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Follow That Crazy Rabbit

Zombos’ Closet…a vast trove of endearingly cheap thrills, including movie and book reviews, and scans of his collections of cinema pressbooks, goofy paper-cutout Halloween decorations, and his amazing collection of Mexican lobby cards from B-grade films. If you have time to descend into a serious rabbit-hole of marvelous trash-culture nostalgia, visit that site just as soon as you possibly can.” (DangerousMinds.net)

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Godzilla, The Thing, and Kong, Oh My!
Radio Spots

Godzilla vs The Thing Movie production scene
Getting ready to film the big battle. Notice the size of the Mothra prop.

Eekmail just in from Granny!

I was sitting at my little writing table the other night working away on Part Five of my series of giant monsters radio spots when I heard a knock on my door. Answering it, I saw my uncle Thaddeus standing there, a gleam in his sunken eyes set deep into his gaunt face.

“I have something for you,” he said with a sly grin . He held up a small sack, held tightly between his bony fingers.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Open it,” he said.

I quickly opened the sack and found two 7” vinyl records containing radio spots for Godzilla vs The Thing (1964) and King Kong Escapes (1967). I shrieked. “Where did you find these?”

“I found them in an antique shop over in Spooky Hollow,” he said. “I knew you would want them.”

I thanked him over and over again. I offered to pay him, but he declined.

“But, I will take a bottle of your brew,” he said.

Done! And with that, he left. I was thrilled, but I had work to do. My five-part series had now turned into a six-part series and there was a new Part Five to write. Godzilla vs The Thing! Ahh, what was “The Thing”? The one-sheet poster had a giant question mark with Godzilla, and the half-sheet depicted a tentacled beast which was censored in its entirety, being too horrible to see. What was it? The scary, horrible monster turned out to be….Mothra! What? Cute little (big) Mothra? Hmmm. Okay, it was a reworking of Toho’s Mothra vs Godzilla, but the gang at American International Pictures decided to take a different approach in their marketing campaign and played up the “what is it?” angle. But no matter: It was a fun movie with the usual good effects.

King Kong Escapes movie publicity shot.
R to L: Rhodes Reason, Linda Jo Miller, Haruo Nakajima as King Kong and Arthur Rankin, Jr. ham it up during a break in filming.

King Kong Escapes was equally fun with Haruo Nakajima portraying King Kong and Hiroshi Sekita playing Mechani-Kong and Gorosaurus. There are many similarities to the original King Kong (1933), and the effects and battles are especially good. The new King Kong suit was an improvement over the one used in King Kong vs Godzilla.

The radio spots for these two movies are excellent, with both playing up the spectacle of the conflicts. Exciting narrations with lots of sound effects add to the appeal of these spots. So sit back, get comfortable, and listen as the giant monsters attack! Let’s start with Godzilla vs. The Thing Radio Spots!

 

 

And here are the King Kong Escapes Radio Spots

 

King Kong Escapes production shot.
Mechani-Kong and King Kong on set.

Godzilla vs the Thing movie poster

Godzilla vs the Thing movie poster

Godzilla, The Thing, and Kong, Oh My!
Radio Spots
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American International Pictures
The Golden Years
Book Review

American International Pictures The Golden Years book coverZombos Says: An enjoyable, informative read.

Gary A. Smith presents a chronological rundown of the American International Pictures’ offerings from 1954 to 1972. The format of American International Pictures: The Golden Years, takes a little time to get used to as Smith combines various sources of information to paint an interesting production history using articles and reviews from trade publications like Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Showman’s Trade Review, excerpts from the movies’ pressbooks, critical reviews from The New York Times, Variety, and other newspapers, and quotes from notable creatives involved with AIP like Roger Corman, actors, and other key players involved with production and distribution (from personal interviews provided by Mark Thomas McGee who wrote Fast and Furious: The Story of American International Pictures).

Smith, in his introduction, states he wanted to trace the history of the company through their continual use of publicity, and that not every movie is covered. What really stands out through all this movie by movie, year by year, rundown is how AIP evolved with the audience’s social tastes, and how they always kept their core audience (teens and drive-in crowd) front and center when bringing movies, either domestic or foreign, onto their yearly release schedule.

