Azteca/Mexican Lobby Cards

Here’s the Doc Savage (El Hombre de Bronce!) Mexican lobby card for the George Pal low budget and campy movie that didn’t properly envision the popular pulp hero who was the forerunner to the modern superhero. Ron Ely was a perfect choice, however, to play the man of bronze. Clark ‘Doc’ Savage Jr. was the first to have a Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic wastes, a place where he pursued his polymathic learning and meditations. Rich like Bruce Wayne, Doc lived on the 86th floor of a New York skyscraper and had five expert friends (a lawyer, an industrial chemist, an archeologist, an electrical wizard, and a construction engineer) to aide him on his adventures. His stories appeared in Street and Smith Publications, on radio, and in the comics during the 1930s and 1940s. Doc’s popularity faded for a while until Bantam re-issued their 1930s paperbacks beginning in 1969 with the awesome James Bama covers. The newfound interest for pulp heroes and serial movies pervaded the 1970s comic conventions and monster magazines too, leading to new fans discovering his exciting adventures.

Nothing like a little action to kick off your Monday. These Mexican lobby cards reuse the original poster art, but they are still action-packed!

Santo and the Royal Eagle (Santo y el Aguila Real) is a beautiful card with its illustration and title text and coloration overall, which uses the poster art for the movie. Irma Serrano (La Tigressa) had quite a career in Mexican cinema and politics, and started her film career with Samson vs. the Zombies with El Santo (cited from her Wikipedia article).

In My Favorite Brunette (El Gran Detective), Bob Hope plays a baby-photographer who dreams of being like Alan Ladd, who happens to be the detective next door. Hope gets his wish and mayhem ensues,  with Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. added for menacing atmosphere. Bosley Crowther, the New York Times executioner–er, critic–actually liked this one. And hell wasn’t frozen over either. The last time I caught this movie was on a black and white tv. It’s a lot of fun and filled with typical Bob Hope tics and antics. This simple Mexican lobby card plays up the draw for this movie: Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

Not to be confused with 1950’s Una Hora de Vida, this Mexican lobby card is for Tokyo Joe with Humphrey Bogart. His shirt is unbuttoned and his gun is ready for action in this small but intriguing movie entry. Bogart could play the super tough guy like Sam Spade or the everyman–or average Joe–depending on the script. This movie was the first to be filmed in post-war Japan (ah, those wonderful TCM notes), and the second unit director, Arthur Black, had quite a time of it on location. Between a week’s rain delaying shooting and the army supplying a different “Bogart” every day, he had to make due as best he could. Sessue Hayakawa’s return to the screen had him as the menacing villain.

This Mexican lobby card for Las Lobas (Les Louves 1957) is striking in its layout. The illustration, the inset scene, and the text is beautifully presented.

This Mexican lobby card for Bride of Frankenstein (La Novia de Frankenstein) was issued in recent years for a film festival in Mexico. The artwork is very reminiscent of carnival sideshow canvas paintings that hung outside of exhibits along the midway.

Here’s a wonderfully evocative Mexican lobby card for 1954’s Ulysses with Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Rossana Podesta, and Silvana Mangano (Dune, 1984). I like the menacing cyclops at the lower right: that would be the must-see enticement for me for sure. Also cool is the way Princess Nausicaa’s hair falls across the inset scene. Lots of action and romance showing in the lobby for the movie.

Intended as a sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965), but re-edited to a point where it lost that connection, The War of the Gargantuas (La Guerra de los Gorillas) was rated a “bomb” by Leonard Maltin in his Movie and Video Guide. Remember those paper movie reference guides? But Stuart Galbraith IV in his Japanese Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films book disagrees. He says “despite a much less interesting storyline [than Frankenstein], War of the Gargantuas is silly fun and underserving of the “BOMB” rating…War of the Gargantuas may not be very good but it’s never boring…while hardly one of Toho’s best efforts, War of the Gargantuas is entertaining, and holds up well today.”

You be the judge. He goes on to mention how the monster suits were more mobile than the rubber reptiles and that the actors “could see and express themselves with their own eyes, rather than electronically controlled ping pong balls.” Russ Tamblyn had hit the skids in his career by the time he did this movie. Galbraith mentions that Bill Warren told him that, according to Tamblyn, the dialog track went missing so Tamblyn had to redub his lines without the benefit of the script.