A Monogram studio B movie, Allotment Wives notably starred Kay Francis, Otto Kruger, and Paul Kelly. From the poverty row studio that brought us wonderful pop culture Bs like Charlie Chan, the Bowery Boys, Bela Lugosi’s weird but wonderful horrors, and more than a tumbling tumble-weeds’ worth of westerns, came this military insurance scam film noir. Kay Francis was the highest paid actress for Warner Brothers of the 1930s, after a successful run at Paramount. When she openly disagreed with the quality of the work she was getting from Warner Brothers, they relegated her to the backlot for speaking out. Picture deals became harder to find and she eventually signed with Monogram. The term ‘poverty row’ evolved from the smaller B movie studios that produced movies during the 1920s through 1950s, with a lot less money, lesser known actors (or known actors on a downward spiral), and production schedules that didn’t allow for retakes and elaborate staging. But many of those movies remain endearing to movie fans today, especially this one. This pressbook is a more prestigious example of a Monogram pressbook mostly due to Kay Francis’s presence.
Producer Herman Cohen, Jess Conrad, Claire Gordon, and Konga.
KONGA! Yep, I go ape every time I think of this movie!
It hadn’t been since 1933 when King Kong came out that the screen had exploded with such mighty fury and spectacle or so the posters exclaimed. The boys at American International Pictures went all out in hyping this movie, creating awesome poster art and an over-the-top marketing campaign. Speaking of posters, the 40×60 inches (ZC Note: also known as the bus stop or subway poster) is spectacular. In fact, seeing that particular poster in the snack bar lobby of the Parkway Drive-in was what caused my nephew, Crazy Gary, to start collecting movie posters.
Although not nearly as good and awe inspiring as King Kong or Mighty Joe Young, Konga does have its moments. The split-screen visual effects are good, the miniatures are excellent, the music exciting, and the performances adequate. Michael Gough (pronounced “Goff”), as Dr. Charles Decker, is his usual maniacal driven self.
The movie is interesting, although rather slow-paced to begin with. It isn’t until Konga is injected with a super dose of growth serum and bursts out of Decker’s house that the movie really takes off. His walk through the streets of London with Decker in hand is really impressive. I especially like actor Paul Stockman’s eye movements as the giant Konga.
The radio spots, released on a 7-inch, 45 rpm record, are interesting and full of excitement, although they paint a more stupendous picture than the movie actually delivers. But, no matter: The last fifteen minutes provide enough “fury and spectacle” to make for an enjoyable experience. So, enough monkeying around: Listen to Konga!
Konga 20, 30, and 60 second spots from Granny C.
It’s 20 minutes to midnight. Do you know where Michael Gough is? (ZC Hint: he’s in Konga’s right hand screaming his head off.).Paul Stockman plays Konga and goes on a tear with the well-constructed house miniature.
No, it’s not Halloween already, although if you hung around my house long enough you would think so, with all the creepy and scary-looking relatives of mine who just drop in whenever the spirits move them. But, the monsters ARE coming, or, more correctly, the GIANT monsters are coming.
This week’s offering begins a five-part series of spots featuring giant monsters on the attack. With one exception they all feature actors in costumes representing all sorts of creatures. I’ve always been a fan of these movies because of the awesome split-screen effects combining the monster with crowds running for their lives, and for the intricate models said monster usually destroys. How they made the miniature buildings crumble as realistically as they did has always amazed me.
This week I feature spots from Godzilla, King of the Monsters, a 1956 reworking of Toho Studio’s Gojira, released in 1954. The American version features new scenes with Raymond Burr expertly inserted into the Japanese version and dubbed into English. Both versions are interesting to watch. Aside from the movies themselves, the one thing I always appreciated about these movies was the poster art: colorful scenes of destruction with the giant beast front and center.
Blind Alley with Chester Morris as the criminal holding a family hostage was remade in 1948 as The Dark Past. In the household is a psychologist who shrinks Morris’s nasty character into reliving his bad upbringing. Originally based on a play called Smoke Screen (as noted by TCM), it also had television productions, one with Darrin McGavin (Night Stalker, baby!). Rather idealistic in how quickly the psychiatrist solves the reason for all the criminal behavior, I still like Morris’s turn at being psychoanalyzed.
