A particularly anger-laden illustration for I Killed Geronimo makes this Mexican lobby card intense. Being this movie was filmed in 1950, the story makes the Indians the bad guys for buying rifles to protect themselves from the encroaching land grabbers, and the cavalry rides to the rescue eventually. Many of the action scenes were lifted from Stagecoach.
The Fantomas movies are pretty wild and fun to watch. This Mexican lobby card captures the mystery and, through its use of cartoonish illustration, keeps the mood light.
Continuing our 1970s theme of satanic mayhem, here's Asylum of Satan. The illustration has a real Coney Island spook house feel to it.
Sure, you always think of Yvonne De Carlo as Eddie's wholesome mom on The Munsters, but she's a bit of a devil, too, you know. A school janitor gets the cheerleading squad into trouble with witches. John Carradine also manages to stop by. Originally given a PG rating, after the producer spiced it up, it received an R.
This is a very large Mexican lobby card for Satan's Mistress. John Carradine did a cameo and Britt Ekland, although top-billed, didn't appear much. This movie came out around the same time as The Entity (which you really shouldn't miss). The card uses two very strong elements: a frightened, vulnerable woman and a pair of sinister, threatening eyes. Note the emphasis on sex and terror to sell theater seats.
Here's a suitably mystery-hinting Mexican lobby card for Bela Lugosi's Black Dragons. Notice the "recommended for the horror club" seal of approval.
I have a guilty-pleasure-place for the Doug McClure fantasy actioners from Amicus first and this one too, the last of the bunch, from EMI. It's simple fare, but sometimes simple is just fine. Here's the very large Mexican lobby card (printed on thin slick paper) for the movie, which is also known as Warlords of the Deep.
Two men go into the jungle to search for a woman kidnapped by murderous apes. Much monkey-business ensues. Sure, complain about today's movies, I dare you. Directed by Ron Ormond. He made Christian movies, too. He also directed Mesa of Lost Women. I'll leave the innuendo up to you.
This looks like a repop, but here's the still impressive Mexican lobby card for Black Dragons, one of the Monogram 9 movies starring Bela Lugosi. I must recommend two books for you to fully appreciate these low-budget but highly interesting (and downright weird most of the time) movies from poverty row, especially Black Dragons. The first book takes a welcomed highbrow and passionate argument approach to the nine with an aesthetic appreciation: Bela Lugosi and the Monogram 9 by Gary D. Rhodes and Robert Guffey. The other book by Tom Weaver, Poverty Row Horrors! Monogram, PRC, and Republic Horror Films of the Forties, will give you the filmographic data and background. My favorite one of the nine? The Corpse Vanishes; a weird mix (drunken doctor can revive the dead, house with hidden passageways, Lugosi doing Lugosi) that is highly watchable.
On a relatively modest budget, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms grossed millions. Beating Godzilla to the theaters, the giant monster here became the first to usher in the oops-we-dropped-an-atomic-bomb-and-this-happens movies that revitalized date-nights for countless teenagers in the 1950s. Ray Harryhausen does an excellent job of bringing the rhedosaurus to life and the script (helped along a little by Ray Bradbury's short story, The Fog Horn), keeps it all moving. Mental Floss provides 11 Deep Facts about the movie, which include the casting of a live reptile to play the monster (bad idea, glad they didn't), and Harryhausen devised the climax at Coney Island (a very good idea).
In the Green Spider cabaret, somebody gets shot during a trumpet solo. Cue the crime drama mystery. This Mexican lobby card is just as mysterious.
