From Zombos Closet

JM Cozzoli

A horror genre fan with a blog. Scary.

Creature with the Atom Brain (1955)
Pressbook

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That look of Richard Denning in the poster art? Priceless. You don’t often (pretty much never, really) see a man recoil in terror in movie poster art. Women are the helpless, emotional victims, not men. I wonder what he thought about it when he saw what the marketing team had dreamed up? Love the coloring page. One of these days I’ll compile a post on coloring pages used for movie publicity. Kind of odd, kind of fun, they’re a promotional gimmick I’m not sure as to their effectiveness, and who the targeted audience was for them.

Creature with the Atom Brain Pressbook

 

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Creature with the Atom Brain (1955)
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Karate, The Hand of Death (1961) Pressbook

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It Came From Hollywood says: “A full decade before martial arts pictures became a “thing.” I’m claiming that not only is Karate, The Hand of Death the first martial arts picture, but it also created the cinematic trope of the American guy, who is fluent in the Japanese language and culture along with being a master of martial arts, forced to clear his name of a wrong-doing he is accused of while also kicking some ass! Cannon Pictures didn’t invent this sub-genre; Joseph Brenner did, and Allied Artists released it!”

Karate, The Hand of Death Pressbook …

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Creature With the Atom Brain
Radio Spots!

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Creature With the Atom Brain movie posterFrom the super secret radio lair of Granny Creech and The Radio Reaper…

The other day I called up my brother Ambrose and asked him if he wanted to go into town to the grocery store with me. He did. I picked him up and we rode into Pumpkin Hollow to the General Store. We shopped for the month’s groceries and departed. We used the time together to catch up on all the latest gossip and to see how each other’s families were doing. I dropped him off and headed home. When I arrived, I noticed a large manilla envelope on my porch, leaning up against my front door. I took it in and then unloaded my many sacks of groceries. When I finished that task, I opened the envelope. It was from The Radio Reaper with a note that said, “Here are some interesting spots to go with the spots you ran a few weeks ago. I hope you enjoy them.”

I took out the record. “Ah, yes,” I thought, “the second feature to an interesting double bill. We finally get to hear the radio spots for Creature With the Atom Brain. Released in 1955 as the companion feature to It Came From Beneath the Sea, Creature is a delightfully atmospheric detective murder-mystery with science fiction elements thrown in. The opening scene showing someone or…something…walking toward the camera with a heavy back light while a beating heart is heard instantly grabs your attention. Later, when the mysterious figure bends iron window bars and breaks into a mansion, it attacks the man inside. Bullets can’t stop it and we see, quite graphically via shadows on the wall, the man picked up overhead by the powerful intruder and getting his spine snapped. And I don’t mean slightly snapped, I mean the poor guy gets folded in two…backwards…with a loud crack! Yeowch! My teeth hurt every time I watch that scene. …

Creature With the Atom Brain
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Roger Corman Movies:
Radio Spots to Remember

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Roger Corman on set

Granny Creech digs deep to uncover memorable radio spots for Roger Corman movies…

I was invited over to my daughter Drusilla’s house this past Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day. Her husband, Winslow, was there, as was my son, Arthur, and his wife Letitia (Letty), along with a whole bunch of little monsterkids-in-training. My grandson, Big Abner –Arthur’s and Letty’s son – couldn’t make it because he had some out-of-town business to finish up. He hoped to be there later.

After a fine meal we all retired to the rocking chairs and swing on the front porch and lazily sipped our glasses of sassafras tea. The topic of conversation turned to scary movies and we each took turns naming our favorites. The titles were as varied as the personalities on the porch: the men liked the old Universal movies, the women liked the Universal classics of the ‘50s, and I liked them all, especially the lower budget movies of the 1950s.

It was at this point that Big Abner came running up the sidewalk, panting, and between gasps said, “Roger Corman has died!”

A silence fell over the group. We had lost a great one. …

Roger Corman Movies:
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Roger Corman’s World
We Welcome It

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roger corman's world documentary
Zombos Says: A Fun Documentary

“By mistake, he actually made a good picture once and awhile.” — Jack Nicholson, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

“Taste was out of the question.” — Martin Scorsese, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

Cinema Trash filmmaking is an art form–seriously, it is— and its greatest ideologist and practitioner is Roger Corman. He didn’t invent cheap sensational movies, but he knew how to make them highly profitable and when to kick-start a trend or exploit it to sell more theater seats (or drive-in car slots).  Soft-spoken but craftily articulate, Corman is the star of Alex Stapleton’s no frills documentary, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, which highlights how Corman ignited the careers of actors and directors who embraced–more like succumbed to, really–his pragmatic, and unwavering, bottom-line focused, moviemaking eye.

