From Zombos' Closet

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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Pirate Treasure (1934) Pressbook

What drew my eye to this pressbook for Pirate Treasure, Universal's swashbuckling movie serial, was the showmanship page. From lobby stunts, pirate coloring competition, pirate mask and hat, pirate treasure bags, heralds, hangers, and more, it's a splash of thrills. The stunt work in this serial is noted as stellar too. Yo ho ho!

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Double Shock Running Wild and Tarantula Insert

Get your bobby socks on. It's a double bill of shock and horror! Just when you escape the juke box jungle the tarantula grows on you (in a bad way). This double bill promotion insert fell out of the Running Wild pressbook I was thumbing through. I'm thinking this made a neat date night movie or drive-in snuggle. I'd think the date night would get more traction at the drive in, but the balcony might do in a pinch. I miss theater balconies. They were filled with mystery along with the sticky floors. Thanks to Trailers from Hell (Joe Dante and Charlie Largent) for supplying the Running Wild pressbook and this pleasant surprise contained within.

Witches' Tales Vol. 5 No. 1 January 1973

An interesting escape into the wrong body, Satan dances into mischief, a burning desire flames up, people are doomed, scientists screw up, and the art is to die for (which apparently many people do in horror comics). Enjoy.

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The Hitch-Hiker (1953) Pressbook

Ida Lupino directs a gripping 1950s styled noir that brings home the dangers of picking up hitchhikers. William Talman's performance (best known for playing Hamilton Burger on the Perry Mason television series, 1957 to 1966) is pitch perfect. He has the face, the voice, and the attitude for nasty in spades. Edmond O'Brien makes the perfect 1950s average Joe pushed to the extreme. This is one film noir you won't want to miss. This 18x12 inches pressbook is no slouch either.

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Witches' Tales Vol. 4 Issue 3 May 1972

A puppet carved from gallows wood, a dancer who twirls in the wrong direction, Medusa's head holds up like granite, and a witch goes for a joy ride on her  broom. And two stories and the undying fiend provide a bit more terror for you in this issue of Witches' Tales.

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Fort Vengeance (1953) Pressbook

This pressbook for Fort Vengeance is more interesting than the movie. The campaign art promoted the "red savage" theme in the usual way (war paint, axe, feathers, and menacing face). Rita Moreno starred in a cardboard role and sold cardboard bread in a Hollywood Bread tie-in. Interesting to note that bread was a common tie-in (called tie-up here) with westerns, especially for television. The pressbook mentions "the movie was filmed in color to bring out the scenic splendor of the Canadian Northwest, but the movie was shot indoors and outdoors in California. 

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Gentleman Joe Palooka (1946) Pressbook

Clean-living prizefighter makes good. Monogram made 12 movies based on Ham Fisher's comic character, Joe Palooka. Lots of movies and shorts in the 1940s and 1950s knocked out stories centered around the boxing ring. We tend to label more contemporary comic book inspired movies as franchise, merchandise, and sequel-itis prone properties, but merchandising and repeated entries for a property started decades ago, even before Star Wars. If it's hot its cloned more than a gaggle of storm troopers, when the force of an insatiable audience kicks in.

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20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) Pressbook

Not until Terry Michitsch sent along these wonderful scans of 20 Million Miles to Earth did I realize William Hopper was playing a lead role in it. Now an ardent Perry Mason fan (the television show with Raymond Burr), Hopper plays Paul Drake, the private detective Mason relies on; so now I need to watch 20 Million Miles again, just to see him in action. TCM's overview mentions how this movie started filming in Italy because Ray Harryhausen wanted to vacation there. Smart move, combining work and play at the same time, and getting paid for it to boot. Harryhausen's Ymir is one of his best creations, with a solid personality and superb body design. Given more budget money, and better scripting, this would be an all out classic.

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The Royal Mounted Rides Again (1945) Pressbook

Courtesy of Joe Dante and Charlie Largent (Trailers From Hell) comes this file copy for The Royal Mounted Rides Again serial. Always interesting are the costs associated with any movie (or serial) promotion. According to the onion skin typewritten page glued (see those annoying brown spots) to page 2, the cost for 6,000 pressbooks came to .233 cents per book; with art work taking 659 dollars for advertising. 

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I Killed Geronimo (1950) Mexican Lobby Card

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.

My World Dies Screaming (1958) Pressbook

Terror in the Haunted House, also known as My World Dies Screaming, was the first movie lensed using Psychorama. If you've seen The Exorcist, you know what psychorama is: think of those brief flashes of the demon face popping up. In this movie, flashes of a skull were used to subliminally convey terror to the audience, along with other images to convey other emotions. Or so they hoped. 

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Walk Into Hell (1956) Pressbook

What's a jungle without a witch doctor? At least that's the theme in most jungle movies from the 1950s. See the movie herald. Of course it's all about oil found in the jungle, which brings out the human wild beasts. The poster art focuses on a victimized white woman, scantily dressed of course, to sell butts in theater seats.

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I Was an American Spy (1951) Pressbook

The good old days, when we were focused on enemies from without and Reader's Digest sensations that shocked the nation instead of dodging the rocks we're throwing at each other now. This one's a dramatization of a true hero, Claire Phillips. She spied on the Japanese during World War II and survived a lot of hardship and torture. This pressbook pushes the patriotism and zippo lighters, along with a song, Because of You. The poster art does a good job of exploitation without excess.

