From the deep archives of Professor Kinema comes this Mr. Sardonicus Punishment Poll card. While the images are large, the card is small. Really small. You can easily fit it in the palm of your hand with room to spare. But size has nothing to do with coolness, and this card is cool. The thumbs up or down, depending on how you hold up the card, glows in the dark. Another one of William Castle’s clever audience participation gimmicks, movie goers would choose which way the thumb pointed–mercy or no mercy–during Mr. Castle’s prompting at the film’s end. Which would you have chosen?
Mr. Sardonicus Punishment Poll Thumbs Down!
Mr. Sardonicus Punishment Poll Thumbs Up!
I am sorry that Castle only filmed one ending knowing that in its era no audience would vote that Sardonicus was innocent.
I think my cards were printed by Kit Parker Films as they are larger but don’t flow in the dark. What a find.
In the film spot, Castle holds up a larger card. For theaters, they probably had a few variations. A larger card without the glow in the dark hand would be cheaper to produce in bulk, I’m sure. Maybe later runs of the movie across theaters had them distribute less expensive cards.