Promoting The Invisible Man (1933)
It Came From Hollywood scours the old, crumbling, well-thumbed trade ads and showmanship pieces to bring us this wowzer for The Invisible Man with Claude Rains.
Creature With the Atom Brain
Radio Spots!
From the super secret radio lair of Granny Creech and The Radio Reaper…
The other day I called up my brother Ambrose and asked him if he wanted to go into town to the grocery store with me. He did. I picked him up and we rode into Pumpkin Hollow to the General Store. We shopped for the month’s groceries and departed. We used the time together to catch up on all the latest gossip and to see how each other’s families were doing. I dropped him off and headed home. When I arrived, I noticed a large manilla envelope on my porch, leaning up against my front door. I took it in and then unloaded my many sacks of groceries. When I finished that task, I opened the envelope. It was from The Radio Reaper with a note that said, “Here are some interesting spots to go with the spots you ran a few weeks ago. I hope you enjoy them.”
I took out the record. “Ah, yes,” I thought, “the second feature to an interesting double bill. We finally get to hear the radio spots for Creature With the Atom Brain. Released in 1955 as the companion feature to It Came From Beneath the Sea, Creature is a delightfully atmospheric detective murder-mystery with science fiction elements thrown in. The opening scene showing someone or…something…walking toward the camera with a heavy back light while a beating heart is heard instantly grabs your attention. Later, when the mysterious figure bends iron window bars and breaks into a mansion, it attacks the man inside. Bullets can’t stop it and we see, quite graphically via shadows on the wall, the man picked up overhead by the powerful intruder and getting his spine snapped. And I don’t mean slightly snapped, I mean the poor guy gets folded in two…backwards…with a loud crack! Yeowch! My teeth hurt every time I watch that scene. …
Roger Corman Movies:
Radio Spots to Remember
Granny Creech digs deep to uncover memorable radio spots for Roger Corman movies…
I was invited over to my daughter Drusilla’s house this past Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day. Her husband, Winslow, was there, as was my son, Arthur, and his wife Letitia (Letty), along with a whole bunch of little monsterkids-in-training. My grandson, Big Abner –Arthur’s and Letty’s son – couldn’t make it because he had some out-of-town business to finish up. He hoped to be there later.
After a fine meal we all retired to the rocking chairs and swing on the front porch and lazily sipped our glasses of sassafras tea. The topic of conversation turned to scary movies and we each took turns naming our favorites. The titles were as varied as the personalities on the porch: the men liked the old Universal movies, the women liked the Universal classics of the ‘50s, and I liked them all, especially the lower budget movies of the 1950s.
It was at this point that Big Abner came running up the sidewalk, panting, and between gasps said, “Roger Corman has died!”
A silence fell over the group. We had lost a great one. …
Roger Corman’s World
We Welcome It
Zombos Says: A Fun Documentary
“By mistake, he actually made a good picture once and awhile.” — Jack Nicholson, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
“Taste was out of the question.” — Martin Scorsese, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
Cinema Trash filmmaking is an art form–seriously, it is— and its greatest ideologist and practitioner is Roger Corman. He didn’t invent cheap sensational movies, but he knew how to make them highly profitable and when to kick-start a trend or exploit it to sell more theater seats (or drive-in car slots). Soft-spoken but craftily articulate, Corman is the star of Alex Stapleton’s no frills documentary, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, which highlights how Corman ignited the careers of actors and directors who embraced–more like succumbed to, really–his pragmatic, and unwavering, bottom-line focused, moviemaking eye.
I first became acquainted with Corman’s work through The Terror, a movie whose inexplicable mix of budget-friendly moments and left-over sets went unnoticed by my 7-year-old eyes as I ruined my parents night out. I couldn’t help it. I refused to stay home with the babysitter so they had to take me along to the Loew’s Oriental theater (this was in Brooklyn, New York). I quietly sat between them as I watched Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller, Boris Karloff, and Sandra Knight chew up the gothic scenery, not really understanding what was happening. Of course, after the five or so directors got through with it, no one else did, either. I’m sure I had hit up the concession stand for treats, but I don’t remember what I ate. What I do remember is that scene: Helene (Sandra Knight) melting away into brown goo after Andre (Jack Nicholson) rescues her. That I remember. I blame Corman for hooking me on horror movies because The Terror is the first one I saw on the big screen (or small, for that matter). …
The Premature Burial (1962) Pressbook
Ray Milland, Hazel Court, and directed by Roger Corman: what’s not to love? Here’s the comic book reader version: Download Premature Burial Pressbook
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White Zombie Theater Herald
This is a rerelease theater herald for White Zombie. Some things I love about this 6×9 inches (unfolded) herald are the 10 and 20 cents admission, that it was a used herald (note the printing for the Gem Theater in Ruston, Louisiana), and the emphasis on Bela Lugosi’s eyes and the weird love angle, similar to Dracula.