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Walk Into Hell (1956) Herald

Here's the theater herald for Walk Into Hell, formerly titled Walk Into Paradise. The movie didn't make any money when it was called Walk Into Paradise, so switching over to Hell did the trick. Americans are like that.

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Night Gallery Art Prints Advertisement

I picked up this advertisement, from 1971, for full color reproductions of some of The Night Gallery portraits. Would love to have these prints instead. Some monster magazines at the time carried advertisements for these prints too. Looking forward to receiving my copy of Rod Serling's Night Gallery: The Art of Darkness, which will show all of the paintings along with commentary and other tidbits of information. One thing you must absolutely do is NOT watch The Night Gallery eps on cable channels like MeTv. Avoid them like the plague. MeTV picked up rights to the 30-minute edited versions that went into syndication. Aside from being butchered to run in a shortened timeframe, they added episodes from The Sixth Sense (also butchered) with Gary Collins and Catherine Ferrar. Rod Serling did new introductions for those episodes, but they aren't Night Gallery. The 30-minute syndicated episodes border on incoherent as editing tricks left them sliced and diced.

H.P. Lovecraft by Dave Carson (1990)

I was rummaging through the closet today and I found this signed print by Dave Carson. I can't believe it was so long ago that I picked it up. I don't know what's worse: collecting or forgetting what I've collected. I will say it's both depressing that I forgot about it, but exhilirating that I now remember it. While fans and detractors continue to argue over H.P. Lovecraft's influence and racism, his artistic sway over horror fiction and artists remains steadfast. 

Fantoma versus Scotland Yard () Mexican Lobby Card

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.

Los Vampiros de Coyoacan (1974) Mexican Lobby Card

Here are three of the giant lobby cards (larger than the usual jumbo-sized 12.5 x 16.5 inches) for Los Vampiros de Coyoacan. Wonderful hodge-podge of horror elements comprises this layout.

Raiders of Ghost City (1944) Pressbook

Here's another great pressbook courtesy of Joe Dante and Charlie Largent (Trailers From Hell).  This file copy of Raiders of Ghost City pressbook contains a typed, on onion paper, breakdown of the cost for 6000 pressbooks. It rounds to 20 cents per book, with printing and artwork costing the most. Presumably the cost of producing the pressbooks was offset by the sales of promotional material (see the ad mats and showmanship pages) for the theaters promoting the serial.

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A Night in the Lonesome October Book Review

While reading Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October I kept wondering how it could be made into a movie. The challenge is not so much the talking dog, cat, bat, or rat (they are demon sidekicks, of course), but how Zelazny let their dialogues provide the main flow of the story. The reader needs to rely on the dog named Snuff, and his powers of observation, because he is the one narrating what is happening each day of October, leading up to the eventful battle royale that will take place on Halloween; but his owner is Jack the Ripper, so there is some question as to his sense of good versus evil nose sniffing to be sure.

That pending battle, with the apocalyptic tendencies, will  be waged by the openers and the closers. The openers are more the bad players and the closers are more the good players, but since Saucy Jack, along with Snuff, are on the good players side, using the term "good" requires some stretching. Count Dracula is also in the game, but no one really knows which side he'll be on when push comes to shove as those slimy, multi-tentacled monstrosities, looking for a new footfold into our dimension, make their move on Halloween night. And so the game begins in this Victorian period piece, played over each day, with each demon sidekick doing a lot of the legwork, trying to figure out who will be an opener or a closer, and how the lines of power are being drawn in the neighborhood. As the maneuverings for power take place, Sherlock Holmes (referred to as the Great Detective), dons disguise and guile to reveal the mystery emanating from the deadly game. Even Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man, puts down all fours, providing assistance to Snuff. What part Talbot will play at the end can go a tail wag either way, but he proves invaluable to Snuff. If Lon Chaney Jr. keeps popping into your head as you read, you will already know how Talbot will play it. 

Snuff is rather stiff-lipped and steely pawed and clever at gaining information while strategically sharing it. Mostly with Graymalk the cat as the two strike up an unlikely alliance. Each helps the other out of bad spots as the days move closer to the eventful night. Zelazny keeps his words and paragraphs stiff-lipped too, and there is a prim tempo to each chapter; one chapter for each day in October, with the first one putting the reader imediately into the story with little fanfare. 

Interesting little tidbits of the uncanny wind up in odd places. There's Jack's monsters trapped in a mirror and furniture, always looking to escape; a human sacrifice is chained, awaiting her doom; a tour of a Lovecraftian dreamscape where ancient beings wait patiently to walk the earth again, and murder most fowl when the going gets rough. Zelazny writes it all as matter of factly as possible, with close calls, bodies turning up, and the tools of the dark arts trade slowly revealing themselves. His economy of words creates a magical opening all by itself, wherein the reader can infer much and imbue each player in this great game, either good or bad,  with feelings and intentions, even if that player crawls, flys, howls or walks on two legs by night. His description of Dracula's actions, merely a few drops of blood worth, is more chilling than any of the recent Universal endeavors for the ruddy Count. Perhaps Universal should look into doing the movie version? This would make quite a monster rally indeed for the big screen.