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Lots of fisticuffs punctuate the movie serials. This Mexican lobby card for El Rey Del Sabotaje (Radar Patrol vs. Spy King) captures the pugilistic-paced thrills. Striking use of yellow with black, and the tilted position for the inset scene work very well together with the font choices creating an easy to understand and visually exciting layout.
My Interview with John Moulder-Brown
By Jim Knüsch (Professor Kinema)
In the early 1970s, John Moulder-Brown made his mark in horror films with starring roles in Vampire Circus and The House That Screamed, in which he chopped up some school girls and pieced them back together. In the critically acclaimed Deep End, he was Mike, a sexually disturbed teenager who murders the girl of his dreams in a half-filled swimming pool. In King, Queen, Nave he had a memorable encounter with Gina Lollobrigida, who also wound up dead, and in Ludwig he portrayed the mad brother of the crazed titular king. He’s played the handsome prince in Rumpelstiltskin and the concerned, and for once guiltless, husband in Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder.
I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Brown and here it is.
First things first, what led you to acting?
JMB: My parents split up when I was four. My mother wanted me to go to boarding school, my father wanted me to stay with him. He sent me to a private school, which was literally just around the corner from where we lived. They had a strong concentration on drama and, as a result of that, I fell into acting. My father had an army background. He was a major, but I had always wanted to be an actor. Through the school I worked as a child actor.
Continue reading "Interview: John Moulder-Brown
By Professor Kinema" »
For The Monster Times issue 17, coverage of Forbidden Planet, Flash Gordon, and science fiction on television joins Amicus Productions' Asylum and the influence of Rod Serling's work for the cinema fantastic on the small and large screens. The 3oth World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles is reported on (seems McDonald's provided cheaper and better food than the banquet event), and Bill Feret's Monster Times Teletype gives the skinny on upcoming and ongoing newsy stuff (something we take for granted today, given the Internet's over abundance of newsy stuff).
Continue reading "The Monster Times Issue 17
November 30,1972" »
Once you get past the goofy look on King Kong's face, this isn't all too bad of a movie. Mostly.
This Mexican lobby card for El Conquistador Del Espacio (It Conquered the World) shows a keen eye for focal structure in its layout. With the monster from Venus glaring out from center, the terrorized woman on left in close-up, and a movie scene with menace an arm's reach away, your eyes are drawn to the title and the creature (which looks much more terrifying here than in the movie) embracing the width of the lobby.
I often wonder why some Mexican lobby cards, instead of showing a scene from the movie, use a comic illustration instead. This one for First Spaceship on Venus is a futuristic dreamscape with mesmerizing alien colors and rocketships blazing across the void. I'm still on the fence deciding if the inset "scene" illustration detracts from the lobby's overall effect. Perhaps stills from the movie weren't available for inclusion on the card. Or perhaps using a comic book panel-styled scene was thought to be more dramatic. (Which wouldn't say much for the movie, then, if that were the case.)
A better than average B movie, Monstruos De Piedra (The Monolith Monsters) has a simple plot device: meteoric crystals that keep growing on contact with water provide a straightforward adventure with fairly well-integrated stock footage and bargain special effects (miniatures) that work well for the budget given. By this time Universal was looking to keep things as cheap as possible, but its later movies would suffer far worse at the hands of cost-cutting number crunchers. This movie would make a terrific remake. Just add suped up action, and killer special effects, and it would be a natural for a summer blockbuster.
Here's a nostalgic scene I first saw on Facebook. I imagine the Avon Theater marquee must have looked sparkling at night.
Larry Ivie passed away this year. His Monsters and Heroes: The Magazine of Pictorial Imagination epitomized the growing fanbase whose interests spanned movies, comic books, and literature and where each intersected. Aside from his own creation, Altron Boy, Larry contributed to Eerie, Creepy, and Marvel Comics. In this issue, The Three Faces of Superman (for 1967, that is), and The Three Faces of Captain America (again, for 1967) appear, as well as "the original Flash Gordon," Siegfried: Son of Odin. A short article on Edgar Rice Burroughs The Monster Men is here to whet your interest, too.
Dr. Silkini's Asylum of Horrors with the Frankenstein Monster really packed them in.
