August 2021

The Jungle Jim pressbooks were usually a six-page foldout. I scanned the pages in the order you would see them when initially opening the pressbook. The JJ series had a long run of B (perhaps more C) movies to fill theater screens when patrons would spend hours at the theater; unlike today, where you pay a lot of money to see one movie. I'm sure lots of parents would "dump" their kids at the theater for a few hours so they could experience some freedom from parental duties. William Castle took very good advantage of that with his horror movies and their gimmicks. I pity the poor theater crew that had to clean up the mess after Emergo, after kids used the skeleton for target practice with anything at hand they could toss. Oddly enough, due to copyright issues, Johnny Weismuller's name replaced the Jungle Jim handle. Hence the reason the pressbook says Johnny Weissmuller in Jungle Moon Men. He played himself in the movie. This entry leans toward the fantastical, with an immortal Moon Goddess, pygmies that worshipped her (the Moon Men), and a hidden treasure. Wikipedia notes that plot elements were taken from She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard.

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Johnny Weissmuller in Jungle Moon Men (1955)
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Subpar miniatures, bad acting, and clumsy wire-work for space scenes renders the wild, wild plot more harebrained than wild. Still, the low budget 1960s space vibe, campy and unintentionally funny, is interesting.

ComicRack reader version: Download Wild Wild Planet Pressbook

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Wild, Wild Planet (1966) PressbookRead More »

I caught Orgy of the Dead many, many years ago, late one night. For the life of me I can’t remember where, but it may have been a late-night showing on some UHF channel. I was naughty, even then, and UHF had lax standards. After Criswell introduces this magnum opus “I am Criswell. For years, I have told the almost unbelievable, related the unreal and showed it to be more than a fact. Now I tell a tale of the threshold people, so astounding that some of you may faint. This is a story of those in the twilight time. Once human, now monsters, in a void between the living and the dead. Monsters to be pitied, monsters to be despised. A night with the ghouls, the ghouls reborn from the innermost depths of the world,” it goes on and on with topless burlesque dancers and a few monsters standing around a lot. My threshold for amusement dropped out after about 20 minutes. The pressbook for this odd entry into the nudie cutie sub-genre is rather small but also filled with topless women.

I’ve gone all prude and whited out the naughty bits for the sake of not offending anyone with this alluring image, but you can see all the naughty bits in the unexpurgated pressbook.

ComicRack reader version: Download Orgy of the Dead Pressbook

See more, but less naughty (sorry), pressbooks From Zombos’ Closet.