Pressbooks (Non-Horror)

I caught Zombos just as he was falling backwards, thrown off balance by yet another heavy box of movie pressbooks he had squirreled away in his closet, as he lifted with his back, not his legs.

“How many of these do we have tucked away in here,” he mumbled. I disagreed with his use of the word “we.”

“You mean how many of these heavy boxes you have stashed in the closet?” I corrected him. “I’m thinking a lot. Enough to keep you busy way past my death, so there’s a positive note for you right there.”

He gave me that look of his that could peel paint, then opened the box and rummaged through it. “Oh, here it is. I have been meaning to post this one for some time.”

Again with the we.

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Flaming Frontiers (1938) PressbookRead More »

This 12-chapter Western serial, filmed by Republic Pictures, was the directorial debut of William Witney, who continued directing serials including Dick Tracey Returns, G-Men vs. the Black Dragon, Drums of Fu Manchu, and others. After Republic, he went on to direct movies for American International Pictures and Associated Producers Incorporated as well as television (he directed episodes of The Wild Wild West series). Quentin Tarantino called him “one of the greatest action directors in the history of the business.” (The New Beverly Cinema)

In the Valley of the Cliffhangers, author Jack Mathis alludes to what might have been, storywise:

Given the story for screen adaptation, writers Barry Shipman and Winston Miller perceived Evart’s [Hal G. Evart] creation in a different and extraordinary light during their work on a novel first treatment in 1936 between November 21 and 24. Based on the premise of the painted stallion as a werehorse, the scripters envisioned a lycanthropic fantasy in which legend stated that the stallion–symbol of man–could be either horse or man and was impervious to bullets. The studio, however, decided against this whimsical approach, and following the Thanksgiving holiday Shipman and Miller wrote the final screenplay from an alternate scenario developed several months earlier by Morgan Cox and Ronald Davidson.

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The Painted Stallion (1937) PressbookRead More »

Zorro Rides Again is Republic’s 12-part serial that mixes the slugfests, cliffhangers, dangerous stunts, and derring-do in a 1930s-modern actioner. Yakima Canutt goes all out to deliver the thrills. In one famous gag he transfers from saddle to moving truck, which looks smooth onscreen, but any misstep would have led to serious injury or death. Moving from horse to speeding train, no problem either. One gag for a cliffhanger had his foot caught in a track switch with a train heading in, closer and closer. His whip-work snags the track switch and disaster averted just in time. His straight-from-the-shoulder punches are also a highlight, as well as those taking them on the receiving end, making it look exceptionally punchy. Canutt did all the heavy lifting for John Carroll who played Zorro. With the mask on, Canutt could do the action scenes, saving Carroll from calamity and bruises. Duncan Reynaldo provided the comedy relief bits. Reynaldo played the Cisco Kid on television from 1950 to 1956, with filming done at Pioneer Town, California. Zorro Rides Again filmed at Bronson Canyon, the Iverson Movie Ranch, and other locations. Some shooting also took place in Cochilla, Mexico.

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Zorro Rides Again (1937) PressbookRead More »

Tom Keene had a flexible career in cowboy movies, where he appeared as different cowpokes, bucking the trend of a single persona like Tom Mix or Roy Rogers. From cowboys to more upper and lower scale movies, he changed his name to Richard Powers in the 1940s and played Colonel Tom Edwards in Plan 9 From Outer Space, and a major general in Red Planet Mars. He did a lot of television work appearing in Adventures of Superman and Death Valley Days. He even found time to do Broadway in the 1940s. Not one to be pegged to any one role or genre, he eventually retired from acting in the late 1950s and hawked insurance and real estate. Luana Walters also had a busy career, starring in movie serials like Shadow of Chinatown with Bela Lugosi, Superman, and Captain Midnight. She starred with Bela Lugosi again in The Corpse Vanishes as the feisty reporter. Her last movie role was in The She-Creature in 1956.

