I've not watched Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps yet, but the pressbook is a large format promotion, and tie-up bonanza, for it. The cast is quite impressive and the pressbook highlights that, too.
Comic reader version: Download While the City Sleeps Pressbook
I was thinking The Prey was a straight to VHS endeavor, but IMDb lists New World Pictures as a theatrical distributor so it did have a limited theater run at least. Here's the blurb from IMDb: "Six campers jaunt off to North Point, where they're promptly stalked and killed by a ghoulish man who ultimately is just looking for a little love." Sure. And with a tagline like "it's not human, and it's got an axe" I'm still not seeing this one as a big theater draw, but John Kenneth Muir did give it a positive review, so I recommend you read what he says about it to help you make up your mind. The movie was actually completed in 1978 but didn't see release until 1984.
Messages from Mars send the United States into a tizzy. An odd "red scare" movie from the 1950s, Red Planet Mars tosses in God, Nazis technology, the Red Menace, nuclear power, and Peter Graves, and may actually be worth revisiting: its relevance to today's fake news/political meddling, and religious hypocrisies may have been prescient. John L. Balderston and John Hoare wrote it. Balderston's version of the Dracula stage play became the vehicle for Bela Lugosi, and, according to Wikipedia, he was an uncredited contributor to Mark of the Vampire. Unfortunately, the poster art leaves much to be desired.
From Wikipedia: "In 1984, film noir historian Spencer Selby noted, "Undoubtedly one of the most stylish and refined woman-in-distress noirs." This Mexican lobby card for Sudden Fear illustrates that tone quite well with a beautiful closeup of Joan Crawford at her histrionic-best. Notice, also, how the lighting for the couple at the bottom right embellishes them with a sinister patina.
Martians invade this issue of The Monster Times. With an interview with Ray Bradbury, Martian movies covered, Orson Welles terrifying radio version of War of the Worlds, and Martians in the Movies as well as Martians in the Comics, you'll go out of this world.
Comic reader version: Download Monster Times Issue 31
Remember when Sputnik was the least of our worries with Russia? If you do, here's a nostalgic trip down memory lane for you.
Comic reader version: Download This is Russia Pressbook
Lots of sell and promotion fills this pressbook for The Scarlet Spear, a jungle movie "actually filmed in the jungle." From a chimp delivering the film reels, to street bally and product tie-ups, they covered all the bases; and tossed in a coloring page for good measure.
Comic book reader version: Download The Scarlet Spear Pressbook
H. Rider Haggard's novel did get a lot of movie versions. According to Wikipedia, Ursula Andress's accent irritated the studio enough to do a re-dubbing by Nikki van der Zyl. Financed through MGM, the budget for this Hammer film was "triple" the usual for a Hammer movie. Not one of my Hammer favorites, but with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee along for the ride, it's definitely worthwhile viewing.
Comic reader version: Download She 1965 Pressbook
See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.
One of the most frightening monsters in horror cinema. And there's Steve McQueen tossed in for good measure (he'd go on to do television's Wanted: Dead or Alive). The movie playing in the theater when the Blob spills out of the projector booth is Daughter of Horror (a re-cut of Dementia, 1955). If you haven't caught this movie, do so: it's held up and still delivers the goosebumps.
What more to say than this was done by Ray Dennis Steckler. The story goes the title was a typo (should have been Rat Pfink and Boo Boo) but Steckler's budget couldn't cough up the extra money to fix it. Great movie for a midnight matinee showing. Toss in a Three Stooges short and some early cartoons and even I'd stay awake.
This is the re-release pressbook for 1962. I'm willing to bet you never knew there was an Alfred Hitchcock Coloring Book to promote the movie! Well, only four pages, sure, but the "This is a seat in a movie theatre" page should be colored and framed. And you thought Roger Corman and William Castle were the only ones with a barker-bone in their bodies, didn't you?
Comic reader version: Download Rear Window Pressbook
Continue reading "Rear Window (1954) Re-Release Pressbook" »
There's something fascinating about the girls and gorillas thematic that was a Hollywood bad habit that hit its zenith in the 1940s, along with mad scientists and gorillas. Of course, the most notable is King Kong (1933), but there were many movies plotting along this theme. Here's the Mexican lobby card for the Congo Bill Columbia Pictures 15 chapter serial. While it may all appear rather silly now to watch an actor in a gorilla suit carrying an unconscious woman in his arms, try to imagine as if you were sitting in a grand, single screen, theater in the 1940s. (Here's the Congo Bill pressbook.)
