Azteca/Mexican Lobby Cards

Another in-your-face illustration from Spanish artist Aguirre. This one is for The Invisible Ghost (El Asesino Invisible) with Bela Lugosi. While it may be a Monogram cheapie, it has an oddity to it, mostly due to Lugosi's presence and his character's psychological menace and ambiguity. The story is more involved than the usual Poverty Row pictures Lugosi starred in, and has a nice level of creepiness to it that makes this worth watching. Notice the illustration for this lobby card  draws from Lugosi's Dracula persona, with blood dripping hands, fangs, and bats flittering about (even with his bat-like wings in the background). Not sure why he's sporting a goatee, but it does make this visage especially menacing to pique interest in seeing the movie.

Here's a large (16.5 x 24) Mexican lobby for a Bomba marathon. The classic pulp style illustration shows Tarzan and no Bomba, but fear not; Bomba appears in the inset photo. Even the title says "son of Tarzan." Bomba isn't even top banana in his own movie promotion. At least the card, although cobbling previous illustrations together to save money, shows some style with the lettering and colors, and the layout all bad either, though they did chop into the background without a care.  

I admit I'm stumped with this one. The inset photo reminds me of a scene in Frankenstein 1970, but the rather wild, contemporary-ish, illustration doesn't quite click with any movie I can think of that remotely matches the title. With the little Frankie in the bottom left corner, I'm also thinking Amicus' Asylum, especially with the "color" mention. What do you think?

Update! Many thanks to Eustáquio Nardini for naming the movie, Frankenstein on Campus (aka Flick, 1970). IMDb's rating is pretty low for this Canadian entry. One user review states "A largely forgotten little Canadian film, and definitely a product of its era, FLICK/DR. FRANKENSTEIN ON CAMPUS is a 'turned-on' sexploitation/horror/counterculture oddity which is often referred to as "one of the worst ever" by people who most likely haven't seen it. Truth is, it's not nearly as bad as legend illustrates, but it does have a frustrating self-composure uncommon to the praxis of sex-infused horror cinema, and therefor comes off feeling somewhat like a chaperoned date."

Well, I'll bite. It is on YouTube so I will take a look. You never know. At least the lobby card is colorful. Thanks again, Eustáquio.

There was definitely a fascination with white people (especially sexy men or women in skimpy clothes) fighting the perils of the jungle during the cinema of the 1930s through 1950s. On the one hand, there is the notion of city-dwelling people learning to surmount the raw, alien nature in the foliage; on the other, there's the inescapable air of superiority from the white interlopers looking to exploit anything and everything they could get their hands on. Especially over the more "primitive" people native to the landscape, who are only good for carrying the baggage or running around scared or flinging spears at every opportunity. I find the movies still entertaining, but within the context of their time and a few grains of salt.

This Mexican lobby card for White Huntress pretty much follows the original poster art, but with more action and color. Who doesn't like watching blond-haired women fighting pythons?

Evil scientist. Weird-looking robot. Annoyed mummy. I'm all in. the Azteca lobby cards are simply beautiful, with vivid colors (though usually by accident, I think), an actual photo pasted to the card, and a nifty awkward balance between illustration, font, and scene to sell the movie to theater audiences. These smaller (11 inches by 14 inches) cards were distributed by Azteca Film Inc. for Spanish-language theaters in the United States. Typical Mexican lobby cards varied in sizes, with 12.5 inches by 16 inches a common one. See more cards at this Dangerous Minds article, and at Collectors Weekly.

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. There are skeleton men and man-eating dinosaurs to contend with in Jungle Manhunt. That looks like one mad chimp too, so Jungle Jim has his hands full in this one.

This 13.75 x 28.25 inches poster-sized Mexican Lobby card for The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (El Llanero Solitario y La Ciudad Perdida de Oro, 1958), is exciting, colorful, and certainly makes me want to see the movie. While the Lone Ranger is considered too corny now for a decent revival in cinema, growing up watching him on television, with George Reeves' Superman, was fun. The travesty of Johnny Depp playing Tonto (originally done by Jay Silverheels) as a weird joke is unforgivable. What's weird and corny about two people seeking and working together for justice? One of Jay Silverheels' homes was in Brooklyn, off of Bay Parkway, just a little ways from where I was growing up in Bensonhurst. I often passed his house with the beautiful window displaying his Native American pride. I don't recall him doing conventions–at least not the ones that I attended in the 1970s.

Exciting illustration and inset scene makes this Mexican lobby card for Tarzan en El Silencio De La Muerte, an eye-grabber. Interestingly, there's archive footage of Jock Mahoney, who also played Tarzan, to help lessen the budget, even though this movie was already edited from two episodes of Ron Ely's 1960s Tarzan television series. Is it me, or does that lion look a bit like the ID Beast from Forbidden Planet?

Here's a rather large, 15.5 x 22.5 inches, Mexican lobby card for Tarzan's Desert Mystery movie (Tarzan el Temerario). What differentiates this from being a small poster instead of a lobby card is the inset movie scene. Interestingly, the inset scene is about the only thing from the movie on this lobby. The other scenes appear to be illustrations taken from various sources, but not ones based on the movie. These types of lobbies were printed on slick, thinner paper, and are for later runs of the movie in theaters.

A particularly anger-laden illustration for I Killed Geronimo makes this Mexican lobby card intense. Being this movie was filmed in 1950, the story makes the Indians the bad guys for buying rifles to protect themselves from the encroaching land grabbers, and the cavalry rides to the rescue eventually. Many of the action scenes were lifted from Stagecoach.

The Fantomas movies are pretty wild and fun to watch. This Mexican lobby card captures the mystery and, through its use of cartoonish illustration, keeps the mood light.

Here are three of the giant lobby cards (larger than the usual jumbo-sized 12.5 x 16.5 inches) for Los Vampiros de Coyoacan. Wonderful hodge-podge of horror elements comprises this layout.