From Zombos' Closet

Mark of the Gorilla (1950) Mexican Lobby Card

Apes menacing under-dressed women is a B-movie staple. Here's your example of the day courtesy of Mark of the Gorilla. Here's the pressbook.

Jungle Stampede (1950) Mexican Lobby Card

Released by Republic Pictures, Jungle Stampede was condemned by the National Legion of Decency; which, not to be confused with the Legion of Doom, was a more sinister legion. I also wonder if the NLoD was actually a bonafide legion or more like a bunch of let's-meet-on-Sunday-over-coffee and condemn some movies we don't want anyone to see people with little else to do.

The Lodger (1944) Mexican Lobby Card

An atmospherically photographed take on Jack the Ripper, The Lodger's Laird Cregar, the star villain, gets second billing on this Mexican lobby card and the credits. A travesty given his mesmerizing performance. He died too soon. Vincent Price delivered his eulogy.

The Green Slime (1968) Mexican Lobby Card

So bad it's fun. Here's the pressbook. I recall seeing this in the theater on its first run. I was a kid, but even then I realized how awful this was.  Check my take on its silliness in Silly Monsters in Silly Movies.

 

The Lost Tribe (1949) Mexican Lobby Card

Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) continues his adventures in this second entry in the movie series from Columbia Pictures. Once again, white natives living in a secret city in Africa need protection from exploiters (a plot premise reused in too many Jungle movies). The beautiful Elena Verdugo and Ray Corrigan, as the gorilla, make it worth watching. 

Black Dragons (1942) Mexican Lobby Card

Bela Lugosi plays a doctor who transforms Japanese agents to look like important Americans, who are then murdered and replaced by their Japanese impostors. Imprisoned, he escapes and takes his revenge. If you're an Outer Limits fan, this plot device should ring a bell: in the episode, The Hundred Days of the Dragon, a presidential candidate is replaced with an impostor by sinister Asian forces. 

Earth vs the Spider (1958) Mexican Lobby Card

I don't know about you, but every time I watch a bug movie I start itching a lot and constantly glance around me, imagining creepy crawlies eyeing me with longing. Earth vs the Spider has a preposterous premise--a large arachnid "killed" by DDT is then propped up in High School gymnasium (what, the local dump wasn't good enough?), then a rock band starts sock-hopping the thing back to life. It's pure hokum. But the kind that made drive-in fare so much fun to watch. Here's the pressbook.

Kuroneko (The Black Cat) 1968 Mexican Lobby Card

Yabu no Naka no Kuroneko (A Black Cat in a Bamboo Grove) is a ghostly horror story. This Mexican lobby card captures that atmosphere rather well. 

Invisible Invaders (1959) Mexican Lobby Card

Okay, so the movie's scripting and editing are a bit stiffer than the zombies, but those zombies scared the heck out of me when I caught this on television, late at night, at that tender age when you love horror movies but get scared too easily. Of course I'm a pro now. No, really. George Romero may have watched this and got a few ideas. Just saying.

The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969) Mexican Lobby Card

Jess Franco (not a good move there) directed this 5th and ignorable entry into the Fu Manchu series. 

Las Vampiras (1971) Mexican Lobby Card

Lesbian vampires. Jess Franco. Nudity and crude film making galore. What else do you need to know?

The Leopard Men Mexican Lobby Card

I'm not sure what movie this may be from, but the lobby card design indicates it could be anywhere from the 1930s to 50s. Dorothy Short did Call of the Savage in 1935, but I don't see a credit for Paul Gifford on IMDb; and the inset scene with Amazonian women looks more like a 1950s movie than earlier. Anyway, the card illustration is what drew me to these cards. That, and the Amazonian women, of course.