I can't help but find this Mexican lobby card for The Vampire and the Ballerina rather humorous. That look on the vampire's face and the somewhat distracted gaze of the bosomy victim is not horrific at all.
Republic Studios produced a lot of B movies and serials up until the 1950s. While you can consider them one of the Poverty Row outfits (and I don't use that term pejoratively), their movies may be cheap, but they were action-packed, fun cliff-hangers that filled the theaters week after week. One of the earliest studios to provide the burgeoning television market with their movies, the shift from theater to television viewing eventually shut down its feature film production. Here are some Mexican lobby cards to savor.
Trader Tom of the China Seas (1954)
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Here's a fun pressbook exhibitor aid for Tarzan's Secret Treasure. Every weekend for me as a kid, showing on local television, would be the Tarzan and Abbott and Costello movies. Comic reader version: Download Tarzan's Secret Treasure
See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.
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Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941)
Pressbook Exhibitor AidRead More »
Here's the Mexican lobby card for Burn, Witch, Burn! (aka Night of the Eagle). Peter Cushing decided to do Captain Clegg instead of this one.
According to Wikipedia's entry on this movie, Hammer had acquired the rights to make the movie in 1958, but the British censors wouldn't allow its production (no reason for this is cited in the entry), so the rights were then sold to AIP. I wonder what a British production would have done, compared to this Italian-American one. You can read the pressbook here.
I'm assuming this is a Mexican lobby card for Edgar Allan Poe: Master of Horror. I believe this Argentine movie can be found on YouTube, but no English subtitles. The card is quite a busy mix of images without any actors named; and the inset scene doesn't work well with the ghoulish imagery either.
Talk about keeping a stiff upper lip, Boris Karloff does that and more in this Mexican lobby card for The Haunted Strangler.
With villains dressed in spookshow-styled skeleton costumes, a stubby T-Rex (hey, that's what it looks like!), a nasty looking monkey, and a sarong-dressed native (more or less), I'd go out on a limb and see this Jungle Jim entry from Columbia Pictures. There's even an evil scientist and a missing football player crammed into the plotline. Wow.
Lots of stock footage and a Mexican lobby card that tosses in a gratuitous bosom make Forbidden Jungle more like Avoid This Jungle. The only saving grace is a man-in-gorilla-suit fighting a tiger. Well, okay, a saving grace for those of us who are into man-in-ape-suit kinds of stuff.
Here's a nice Western action drama to brighten your Saturday matinee.
See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.
The Destination Moon pressbook is big. At 13.5 by 20.25 inches, and 31 pages, it is an impressive promotional campaign for the movie. It is interesting to note that this movie presaged the notion of private enterprise spearheading space exploration, not the government. Of course, NASA did the heavy lifting in the beginning, but now it seems private enterprise is taking the lead (for better or worse). Woody Woodpecker has the honor of explaining the scientific principles behind space travel. For the story behind that, see Wikipedia’s entry on Destination Moon.
Comic reader version: Download Destination Moon Pressbook
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This movie has more titles than monsters, but the Mexican lobby card sums it up pretty well.