Azteca/Mexican Lobby Cards
The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)
Mexican Lobby Card
An overly talky movie, yet still has its charms; especially with the monster hanging around the lighthouse for food scraps. In-between the gabfests, the unexpected gore (monster holding severed head, crab crawling over severed head) must have jolted kids in their theater seats, making it a must see movie for them. I saw it on local television in the 1960s and was nicely scared, thank you very much. The creature suit was fashioned by Universal veterans involved with the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Diary of a Madman (1963)
Mexican Lobby Card
This Mexican lobby card for Diary of a Madman, based on the Guy de Maupassant short story, The Horla, makes sure to show Vincent Price's patented sinister stare to best effect. The essential model of the Horla, an unseen, unknown, maliciously intending alien entity moving from host to host, is now an often used one in science fiction and horror movies. The Horla is often mentioned as H.P. Lovecraft's inspiration for The Call of Cthulhu.
Manicomio (Madhouse) 1946
Boris Karloff
This Mexican lobby card is puzzling. The inset scene is from Boris Karloff’s The Terror, but the title translates to Boris Karloff’s Bedlam. The jumble of illustrations seems like a different lobby card was used and Karloff’s face was added for obvious reasons (hint: El Maestro Del Terror) to create this one. Still colorful enough to catch attention. I don’t recall seeing big…chains…in The Terror either.
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.
