Bimbo the Great (1958) Herald
Naming a giant elephant Bimbo just doesn't seem right. What's with the use of names beginning with "B" in circus vernacular anyway?
December 22, 2016
Sleeping Beauty (1959) Pressbook
Here's the 1970 re-distributed pressbook for Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty. When looking at a pressbook from the Disney studios, you first wonder at the amount of merchandising they line up; then you wonder at the care with which they treat their creations. I enjoyed the live-action Maleficent (2014) movie with Angelina Jolie, but not knowing her background makes her all the more sinister fun in this animated movie. She's simply evil. Malevolent beings lose a lot of their mystique and intensity once you start to provide a backstory, don't you think? For instance, for me, Pinhead loses something once we find out who he was. Evil is all the more effective in drama when it simply exists, without reasons for being.
Comic book reader version:Download Sleeping Beauty Pressbook
See more pressbooks from Zombos' Closet.
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A Christmas Carol (Scrooge, 1951)
Mexican Lobby Card
Still the best version of A Christmas Carol on film. At least for me. Eagle-eyed viewers will catch a camera goof: watch closely the mirror that Ebenezer Scrooge (Alastair Sim) looks into on Christmas morning. In the right corner of the mirror the camera catches a member of the crew. Oops. There are other goofs, but you'll not notice them. Alastair Sim's Scrooge is too entertaining to miss and the milieu of old London too depressing to ignore.
D.O.A (1950) Mexican Lobby Card
One of the essential film noir movies of the 1950s, D.O.A's grim, deterministic, storyline is captured well in this Mexican lobby card. Film buffs will usually point out the opening tracking shot that follows Bigelow (Edmund O'Brien) as he makes his way to the police detectives who already know who he is, but need the background story to connect the dots. The movie kicks in from there and you feel for the guy. For his neglected gal. And for the crazy, one-in-a-million reason he's dying. The dialog's a bit literary at times, but the momentum from the opening to the ending is always on the mark.