Back in the 1970s, to catch a martial arts movie, you had to find a theater running them. Those theaters were not your usual mainstream fare ones. This was also known as, oh yeah, go to Times Square in New York City and mind the theater seat you sit in, because you never know what they were playing before the Kung Fu movies hit the screen. Or you had to find a more offbeat theater running Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan (yup, a misspelling on the card) or some Chinese martial arts opus somewhere in the more interesting areas of the city. But boy were those movies worth it. Between the horror movies and martial arts movies, and the graffiti, it was certainly a colorful time for those seeking different cinema fare. This poster-like Mexican lobby card packs a nice punch with its illustration and inset action scene.

Here's an atmospheric larger Mexican lobby card (more like a small poster) for The Secret of Pancho Villa. The left and right skulls take the background as the dark-clothed mysterious masked figure, carrying the unconscious woman, takes the foreground. He is the hero, the Avenging Shadow. The layout is rough, but it has that cut and paste of highlights rush job aspect that is rather engaging because it is easy to take in. 

I cannot recall exactly when I first watched El Baron del Terror, but I was of that impressionable young age to be pretty mesmerized and chilled by watching the Baron suck out those brains and dip into his big, chafing dish styled, serving bowl for seconds. While the makeup is well underdone and the story in need of a rewrite–and lord knows that English dubbing was awful–The Brainiac is justifiably a cult classic, recreating the style of a Universal Horror for Mexican audiences. This Azteca lobby card captures the movie's vibe quite well. And you can never go wrong with Abel Salazar in a movie.

Another in-your-face illustration from Spanish artist Aguirre. This one is for The Invisible Ghost (El Asesino Invisible) with Bela Lugosi. While it may be a Monogram cheapie, it has an oddity to it, mostly due to Lugosi's presence and his character's psychological menace and ambiguity. The story is more involved than the usual Poverty Row pictures Lugosi starred in, and has a nice level of creepiness to it that makes this worth watching. Notice the illustration for this lobby card  draws from Lugosi's Dracula persona, with blood dripping hands, fangs, and bats flittering about (even with his bat-like wings in the background). Not sure why he's sporting a goatee, but it does make this visage especially menacing to pique interest in seeing the movie.