Pressbooks (Non-Horror)

Mickey Spillane wasn’t too happy with how Richard Aldrich’s movie version of his book turned out. Mike Hammer wasn’t nice at all, the dangerous and deadly something in the car trunk proved too hot to handle, and the downbeat storyline spiralling into worse makes Kiss Me Deadly quite an unnerving, unsavory, and brutal experience, permeated with existential fear. Perfect! You want film noir? This is the darkest you’ll come across. Ralph Meeker is brutal. The pressbook may play up the dames angle for all it’s worth, but the movie’s not about dames. It’s about death, violence, and more death. The deadly macguffin in the car trunk would be purloined by Repo Man (1984) with a less violent and fatal wind up.

ComicRack reader version: Download Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

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Ah, the good old days, when promotion contests were all about the beautiful dames in movies. Well, maybe not so good with all that objectification of women in the movies of the time. They were either angels or devils, and the men on screen always had trouble telling the difference. At least in film noir the women usually gave as good (or bad) as they got. Are women more dangerous? You be the judge. As film noir goes, this one may be too much for you to handle. Are you hardboiled enough to take it?

ComicRack reader version: Download Decoy (1946) Pressbook

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Having just watched Murder is My Beat with Barbara Payton, I couldn’t resist posting this pressbook for Trapped, with her and Lloyd Bridges. As soon as I can find the Murder is My Beat pressbook I’ll post that one too. Film noir, like horror, requires a refined taste for classy and deadly dames, hardboiled stamina and worn-shoes detectives, and star-crossed victims. Horror, of course, abounds with star-crossed victims. Trapped helped her into the spotlight, followed by an ample contract after her performance in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. Sadly, her presence in Bride of the Gorilla didn’t boost her career, although her co-star, Raymond Burr, fared much better. A lot of bad relationships, drinking, and drugs trapped her into a downward spiral.

ComicRack reader version: Download Trapped (1949) Pressbook

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There are horror films and then there are horrors films. Taxi Driver is a horrors film. The horrors of a Travis Bickle, a walking wounded lifer, looking for meaning in all the meaningless places. Is he pushed or does he push himself to become a knight in shining armor, to channel his frustration against helplessness? Vigilantism was a cinematic peg hole for 1970s New York City. Between the crime, grime, and gaffiti, knights are hard to come by but often hoped for. Here’s the 20-page pressbook for the movie, with many pages devoted to newspaper poster ads. By the 1970s, most pressbooks focused on the newspapers to sell the movie with poster ads; when people actually read newspapers.

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First filmed in 1925, Zane Grey's novel, Code of the West, was again filmed in 1947. Here's the two-fisted pressbook.  

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Here’s a pressbook for the pre-code serial, King of the Wild (for a re-release in 1945) with Boris Karloff.  I added some lobby cards too.

Comic book reader version: Download King of the Wild 1931 Pressbook

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Bob Steele’s look could play sinister, innocent or comedic roles. From the cold-blooded killer in The Big Sleep (1946) to the only survivor of the Alamo, Trooper Duffy , in F Troop.

Comic book reader version: Download Smoky Trails Pressbook

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The Stranger from Pecos was the second movie in Monogram’s Marshal Nevada Jack Mckenzie franchise, starring Johnny Mack Brown. Brown appeared on Wheaties boxes and in comic books and roped in well over a hundred movies before he passed away in 1974.

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