I first became acquainted with Corman’s work through The Terror, a movie whose inexplicable mix of budget-friendly moments and left-over sets went unnoticed by my 7-year-old eyes as I ruined my parents night out. I couldn’t help it. I refused to stay home with the babysitter so they had to take me along to the Loew’s Oriental theater (this was in Brooklyn, New York). I quietly sat between them as I watched Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller, Boris Karloff, and Sandra Knight chew up the gothic scenery, not really understanding what was happening. Of course, after the five or so directors got through with it, no one else did, either. I’m sure I had hit up the concession stand for treats, but I don’t remember what I ate. What I do remember is that scene: Helene (Sandra Knight) melting away into brown goo after Andre (Jack Nicholson) rescues her. That I remember. I blame Corman for hooking me on horror movies because The Terror is the first one I saw on the big screen (or small, for that matter). …

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KISS Halloween Night at Dodger Stadium

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You know you love KISS, admit it. Here’s an eye-popping 3D newspaper ad for their Halloween Night at Dodger Stadium. You will need those nifty anaglyph 3D glasses to view the image in its awesomeness. I know you monsterkids usually have a pair or two lying around. Even without the glasses, this makes a perfect wallpaper for your computer. Best viewed on a large screen, though.

KISS 3D newspaper ad

Monstrous Trade Ads
From Box Office Magazine

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These boffo trade ads were scanned by It Came From Hollywood from Box Office Magazine (1952 to 1956). Trade ads were designed to alert the theater manager to new movies for their silver screens that could bring in good box office receipts to keep the projector humming. Some trade ads were a full page while others could spread across multiple pages, and they were illustrated and worded with gusto to attract attention and excitement.

Box Office Magazine trade ad for Creature from the Black Lagoon Box Office Magazine trade ad for Creature from the Black Lagoon Box Office Magazine trade ad for Creature from the Black Lagoon Box Office Magazine trade ad for Invaders from Mars Box Office Magazine trade ad for abbott and costello meet the mummy.

 

 

The Tingler (1959) Radio Spots!

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William Castle offers to lend Vincent Price a hand in cutting The Tingler cake.
William Castle offers to lend Vincent Price a hand in cutting The Tingler cake.

My great-granddaughter Grizelda came over the other night for a sleepover. We had fun making sugar cookies and then icing them to look like pumpkins, skeletons, witches and scarecrows. Afterwards, we entertained each other by telling ghost stories while roasting marshmallows in front of the fireplace.

“Granny,” she said, “That last story you told gave me the willies. It scared me so badly that I could feel my whole body tensing up. It felt like my spine was about to break!”

“Ah, child,” I said. “What you felt was the Tingler grabbing hold of you. All you had to do was scream!”

She looked at me oddly, so I began to tell her all about The Tingler. She giggled gleefully and asked, “Can we watch it?” I whipped out the old DVD and hit ‘play’. We screamed and screamed and had a great time. …

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Dracula (1979) Pressbook

/ It Came From Hollywood, Pressbooks (Horror, Sci Fi, Fantasy) / Leave a Comment

Moving away from the lustful, unrepentantly malevolent vampire of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, Frank Langella’s Dracula is more romantic, more sensual, and more contemporary in artifice, sporting an opened shirt, less formal aristocratic dress that mixes perfectly into the pretty-look sensibilities of the late 1970s into the 1980s. With Laurence Olivier and Donald Pleasance, John Badham’s approach is classy and more gothic teen heart-throb in tone and mood, like Twilight before Twilight, and without werewolves.  

This pressbook, courtesy of It Came From Hollywood, is even less formal. By the late 70s, the art of the pressbook had lessened, providing a minimum of promotional information. One cool item here, though, are the cut-out forms to order radio and television spots for the movie. With a minimum of newspaper ads to order, and the Promotion page that directs to “the Universal fieldman in your local area” to request the Promotion Manual, one can see the shift away from the ballyhoo and exploitation that was previously more theater-focused as given in the pressbook. Now radio, and television especially, were the stronger mediums through which movie promotion could be conducted on a larger scale.

Dracula 1979 pressbook …

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