KISS Halloween Night at Dodger Stadium
You know you love KISS, admit it. Here’s an eye-popping 3D newspaper ad for their Halloween Night at Dodger Stadium. You will need those nifty anaglyph 3D glasses to view the image in its awesomeness. I know you monsterkids usually have a pair or two lying around. Even without the glasses, this makes a perfect wallpaper for your computer. Best viewed on a large screen, though.
Monstrous Trade Ads
From Box Office Magazine
These boffo trade ads were scanned by It Came From Hollywood from Box Office Magazine (1952 to 1956). Trade ads were designed to alert the theater manager to new movies for their silver screens that could bring in good box office receipts to keep the projector humming. Some trade ads were a full page while others could spread across multiple pages, and they were illustrated and worded with gusto to attract attention and excitement.
The Tingler (1959) Radio Spots!
My great-granddaughter Grizelda came over the other night for a sleepover. We had fun making sugar cookies and then icing them to look like pumpkins, skeletons, witches and scarecrows. Afterwards, we entertained each other by telling ghost stories while roasting marshmallows in front of the fireplace.
“Granny,” she said, “That last story you told gave me the willies. It scared me so badly that I could feel my whole body tensing up. It felt like my spine was about to break!”
“Ah, child,” I said. “What you felt was the Tingler grabbing hold of you. All you had to do was scream!”
She looked at me oddly, so I began to tell her all about The Tingler. She giggled gleefully and asked, “Can we watch it?” I whipped out the old DVD and hit ‘play’. We screamed and screamed and had a great time. …
Dracula (1979) Pressbook
Moving away from the lustful, unrepentantly malevolent vampire of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, Frank Langella’s Dracula is more romantic, more sensual, and more contemporary in artifice, sporting an opened shirt, less formal aristocratic dress that mixes perfectly into the pretty-look sensibilities of the late 1970s into the 1980s. With Laurence Olivier and Donald Pleasance, John Badham’s approach is classy and more gothic teen heart-throb in tone and mood, like Twilight before Twilight, and without werewolves.
This pressbook, courtesy of It Came From Hollywood, is even less formal. By the late 70s, the art of the pressbook had lessened, providing a minimum of promotional information. One cool item here, though, are the cut-out forms to order radio and television spots for the movie. With a minimum of newspaper ads to order, and the Promotion page that directs to “the Universal fieldman in your local area” to request the Promotion Manual, one can see the shift away from the ballyhoo and exploitation that was previously more theater-focused as given in the pressbook. Now radio, and television especially, were the stronger mediums through which movie promotion could be conducted on a larger scale.
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Dracula (1930) Universal Weekly Trade Ad
Here is a colorful trade ad for Dracula, courtesy of It Came From Hollywood. (ICFH Note: “I discovered these while going through the complete run, page by page, of Universal Weekly.”) Universal Weekly, A Magazine for the Motion Pictures Exhibitors was put out by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Previously titled Moving Picture Weekly, you can read digital copies at the Media History Digital Library website.
House on Haunted Hill Radio Spots!
Granny strikes again…
An interesting thing happened the other night. I decided to invite some of my girlfiends over for a get-together, to enjoy some of my turnip, brussel sprouts and onion soup, and to just let my hair down and have some riotous frivolity. Several showed up. There were sister Elviney, cousin Agatha, and neighbors Hester Grimple, Elspeth Darkmoor, Vespera Howler, Winifred Hawthorne and Esmeree Grimshaw.
After supper we retired to the parlor, glasses of witch’s brew in hand, and had a great time, sitting around the crackling fireplace and reminiscing, telling stories of when we were kids, talking about our favorite scary movies, and telling jokes. We laughed and laughed until our sides hurt.
It was a little after midnight when the party wound down and my guests headed to the door. As they were leaving, Esmeree turned to me and said, “Granny, that was more fun than being in a graveyard on a cold wet night!” Everyone laughed, said their goodbyes, and disappeared into the night.
As I was cleaning up the kitchen I kept thinking about what Esmeree had said and how it sounded so familiar. Where had I heard that before? It wasn’t until I was all snug in my bed that it dawned on me. Of course! Famed Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons had said one of the movies she reviewed was, “More frightening than a graveyard on a cold wet night.” The movie? House On Haunted Hill. …