Tom Keene began his acting career as George Duryea, starring as Abie in one of the touring companies for Abie’s Wild Irish Rose, a Broadway hit in 1922. From there he took the male lead in Cecil B. De Mille’s The Godless Girl from Pathé Studios. He did more features for Pathé and other studios, and in the early 1930s he took the name Tom Keene beginning with RKO’s The Sundown Trail. Seeing success in Westerns, but fearful of being typecast, he left Hollywood for summer stock. When he returned, he took on varied roles in various movies beginning with King Vidor’s Our Daily Bread. His plan to not be typecast worked well, except for the problem of not achieving the notoriety and stardom that a consistent onscreen persona would have given him. So he returned to Westerns for a few years, but then left the silver screen for a stage play that bombed. He moseyed back to Hollywood and continued working with RKO and Republic, eventually turning to television westerns and retiring to the dusty trails of real estate and insurance sales. One important note: Rita Cansino eventually changed her name too: to Rita Hayworth.

(Research: Riders of the Range: The Sagebrush Heroes of the Sound Screen by Kalton C. Lahue and B-Westerns at https://www.b-westerns.com/tkeene.htm.) 

One of the last cowboy stars of the silver screen, Rex Bell began riding horses and packing heat in the late 1920s at Fox. When movies switched to sound he shifted into the Bs, both westerns and actioners, with many made for Monogram. Those movies mixed in a more modern (for then) setting along with the cowboys, including gangsters and fast cars (again, for then). He met the It Girl, Clara Bow, when they worked together in the 1930 film True to the Navy. They married in 1931 and settled into their Walking Box Ranch near Searchlight Nevada. Bell’s final film was The Misfits in 1961.

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Men of the Plains (1936) PressbookRead More »

An engrossing noir, 20th Century Fox’s The Dark Corner has Lucille Ball, making it even more entertaining to watch. Pretty much a Queen of the Bs before her I Love Lucy (six years) and Desilu Studios days, she was always notable in every movie she played in. Star Trek fans know full well how her taking over the management of Desilu led, among other things, to spending the money for two pilots and providing a hefty budget — all while ignoring her board’s desire to cancel it — to put the science fiction Wagon Train in space television series on the air. You can thank her for promoting and backing Mission Impossible too. In The Dark Corner, she fights for her man, played by Mark Stevens, who never seemed comfortable while acting. Clifton Webb, who played Waldo Lydecker, the snobby, stern-faced, would-be lover in Laura, plays a Waldo Lydecker here too, only with the name changed to Cathcart. William Bendix is always a delight to watch in action. He was the go-to for blue collar toughness and earthiness, and made the perfect street-tough character. He gained notoriety through The Life of Riley (on radio and television). He also played Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story. He actually was a bat boy for the New York Yankees, but was fired after getting Babe Ruth sick before a game by bringing him hot dogs and sodas. The Babe had a habit of eating large. Bendix appeared in other noir movies, including The Blue Dahlia (1946) and The Glass Key (1942). At twenty pages, this pressbook certainly goes all out to sell the movie.

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The Dark Corner (1946) PressbookRead More »

First, I really love these folder-style movie pressbooks. They were especially made for the drive-in circuit. Second, while I categorize war pressbooks as non-horror, let’s be real: wars are horror; we just don’t have the luxury of fantasy to wrap it in that we do with most horror movies. These AIP budget movies, using stock footage, are par for the course. Tank Battalion at least had Frank Gorshin (simply the best Riddler, tell me I’m wrong), Barbara Luna, and Leslie Parish. They appeared on Star Trek TOS. Funny thing department: Tank Battalion‘s budget allowed for one tank. I haven’t watched the movie, but I can imagine how well that works onscreen when you’re fighting a war. An AI prompt brought up information about the cheapness of the set design, especially with the interior of the tank. To save money, convenient damage to the tank early on keeps it stationary for most of the movie. