was the time when the Gents were spending a lot of time playing London gigs in concentrated batches inbetween the clubs gigs at home.  It is furthermore known that during those London sorties, Paul Burton did spend some time paying amounts of cash in what we might call “under the carpet” dealings with very dodgy flyposter break-yer-legs type geezers, who then in fact did do the business and plastered areas of London with Gents posters.  So, the timeframe is pretty right and doesn’t contradict the other hearsay evidence.

However, the poster in question in the film clip is apparently the orange one right at the back of the four posters on the wall and so all we’ve got to go on are the edges exposed under the other posters.  It’s certainly something that someone like me, who has never seen the London Gents posters in question would be able to come to an objective opinion on.

All we really have to go on is the evidence of the band re the reports received and their opinions and the fact that they say that the orange poster is pretty identical in style (the bits we can actually see) to the Gents posters that Paul paid dodgy money to have flyposted.

Obviously, for your delectation and delight, I’ve done a couple of screenshots and to help you they are reproduced below.  I fear you're not going to get very far with any magnifying glass type analysis because hi-res photos can't realistically be put on a website can they!  To be honest, the only way we could reach any state of conclusive convincedness is if one of you guys came up with either one of those posters or at least a picture of one...

So, Gents posters up Jenny Agutter’s back alley…were’d truth or urban myth?  You decide…