Even Godzilla had to deal with pollution. This Mexican lobby card for Godzilla contra Monstruos del Smog shows how big the problem was, even back then; today it would be more like Godzilla vs. plastics, global warming, and stupid people. Now that’s a smackdown I’d pay good money to see. Especially in IMAX.
An AIP double-bill (that ran like the wind for drive-ins everywhere) with The Mini-Skirt Mob (an all-girl biker rumble). The New York Times critic gave a succinct “two reels of celluloid junk” to both movies, and sums up with “Mini-Skirt is sickening and Angels is merely dull.” Okay, so you can’t please everyone. But toss these two babies onto a drive-in screen and add some snack shack goodies and I’ll bet a good time would commence. Vroom! Vroom!
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This advertising poster for the National Comic Book, Art, and Sci-Fi Convention (aka National Comic Book, Comic Art, and Fantasy Convention) was for the 2004 event at the Penn Plaza Pavilion, if my dating is correct. I fondly recall attending conventions at the Statler Hilton (once the world’s largest hotel), which was in the same location, but torn down after years of changing hands and changing cityscape.
Courtesy of It Came From Hollywood…the re-release 1979 pressbook for Bedknobs and Broomsticks. The Sherman Brothers, who wrote the songs for Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Jungle Book, and many others, wrote the songs for this movie. They also wrote It’s a Small World After All, so nobody’s perfect. My favorite work of theirs would be Mary Poppins, which reaches sublime heights of melody and heartstrings’ tugging. The rights to Bedknobs and Broomsticks were acquired before those of Mary Poppins, but it was shelved a few years to make way for Mary Poppins, since the stories were somewhat similar. Julie Andrews was the preferred witch for Bedknobs, but feared typecasting and demurred. Angela Lansbury eventually took the role. The movie won the 1972 academy award for Best Visual Effects over its competition, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. (Click each image to expand it–you will need a BIG screen–or right-click the expanded image to download it. And you don’t need witchcraft to find more pressbooks, just rummage through our categories.)
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Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) Re-release PressbookRead More »
The Girl Hunters. Here’s a good visual summary of the Mike Hammer detective method: dames, duking it out, and dirty job assignments. Oh, and Betsy, his gun, always ready to socialize loudly. Mickey Spillane plays his own trench-coated, rough and downbeat, and boozing detective pining after Velda after she goes missing. Stacy Keach played “the new” Mike Hammer in the 1984 to ’87 television series and a few TV movies. For Keach, he played Hammer with more heart and a soul, but Spillane made sure he still wore his .45 Colt.
Tarzan contributes to the war effort in Tarzan Triumphs, but fights Nazis only with the help of Cheetah and Boy (Johnny Sheffield), but not Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan). She is tending to her sick mom back in England. But really, O’Sullivan was under contract with MGM, not RKO, Tarzan’s new studio-jungle home, so enter Francis Gifford playing the princess Zandra of Palandrya, another Hollywoody idyllic land of white in the dark jungle (and lots of pretty women), taken over by the Nazis. For a guy who has no job, has a very limited vocabulary, and has only one piece of clothing, he sure attracts women an awful lot. His “jungle people fight to live, civilized people live to fight” sure hit the nail on the head for his time, and any other time for that matter. My favorites from the Exploitation department: Design a costume for Zandra (at least she knows how to dress for company) and the costume contest for the best dressed woman as Zandra. The poster art is pretty good too. Click each image to expand it–you will need a BIG screen–or right-click the expanded image to download it.) And you don’t have to read the signs to find more pressbooks, just rummage through our categories.
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Big Four Feature Unit Shows! from AIP. Gone are the days when people sat in movie theaters for a good part of their day, catching a feature, a newsreel, some cartoons, a second feature, and some popcorn; or at least a double-feature. The last time I sat for a bunch of movies back to back was when they did a marathon with Planet of the Apes at the Benson theater in Brooklyn. I loaded up on McDonald’s, bought my ticket, laughed, cried, and basically enjoyed the hell out of watching the movies back to back. Of course, my prostate was smaller then, so no problems with missing any of the action.
