Digging deep into the closet, I found this promotional brochure from Turner International for the animated Wizard of Oz (1990) television series. It is a simple pop-up when you open it, but eye-catching, nonetheless. I am a big fan of pop-up books (and who isn't?). In this animated version (and there were actually quite a few animated versions), Dorothy returns to OZ and kicks it up with old and new friends (and enemies).
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I caught House of Wax 3D during the 1971 re-release in theaters. While I love both the original Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray Mystery of the Wax Museum and this Vincent Price remake, with both having excellent directors, Price just makes it all the more fun along with the 3D effects. That voice of his is so mellifluous while his character is at his most dangerous, it's all quite disarming and alarming at the same time. Charles Bronson's brutish handyman provides the best and most surprising 3D effect ever done too. Now this should be re-released again in theaters, for sure. What's really eye-popping in this pressbook are the theater lobby and poster displays to sell the 3D.
Version for your comics reader app: Download House of Wax 3D
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At 32 pages, and 15 x 12.5 inches in format, this is quite a pressbook for promoting The Cat and the Canary horror comedy with Paulette Goddard and Bob Hope. The amount of articles, poster art, newspaper ads, and promo gimmicks is astounding. There's a Cat (the villain) mask, cast teaser board, lobby displays, ready to run newspaper adverts, pre-publicity for Paulette Goddard, great poster art, and what's really cool, the shout-outs to classic horror stars.
Comic reader format: Download The Cat and the Canary
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This bit of campaign promotion came with the Cat and the Canary pressbook. El-Wyn, a magician, was the first to realize that putting in seance-related spookiness into a regular magic show, done after hours, would generate buzz and bucks. In 1929, his Midnight Spook Party captured audiences looking for chills and fun. Spook Shows lasted for decades until television and horror hosts took the buzz to the boob tube. Cardone (read my review), a contemporary magician, is keeping the tradition alive.
In another instance where the pressbook is more exciting and thought out than the movie, The Neanderthal Man is not much to look at, with awful dialog and cheesy effects. Bill Warren, in his Keep Watching the Skies!, also notes how seeing Robert Shayne (Inspector Henderson on the 1950s Superman television series with George Reeves) must have made the kids do a double-take in their theater seats as he played the naughty professor. Do you sense a theme here? Crazy scientist pushing dangerous theory, harms people while making it his career goal, and creates a nightmare for everyone around him? Ah, the 1950s. Between the possible atomic extermination, monstrous mutation extermination, and alien creatures extermination, it's a wonder we survived the ravages of science run amok. Well, so far, anyway. Now I expect the AI movie cycle to begin, and the Terminator franchise to be reborn. How about a nice game of tic-tac-toe intead?
Here's the CBZ format for your comic book reader: Download The Neanderthal Man Pressbook
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Courtesy of fellow lover of the fantastic, Terry Mitchitsch, comes these scans of The Valley of Gwangi pressbook. Cowboys and dinosaurs, what's not to love? This movie marks Ray Harryhausen's final dinosaur stop-motion work. Like King Kong, the finding of an allosauros, they name Gwangi, leads to commercial exploitation, then mayhem. Perhaps the script would have been better if they just stuck with one lone dinosaur instead of having a bunch of them show up. That really doesn't work much, sensibly, except to give Harryhausen more skillful work. A lone dinosaur would have been more emotionally focused. But it's still not a bad movie and would actually make for a neat remake (sans the extra dinosaurs ;). Interesting to note that Willis O'Brien, who wrote the original script, Valley of the Mists, had only one dinosaur too (according to the Wiki). Check out the Beast of Hollow Mountain, another cowboys and dinosaurs movie.
This pressbook is rather basic, but still filled with some interesting promotional items that include a coloring contest and Gwangi Goodie Kit. You also have Richard Carlson and James Franciscus, so not too shabby.
ComicRack and YacReader version: Download Valley of Gwangi
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Thanks to fellow movie and Ray Harryhausen fanatic Terry Michitsch, here's the theater herald to The Valley of Gwangi. Wikipedia has a nice write-up on this movie, which mentions that whenever an episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King (a 1980s tv show) showed a television playing, The Valley of Gwangi was on the screen. We've seen cowboys and aliens on the big screen (a stinker, unfortunately), but seeing cowboys and dinosaurs again wouldn't be too shabby if done right.
Name the top classic horror actors and Peter Lorre must be included in that list. Those eyes, that voice. Standing still he looked sinister. Here's the pressbook for The Beast with Five Fingers. Don't miss his Stranger on the Third Floor (1940). I always get a chuckle out of the theater lobby promotions that included first aid stations, with fake nurses standing by to either give you a stress test or call the ambulance afterwards. I'm not so sure we've gone beyond the ballyhoo hokum; maybe just moved it online instead. Would be fun, though, to have a nicely old theater do the full monte for a midnight horror show, complete with fake nurses. One interesting tidbit, if true: Singing Waiters Group Honor Former Associate: Rober Alda "was once the youngest singing waiter in America…at the Old Barn in Brownsville, Brooklyn."
ComicRack and YakReader version: Download The Beast with Five Fingers 1946
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The Corpse Vanishes is often described as a weird movie. Probably, given to the Monogram budget, made weirder due to the lowest common denominator production values. Yes, a cheapie done quickly; yes, a slow burner; yes, the editing needed a bit more oomph (okay, more than a bit; and that's at a running time of 63 minutes). Bela Lugosi, however, delivered his usually interesting mad-scientist performance and the staging is other worldly due to dialog and blocking that's either undercooked or overdone. But there's something about Bela Lugosi that is always watchable and, especially with the stern, sinister, face of Elizabeth Russell (Cat People, Return of the Cat People, The Seventh Victim) adding to the glum proceedings, the hour goes by with limited eye-rolls (for me, anyway). There's something to be said for Monogram's poverty row horrors, which range from say what? to what did I just watch? that captures the 1940s like no other movie from that period does. With Angelo Rossito (all 34 inches of him) tossed into the mix (well, maybe 'tossed' is the wrong word to use around small persons, but you know what I mean), and Minerva Urecal adding the criminal element that she brings so well, I recommend you catch the blu ray for this movie or the MST3K laugh-fest version. I also point you to reading Poverty Row Horrors! by Tom Weaver, which covers the Monogram, PRC, and Republic horrors of the 1940s for more information on this notable category of horror cinema. While I don't always agree with Weaver's critical assessments, he does provide a lot of background information of interest.
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Here is a 14.25 x 21.5 inches Belgian poster for I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. The room left at the top allowed local theaters to add their promotional information. Not particularly rare, but a great illustration nonetheless. Below it is a bit of fun with a scene from the movie.
Unfortunately, without the boffo effects of today, this serial pales in comparison to today's superhero magnum opuses. But the characters are still endearing and it must have been quite exciting to see your favorite comic book hero on the big screen for those young audiences. More of a budget would have helped a lot, too. I wish I had a lot of those tie-ups for my collection.
ComicRack and YacReader version: Download Atom Man vs Superman pressbook
Fly over to to see more pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.
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Okay, so what if a young Joe Dante panned Cry of the Werewolf in an issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Sure, the poster art is the best thing about this movie, but at least you can read the Scary Wolf-Woman On Vegetable Diet for a laugh, anyway, on page 6.
ComicRack: Download Cry of the Werewolf
Don’t cry! You can paw your way over to more pressbooks from Zombos’ Closet.
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