Under their initial American Releasing Corporation (ARC), with offices in the Lawyer’s Building “not far from Hollywood and Vine,” James Nicholson and Samuel Arkoff struck a deal with producer Roger Corman to distribute his third movie, The Fast and the Furious. And so it began.

Roger Corman (Producer): “I had offers from Republic and Columbia to distribute The Fast and the Furious, but I saw that I was in a trap. If I had to wait for each picture to pay off, I would be making one movie a year. So I gave the picture to Jim [Nicholson] with the stipulation that I would not have to wait for the picture to be released to get my money and I wanted a commitment for two more pictures.”

 

American International Pictures
The Golden Years
Book Review
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Doc Savage Mexican Lobby Card

Here’s the Doc Savage (El Hombre de Bronce!) Mexican lobby card for the George Pal low budget and campy movie that didn’t properly envision the popular pulp hero who was the forerunner to the modern superhero. Ron Ely was a perfect choice, however, to play the man of bronze. Clark ‘Doc’ Savage Jr. was the first to have a Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic wastes, a place where he pursued his polymathic learning and meditations. Rich like Bruce Wayne, Doc lived on the 86th floor of a New York skyscraper and had five expert friends (a lawyer, an industrial chemist, an archeologist, an electrical wizard, and a construction engineer) to aide him on his adventures. His stories appeared in Street and Smith Publications, on radio, and in the comics during the 1930s and 1940s. Doc’s popularity faded for a while until Bantam re-issued their 1930s paperbacks beginning in 1969 with the awesome James Bama covers. The newfound interest for pulp heroes and serial movies pervaded the 1970s comic conventions and monster magazines too, leading to new fans discovering his exciting adventures.

Doc Savage Mexican lobby card

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Motorcycle Gang and Sorority Girl (1957)

AIP used the cool folder-styled pressbook to hype this double bill, Motorcycle Gang and Sorority Girl. When you opened the folder, nestled in a pocket (the red stripe at the bottom) would be a two-sided press sheet for each movie. I picked up this nifty item from Professor Kinema recently. I’m a sucker for the folder-styled pressbooks, what can I say? Motorcycle Gang was directed by Edward L. Cahn and Roger Corman directed Sorority Girl.

Roger Corman (Producer-Director): “AIP had developed the script and it had to be rewritten rather hurriedly. Because I was a partner in the film with AIP, I questioned some of the construction costs. I decided to rent a house and use it for the sorority house and saved a great deal of money. The lead in Sorority Girl was Susan Cabot, who was a very dedicated method actress from New York.” (Smith, Gary A.. American International Pictures – The Golden Years . Bear Manor Media. Kindle Edition)

…I remember there was an extremely emotional scene she [Susan Cabot] had to play around a swimming pool with an actress playing her mother. I was going to shoot the scene in a medium shot and a close shot. Utilizing what I had just learned in the class [Jeff Corey’s acting class]. I talked about the scene with Susan and we did the first take in a medium shot. And she was brilliant. She was really wonderful. The crew applauded and I went over and congratulated her. Then we set up for the close shot and although she was good, she was never able to reach the level of intensity she had in the medium shot. Of course, what you want is the close shot for the most emotional part of the scene but I left more of the medium shot than I had planned to. I learned a lesson and that was to let the performers know they needed to save something for the close shot and not use all of the emotion for the medium shot. (McGhee, Mark Thomas. Roger Corman: The Best of the Cheap Acts. McFarland Classics)

Double Bill pressbook for Motorcycle Gang and Sorority Girl

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The Three Musketeers (1948)
Publicity and Exploitation Pressbook

A classic swashbuckling take on the Alexandre Dumas novel, The Three Musketeers is an exhilarating ride. Gene Kelley has a field day with all the athletic swordplay and derring-do. Director George Sidney makes it a rousing, light-hearted, romp in sumptuous technicolor. With Vincent Price, Van Heflin, Lana Turner, Angela Lansbury, and June Allyson, how could you go wrong? This was Lana Turner’s first color feature, although she didn’t want to do it. After a suspension and some convincing, along with a stronger rewrite for her character (Countess de Winter), she joined in the fun. According to TCM’s notes, Robert Taylor, Ricardo Montalban, and Sidney Greenstreet were set to play the three musketeers at some point before the final cast was set. Due to a broken ankle, Kelly did his fencing scenes toward the end of filming. All told, it was a money-maker for MGM.

