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Tip-Off Girls (1938) Pressbook

One does not live by horror movies alone. Sometimes a good crime melodrama, noir, western, fantasy, science fiction, guy movie, girl movie, kid movie, or documentary will do. This time around it's crime! The reason I found this pressbook so interesting was its use of pink and blue tones, and the fact that I like crime movies from the 1930s to 1950s. This one boasts a good cast with Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Anthony Quinn, Lloyd Nolan, Evelyn Brent, Mary Carlisle, and J. Carol Naish. The premise is bad girls helping rob trucks of their cargo. Shame on them!

Version for your comics reader: Download Tip-Off Girls Pressbook

Tip-Off Girls 01

Hat, Coat and Glove (1934) Pressbook

While the movie may rate only 5.7 on IMDb, I give its pressbook a higher rating. The cover is striking, using poster art from the movie. The use of darker and lighter green highlights adds a nice punch. Ricardo Cortez starred as Sam Spade in the 1931 Maltese Falcon, which is not my favorite Spade or Falcon. Wikipedia states this is a pre-code movie, but the Hays Code started in 1930, and was enforced by 1934. Oopsy?

Version for your comics reader app: Download Hat Glove and Coat

Hat Glove and Coat 01

House of Wax 3D (1953) Pressbook

I caught House of Wax 3D during the 1971 re-release in theaters. While I love both the original Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray Mystery of the Wax Museum and this Vincent Price remake,  with both having excellent directors, Price just makes it all the more fun along with the 3D effects. That voice of his is so mellifluous while his character is at his most dangerous, it's all quite disarming and alarming at the same time. Charles Bronson's brutish handyman provides the best and most surprising 3D effect ever done too. Now this should be re-released again in theaters, for sure. What's really eye-popping in this pressbook are the theater lobby and poster displays to sell the 3D.

Version for your comics reader app: Download House of Wax 3D

House of Wax 3D 01

The Brainiac (1962)
Mexican Lobby Card

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.

El baron del terror

The Cat and the Canary (1939) Pressbook

At 32 pages, and 15 x 12.5 inches in format, this is quite a pressbook for promoting The Cat and the Canary horror comedy with Paulette Goddard and Bob Hope. The amount of articles, poster art, newspaper ads, and promo gimmicks is astounding. There's a Cat (the villain) mask, cast teaser board, lobby displays, ready to run newspaper adverts, pre-publicity for Paulette Goddard, great poster art, and what's really cool, the shout-outs to classic horror stars.

Comic reader format: Download The Cat and the Canary

The Cat and the Canary 01

The Cat and the Canary
Spook Show Advert (1939)

This bit of campaign promotion came with the Cat and the Canary pressbook. El-Wyn, a magician, was the first to realize that putting in seance-related spookiness into a regular magic show, done after hours, would generate buzz and bucks. In 1929, his Midnight Spook Party captured audiences looking for chills and fun. Spook Shows lasted for decades until television and horror hosts took the buzz to the boob tube. Cardone (read my review), a contemporary magician, is keeping the tradition alive.

Cat and the Canary Spook Show Promo 01
Cat and the Canary Spook Show Promo 01

 

The Invisible Ghost (1941)
Mexican Lobby Card

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.

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The Neanderthal Man (1953) Pressbook

In another instance where the pressbook is more exciting and thought out than the movie, The Neanderthal Man is not much to look at, with awful dialog and cheesy effects. Bill Warren, in his Keep Watching the Skies!, also notes how seeing Robert Shayne (Inspector Henderson on the 1950s Superman television series with George Reeves) must have made the kids do a double-take in their theater seats as he played the naughty professor. Do you sense a theme here? Crazy scientist pushing dangerous theory, harms people while making it his career goal, and creates a nightmare for everyone around him? Ah, the 1950s. Between the possible atomic extermination, monstrous mutation extermination, and alien creatures extermination, it's a wonder we survived the ravages of science run amok. Well, so far, anyway. Now I expect the AI movie cycle to begin, and the Terminator franchise to be reborn. How about a nice game of tic-tac-toe intead?

Here's the CBZ format for your comic book reader: Download The Neanderthal Man Pressbook

The Neanderthal Man 00

Bomba Matinee
Mexican Lobby Card

Here's a large (16.5 x 24) Mexican lobby for a Bomba marathon. The classic pulp style illustration shows Tarzan and no Bomba, but fear not; Bomba appears in the inset photo. Even the title says "son of Tarzan." Bomba isn't even top banana in his own movie promotion. At least the card, although cobbling previous illustrations together to save money, shows some style with the lettering and colors, and the layout all bad either, though they did chop into the background without a care.  

Bomba Mexican Lobby Card

Su Nombre Frankenstein (1970)
Mexican Lobby Card

I admit I'm stumped with this one. The inset photo reminds me of a scene in Frankenstein 1970, but the rather wild, contemporary-ish, illustration doesn't quite click with any movie I can think of that remotely matches the title. With the little Frankie in the bottom left corner, I'm also thinking Amicus' Asylum, especially with the "color" mention. What do you think?

Update! Many thanks to Eustáquio Nardini for naming the movie, Frankenstein on Campus (aka Flick, 1970). IMDb's rating is pretty low for this Canadian entry. One user review states "A largely forgotten little Canadian film, and definitely a product of its era, FLICK/DR. FRANKENSTEIN ON CAMPUS is a 'turned-on' sexploitation/horror/counterculture oddity which is often referred to as "one of the worst ever" by people who most likely haven't seen it. Truth is, it's not nearly as bad as legend illustrates, but it does have a frustrating self-composure uncommon to the praxis of sex-infused horror cinema, and therefor comes off feeling somewhat like a chaperoned date."

Well, I'll bite. It is on YouTube so I will take a look. You never know. At least the lobby card is colorful. Thanks again, Eustáquio.

Su Nombre Frankenstein

 

 

Trouble in Texas (1937) Pressbook

This pressbook is as big as Tex Ritter's hat, when unfolded to show the centerfold, all of 24 inches by 18 inches. The page color, except for the centerfold, is a bit eye-popping, but lots of showmanship can be found, especially around the songs. The singing cowboy was pretty big early on in Westerns, giving way to the more gritty realism (or outlandishness) of the American and Italian films that followed, beyond the 1930s and 1940s strumming cowpokes.

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