Mexican Lobby Card: El Charro De Las Calaveras
Simply superb, from the positioning of the masked gunfighter to the nibbling werewolf (or immensely hirsute individual, anyway). Gives me goosebumps just looking at it.
La Maldicion De La Momia Azteca (1957)
Mexican Lobby Card
Stop me if you've heard this before, but a mummy, a masked wrestler, and an evil scientist…
Mexican Lobby Card:
La Mansion De Los Espectros
A composition combining menacing images with an action shot of Bela Lugosi, and a color scheme that looks like dried blood, makes this Mexican lobby card a visual treat.
Dracula and Frankenstein
Golden Frame-Tray Puzzles 1991
Don't you wish you could just get up and go like Dracula? How does he do it? I love the little hankie tucked into his coat pocket. Does he really need to blow his nose? Maybe all that dirt's moldy and he has an allergy. The Frankenstein Monster's my favorite iconic image, of Glenn Strange strapped to an operating table; although he appears a lot more animated here than he usually does in the movies.
Graphic Book Review: Criminal Macabre, Two Red Eyes
A Cal McDonald Mystery
Zombos Says: Good
That walking pill box, Band-Aid strip, and Phillip Morris cigarette pack rolled into one, Cal McDonald, once again gets beat up bad, smokes more than a few, and tangles with impossible odds that scare the dead enough to steer way clear of him. Only this time, after all this doom and gloom build-up, the odds even up pretty quick, and surprisingly easily, in the last few pages of this four issue graphic novel.
You'd think Nosferatu, after demolishing the Santa Monica Pier upon his arrival, would do more than gloat as he and McDonald duke it out. No way. Instead, Steve Niles let's the vampire manhandle McDonald, and his loyal ghoulfriend MoLock, only just enough to stretch their necks to the breaking point, then pulls out the too simple gimmick of third-party intervention to save their smoked butts. Perhaps Nosferatu was too badass even for Niles to figure out a more McDonald-involved solution?
At least it's quite a build-up to that takedown letdown. Kyle Hotz makes Nosferatu glow with menace and us hurt just looking at McDonald's bruises. The police are out to get McDonald, we know why, and Nosferatu is out to get him, not quite sure why since McDonald's small fry in comparison, and the lycanthropes make a play to get him while he's busy puking past his withdrawal and nicotine starvation in the hospital. A text message from McDonald's girlfriend's phone sparks his recovery. Who'd have thought old Nosferatu could type with those claws on such a small phone?
You'd think four issues wouldn't be enough to hold all this menace and you'd be right. The easy-breezy showdown takes place at the Hollywood sign, no idea why. Maybe Niles is trying to tell us something with those big white letters.
Keep trying.
Movie Pressbook: The Viking Queen (1967)
While I'm not sure how much historical Viking and Iceni research actually wound up in this Hammer production, you certainly can't beat those chariots of death and men roasting in cages. Not everthing's about Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, right? I mean, if you can have the Satanic rites of Dracula, then I don't see much harm with the Iceni practicing savage ones in the movie.
This 10" x 15" Warner-Pathe pressbook follows the same format as their Moon Zero Two pressbook, but this one has only 8 pages (how many ice-cream and luggage tie-ins can you do with Vikings? and forget about the kiddies after you go about roasting men and driving chariots of death).
Speaking of those deadly chariots, I suspect there's a bit of phallic print-play with the cover illustration going on. Of course, you can read anything you like into those Viking horns. They're so, well, do I really need to say it? As for the movie, all I can say is, it's in my Top 10 list for worst-casting ever. Don Murray? As a Viking?
Movie Pressbook: Moon Zero Two (1969) Part 2
In Part 2 of our coverage on the Moon Zero Two pressbook, the last 7 pages include more publicity and promotion ideas including Revell model kits, color-in drawings for newspapers, luggage for that moon trip (yes, product placement was done in the 1960s, too!), ice cream tie-ins (called tie-ups, here; those Brits are so into bondage), and finally, as if it were an afterthought, the poster blocks page. The marketing for this movie was extensive, judging by this pressbook. Very impressive, really. (Note: the pages do not appear in the order printed.)
Movie Pressbook: Moon Zero Two (1969) Part 1
This 12 page pressbook from Warner-Pathe Distributors, Ltd. covers all the bases: kiddie audiences, it’s in here; astronaut pens, and moon-buggy rentals, it’s in here; gogo-booted females baring skin for the guys, it’s in here; future fashions that remind you of Gerry Anderson, it’s in here, too. All of this courtesy of Hammer Studios. I have to split this into two posts because it’s so overwhelming. And man, I’d take on James Bond for that fold display artwork. Wouldn’t you?
See Part Two of the Moon Zero Two pressbook.
Double Bill Pressbook:
Blood Suckers and Blood Thirst
The "exploitation aid"mentioned in this bi-folded, one sheet pressbook is a keeper; the movies, not so much.