Pressbooks (Horror, Sci Fi, Fantasy)

I know of two movie heralds made available for Forbidden Planet. Both feature Robby the Robot.  The theater would add its information on the last page.

Christopher Lee may have disliked how his famous count was being treated by Hammer, but each movie was always a treat for me to catch in the local movie theater. The 1970s were a great time for horror movies and conventions. Hammer, and especially Lee’s Count Dracula, were still the icing on the fandom cake. While Scars suffered from a lack of attention and commitment, it’s still a fun, bloody romp.

ComicRack reader version: Download Scars of Dracula Pressbook

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Scars of Dracula (1970) British PressbookRead More »

You can read a review of this Victory Pictures serial over at The Files of Jerry Blake. Unfortunately, looks like the pressbook is more exciting than the serial or movie versions. Seems a small budget and less creativity kept the pacing and action to a minimum. Bela Lugosi, as always, deserved better.

ComicRack reader version: Download Shadow of Chinatown Pressbook

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Shadow of Chinatown (1936) PressbookRead More »

John Stanley, in his Creature Features Strikes Again movie guide, wrote: “Fuzzy, unadjusted Bela Lugosi whodunit in which two brothers…are involved with development of TV. There’s also a death ray…” Death rays were all the rage in the 1930s. Television must have been very mysterious and wondrous back then. Now, you can watch “television” on your cell phone, which kind of kills the wondrous aspect of it as we’re so over-saturated with streaming content. We’re spoiled rotten. Now, if my cell phone had a death ray…well, I’d be staring at it in wonder. I don’t think anyone’s written about putting death rays in cell phones yet, so you heard it here first. Then again, what if you pressed the death ray button instead of the camera button? On second thought, death rays on cell phones may prove disastrous for selfies. But I digress. There’s an interesting article in this pressbook, Lugosi Make-Up Filmland Wonder. My guess is it’s a fluff piece someone thought up, but I don’t recall reading about Lugosi’s talents with makeup. Usually, Lon Chaney was the one often mentioned, who puttied around with–oh, look, a pun!–the greasepaint and collodion.

ComicRack reader version: Download Murder by Television Pressbook

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Murder by Television (1935) PressbookRead More »

The 1950s produced some very thrilling science fiction and some awful oddities. Here's one oddity: Cat-Women of the Moon. The pressbook is equally budget-conscious, but the limited color does make the beatnik-styled ladies a little more vampy. Judging by the lobby card shown below, it's a shame it wasn't shot in color. Green skin always puts the vamp in vampy, I always say. We all remember the dancing Orion slave girl in The Cage, the Star Trek pilot. Well, at least I remember it, anyway. Probably its only dubious importance, Cat-Women managed to usher in other let's-travel-to-another-planet-to-find-weird-women movies, as if there was a real audience-need for them. 

eComic reader version (I use ComicRack): Download Cat-Women of the Moon Pressbook

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Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) PressbookRead More »

It’s a shame that George Pal’s last movie had to be Doc Savage with Ron Ely. Ely was a good casting choice, but the movie was a misfire from script to execution. How one can take the precursor to Superman and not run with it boggles the mind. Chuck Connors was in consideration to play Doc back in 1966 and that would have been very interesting to see. Unfortunately the window of opportunity for that one passed and we have the 1975 campy abomination with the ear-slapping theme song and atrocious acting. Doc’s Fabulous Five are more Shabby Handful than their portrayals in the pulps. Poor production values also pounded more nails into its cinematic coffin, a far cry from when I, along with others, enthusiastically watched the trailer at one of Phil Seuling’s Comic Cons before the movie hit theaters.

Here’s the pressbook and herald. I’ll note the printing on this pressbook is fairly cheap, too. Both Arnold Schwarzenegger and The Rock were associated with a Doc Savage movie at some point, though nothing’s come of it. Hopefully Netflix or another streaming channel will develop a series, which is the best approach, for Doc Savage, and even The Shadow: they both have a lot of stories to tell.

Comic book reader version: Download Doc Savage Pressbook

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Doc Savage (1975) Pressbook and HeraldRead More »

Thanks to Terry Michitsch for again reaching into his collection and providing these wonderful scans of the American pressbook for Mysterious Island. With a rousing score by Bernard Herrmann, Herbert Lom providing the gravitas, and Ray Harryhausen's exciting stop-motion creations, this is a lively and colorful adventure.

Comic book reader version:  Download Mysterious Island Pressbook

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Mysterious Island (1961) PressbookRead More »

Thanks to Terry Michitsch for providing these wonderful scans of the American pressbook for The Invisible Boy. You can see the UK one here.

Bill Warren gives it the respect it deserves in his Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties. Somewhat a sequel to Forbidden Planet (well, if you do a lot of stretching in regards to Robby the Robot's presence, that is), the story is geared for young boys of the 1950s (who wouldn't want a powerful robot guardian, boy or girl?). Toss in an evil-thinking super computer that wants world domination and you have a boy just wanting to have fun, but he has to save the world too, which can be such a bother. His parents are eggheads, making it a bit difficult for him (he's just an average kid), and Robby, of course, must choose to become more than the sum of his diodes too. Definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it yet.

Read the comics reader version: Download Invisible Boy Pressbook.

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The Invisible Boy (1957) U.S. PressbookRead More »

Here's the colorful movie herald for The Invisible Boy and an ad copy insert sheet.  They wanted to recoup some of Robby the Robot's construction costs, so they tossed him in this one, with a boy and a maniacal computer looking to dominate the world (shades of the 1970s Forbin: The Colossus Project). These wonderful scans are courtesy of Terry Michitsch.