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.

Spooks Run Wild (1941) Pressbook

A fun romp pairing the Monogram studio's popular Bela Lugosi and the East Side Kids. Available prints are very murky today, but you can still appreciate the gags and spook house setting. This was originally released around Halloween, so I'm sure it had a good run in the theaters.

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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.

Let's Get Tough (1942) Pressbook

Wikipedia has a very good write up on this wartime B movie. The East Side Kids tangled with Bela Lugosi in Spooks Run Wild, and Bela also tangled with the Black Dragon saboteurs in his movie, Black Dragons. 

Comic reader version:  Download Let's Get Tough Pressbook

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Chiller Carnival of Blood Pressbook

There's nothing like a bloody movie marathon to spend the night with. Just stick this one in a Times Square theater circa 1970s and the milieu would be perfect.

Comic reader version:  Download Carnival of Blood Pressbook

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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.