Here’s a down and dirty ad mats promotion for the five packages, each with four themed movies, courtesy of It Came From Hollywood. Take that, AMC!
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It Came From Hollywood sends more news clips from AIP. This time Horror Merchants, Cry of the Banshee, and Slaughter scripting as well as others soon to be in glorious newsprint.
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Greetings, kiddies. I was just sitting here in my old rickety rocking chair, basking in the light of the full moon coming through my bedroom window, when I heard a knock on my front door.
Opening the door I found my neighbor, Harry Talbot, standing there, panting frantically.
“Granny,” he said, “Do you have a razor I can borrow? I need to shave my face before I go out tonight.”
“Why’d gillette it grow out so much? I asked.
He said he’d been busy, but tonight he was off to have a howling good time on the town. I snickered to myself. Most of the ladies I knew thought him to be just another old wolf, so I doubted he’d have much success with any of them.
“Just a minute,” I said.
I rummaged through some of Uncle Edgar’s old things and came up with an old straight razor. I gave it to Harry. He thanked me and bounded away to enjoy whatever adventures he could find.
I returned to the comfort of my old rocker and thought about this week’s radio spots. Hmmm. Well, last time I did spots about vampires and the undead, so this time I should feature spots about werewolves. Great idea! …
Courtesy of It Came From Hollywood…The Groundstar Conspiracy pressbook with supplement. A noirish, spyish thriller movie with George Peppard and Michael Sarrazin. Peppard, of course, is best known as Hannibal in the television series The A-Team. He also played his annoyingly cool and supercilious leading man persona in Banacek. Michael Sarrazin, a Canadian actor, is notable for his role in They Shoot Horses Don’t They and to horror movie fans for The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Funny, but I recall They Shoot Horses Don’t They mostly because my dad took me, I was pretty young, to see it and he said an expletive, along with his dislike for the movie’s ending. I wasn’t too keen on it myself at that age, either. But he did manage to bring me to science fiction movies (he didn’t like horror: my mom did), and he behaved himself when The Last Starfighter ended (though he found it just as underwhelming as Horses). Click each image to expand it–you will need a BIG screen–or right-click the expanded image to download it.) And you don’t have to read the signs to find more pressbooks, just rummage through our categories.
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It Came From Hollywood provides a bunch of cool galley packets of AIP news clips with fetching titles like “director goes from cellar to beach,” “Bette Davis becomes a ‘bunny’,” and ”green beret versus motorcylce gang” to perk up interest. Here’s the first one. There’s also a neat blurb for Five-in-One Horror Show, An Evening with Boris Karloff.
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AIP News Clips Galley Packet
Bette Davis a Bunny?Read More »
A bunch of pretty (and pretty loopy, scheming, petty, and the usual female cinema stereotypes for the 1940s) sorority sisters get together on a dark and stormy initiation night. One of them winds up dead. Much finger-pointing and rivalries ensue as the mystery is secondary to having a bunch of–did I mention?–pretty girls being the focus of this B seat-filler. TCM has a page of quotes from this movie: my favorite is “Suppose I pick you up and we’ll do something gay?” Ah, those wacky sorority types. Exploitation for this movie included suggestions to “use lots of girlie photos” and “start early search to find the nine most popular girls in town.” Also, there was the “plant pictures where men meet” and snipe mystery and girlie magazines by affixing labels hawking Nine Girls. To be honest, these are the kinds of pressbooks (and movies) I really enjoy. Go figure. And where do men meet? That sounds like a catchy title for something, not sure what though.
Click each image to expand it–you will need a BIG screen–or right-click the expanded image to download it. And no sleuthing or sorority babes needed to find more pressbooks from Zombos’ Closet. But, you can still invite a sorority babe if you like.
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