This is the separate Publicity and Exploitation section of the main pressbook, of which I’ll post soon. As usual with MGM pressbooks, it was printed on newspaper sheets, one-sided, so I’ve raised the white balance to approximate how it looked before age and acidity set in.

Three Musketeers 1948 pressbook

The Three Musketeers (1948)
Publicity and Exploitation Pressbook
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Holt of the Secret Service Movie Herald

I posted the Columbia serial pressbook previously. This is the theater herald. Heralds were given out to patrons at the movie theater (or could be distributed through local newspapers), usually before the picture ran, to promote attendance. Heralds came in various sizes and this one is rather long to grab attention. Theaters would print their location on the herald, so room was left for that either on the back side of a one-page herald or on the last page of a four-page one. Heralds were one printed sheet and, depending on the size, could be left unfolded (making two pages) or folded (making four pages). Spanish movie heralds differed from the English theater heralds mostly in size. English heralds leaned to larger sheets while the Spanish heralds were pretty small, pocket-sized, you could say, and two pages. But some of the art on the Spanish heralds is really awesome, like on their lobby cards.

The oldest herald in my collection, so far, dates from 1926 and was for a stage play called The Cradle Snatchers (with a third-billed Humphrey Bogart). For an example of a Spanish herald see The Lady and the Monster. Heralds also came in tabloid size and comic strip style! See Invaders from Mars for an example.

I’ve posted a lot of heralds so do a search on “herald” and experience the art of printed promotion.

Holt of the Secret Service movie herald

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Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Pressbook

The third entry into the Mad Max franchise, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome boasts a good soundtrack ,Tina Turner, and a chart-topping song, We Don’t Need Another Hero. It also boasts one of the rare times that critic Roger Ebert awarded four stars to a science fiction post-apocalyptic actioner. Like he said, “the fight between Mad Max and Master-Blaster is one of the great creative action scenes in the movies.” This Columbia-EMI-Warner British pressbook isn’t too shabby either. You wouldn’t think a movie like this would get promotional items like a crossword, maze, word search, and spot the difference newspaper competitions, but there you go. At a $10,000,000 cost, the movie netted $36,000,000 at the box office, though less money than its two predecessors. Its effect on popular culture in general, and the apocalyptic, dystopian, and wild hairdos in future movies? Priceless.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome 1985 pressbook

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Pressbook
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Movie Star, American Style (1966) Pressbook

LSD was all the rage in the 1960s. This acid-trippy comedy, Movie Star,  American Style or; LSD, I Hate You, however, was about Dr. Horatio and his LSD therapy for Honey Bunny (Paula Lane) and assorted other spaced-out patients. Unhinged comedy ensues, with a tinted acid trip sequence to fulfill the LSD requirement. One would think AIP came up with this one but they didn’t. The 1960s and 1970s produced much ‘looser’ storylines in movies as television kept the candle burning for purity and social stability (for the most part: there were exceptions). Those two decades though, in the movies, were anything but pure and socially stable. They were great, however, for cheeky stuff (or horror), and adult themes finally making their way to the silver screen. What’s really wild? The tie-in to Streamline Trailers. The tie-in to bedding is pretty funny too. Robert Strauss (he played Animal in Stalag-17), was adept at comedy and drama, with a unique voice and face that could be menacing or comical at the drop of a hat. He was a familiar face on television in the 1960s and 1970s, aside from his many movies.

Movie Star American Style or LSD movie pressbook

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The 27th Day (1957) Pressbook

An intriguing movie from the cold war era (or rather, the first one), The 27th Day involves an alien from a dying planet giving five persons the ability to destroy human life on a massive scale. Is it a test? Is it a trick? Directed by William Asher, who did a lot of television-episode directing for I love Lucy and Bewitched, and a screenplay by John Mantley (author of the novel), who went on to write for Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the story has themes of global destruction, communism, and political tensions that are still relevant today. William Asher also directed the AIP beach party films of the 1960s and a forgotten slasher called Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker 1981 (check out Moria for more information). The one shot of the alien spaceship interior is taken from Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (both that movie and this one were produced by Columbia).

the 27th day movie pressbook

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