While It Came From Hollywood, this pressbook for Tennessee Jamboree geographically would be more easterly. I never could watch Hee-Haw, but I do enjoy some country music (the old stuff mostly, some new stuff) and rockabilly, and toss in a strong fiddlin’ session and I’m aces.
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).
Notice that in AIP’s Warriors Five pressbook (hey, of course It Came From Hollywood) Giovanna Ralli takes the high ground in the poster art while the GIs blow up things and shoot off guns. A lot. Blame it on the male gaze and those legs selling seats in theaters for this war movie’s commercial focus. She, of course, plays the “lovely Italian hooker.” All hookers in Hollywood movies are lovely. The publicity plays her up with “Americans first look-see at sex-sational new star.” Yeah, try pushing that for a movie promotion today. Aside from Ralli, Jack Palance provides the leading man beefcake (with help from his international male cast). This production was a joint Italian, Yugoslavian, French(ian), and American endeavor. In the UK it was paired with a re-issue of Island of Desire with Tab Hunter and Linda Darnell, another war-centric movie about two people who wind up stranded on a deserted island (nope, no Gilligan or professor either). I always got Linda Darnell mixed up with Nanni Darnell, who was my first crush. I was six and she co-starred in 1960s television’s The Magic Land of Allakazam with Mark Wilson. I definitely would never confuse her with Anna Ralli. (One thing to note. I think the interior pages of this pressbook were pinkish in color, to balance with the cover. I changed the images to show a white page color to enhance readability.)
Columbia’s Jack Holt was a popular actor for the studio, who played under his own name. After an argument with Harry Cohn, the studio head, he was relegated to doing a serial: it turned out to be one of Columbia’s top money-makers and with the same film crew, also was a solid actioner that played as well for adults as it did the kids. Columbia had a habit of mistreating their top grossers: The Three Stooges, a case in point. While they were paid peanuts, Columbia went to the bank smiling off of their short comedies. Unfortunately for Cohn, Holt left Columbia with a smile after the serial was completed so there wasn’t a sequel. In Gripping Chapters, The Sound Movie Serial, author Ron Backer gives the record for cliffovers (the end of a serial chapter where our hero takes a sudden precipitous descent) to Holt of the Secret Service. “…who went over a waterfall in an open canoe, rolled off a high cliff in a fight and appeared to go over a cliff in a car, not to mention two falls in a ship and one fall climbing a ladder on a high building.”
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.
It Came From Hollywood sends along this six page AIP pressbook for the science fiction movie, Unearthly Stranger. Scientist marries a woman who may (okay, she is, but the characters don’t know it yet) be an alien from outer space to stop his research. From that simple premise, the movie works well within its budget and with solid acting and dialog, you can’t go wrong. While the Publicity page in the pressbook is on the skimpy side, you will notice, like in other pressbooks of this period, the actress is shown in something skimpy too. In fact, many pressbooks going back decades would always highlight the female leads within the contexts of beauty, glamour, and fashion. The guys, of course, maybe got a watch, shirt or luggage tie-in.
If you liked the original Star Trek episode The Galileo Seven, you can thank Five Came Back as the source (as noted in https://reactormag.com/star-trek-the-original-series-rewatch-the-galileo-seven/). This B movie presaged the disaster movies to follow as a group of airplane passengers are forced down into the Amazon Jungle. And what a group: Lucille Ball, Chester Morris, John Carradine, Aubrey Smith, Patric Knowles, Allen Jenkins, Wendy Barrie, and more. This pressbook belies the B movie status, as did the box office as the movie was a 1939 success. There is an inset herald (meaning it’s glued into the pressbook), Little Life Stories of the players, and lots of promotional ideas and articles. TCM’s article on the movie notes that Lucille Ball had a rough time of it during shooting. Between clashes with the director, Chester Morris’s unwanted advances, and two black spiders crawling onto her hair from one of the imported trees on set, she, at least, had the last laugh: critics singled out her performance. Even the New York Times liked the movie! What really grabbed me while watching it was the dialog and good use of a cheap budget. Click each image to enlarge, but due to WordPress’s automatic and asinine scaling of my images, I’ve included a download with larger images. Five Came Back Pressbook
