It's the buccaneer's life for me in 2016. Swinging around the yardarm all day. Clinging tightly to platinum blond slave girls (with impeccable couture) while wielding my rapier with deft and deadly aim. And you get to wear awesome high boots and poofy shirts with floppy sleeves to work. Perfect.
Here's the beautifully illustrated Mexican lobby card for Tarzan Escapes (1936), La Fuga De Tarzan.
One of the most evocative Mexican lobby cards I've seen, Los Hermanos Del Hierro is mesmerizing in its direct simplicity and expressive illustration. Does it remind you of a Night Gallery painting like it does for me?
What confounded me when watching James Whale's The Invisible Man was how the formula ingested wasn't invisible itself. How could simply drinking a concoction turn you invisible? The 1940's The Invisible Woman side-stepped that by having the invisibility process induced by a machine designed by a slightly eccentric professor (John Barrymore). This imaginative Mexican lobby card is for 1958's Invisible Man in Mexico (aka The New Invisible Man), El Hombre Que Logro Ser Invisible.
Must have been a hell of a wedding. Here's another shameless example of exploitative promotion. You never see guys in ripped clothing lying unconscious in some big ape's arms do you? Here's the pressbook.
Here's more stuff in the closet to go ape over:
Amazing how all these jungle guys fighting lions, tigers, and assorted beasts never seem to get scratched, mauled, or serious f'd up. Hell, the urban jungle's apparently a lot worse if you go by these movies.
Here's another colorful Superman Mexican lobby card for the television series. I like this one because the inset scene matches the action illustration at the bottom right.
More Superman Stuff in the Closet:
Superman and the Jungle Devil Mexican Lobby Card
Adventures of Superman Mexican Lobby Card
Genuine Superman Outfit Advertisement (Screen Magazine, 1955)
Santo squares off against the Headhunters in this Mexican lobby card from 1971.
These are the kinds of Mexican lobby cards I dream about. Frightening image of Bela Lugosi done in spook show luridness, matched with a gasping woman in the inset scene, and colors that scream "creepy" out loud. I normally don't collect lobbies that are badly torn, but this one is rare and the missing piece doesn't ruin the impact. I hope you find it as compelling as I do. This one is for Invisible Ghost (1941). And note that Polly Ann Young's name is misspelled.
More Bela:
Here's an interesting one: this Mexican lobby card for Tarzan and the She-Devil, Tarzan Y La Diablesa, is a bit confusing. This is a beautiful lobby highlighting Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, but Lex Barker played Tarzan in the 1953 movie. Oops.
The East Side Kids mix it up with Bela Lugosi in Ghosts on the Loose. A salary dispute with Leo Gorcey, the "brains" of the group, would lead to The Bowery Boys movies beginning in 1945.
More Stuff in the Closet:
This Mexican lobby card for El Misterio Del Latigo Negro is gorgeous and a fine example of how much talent-driven composition Mexican lobbies can achieve.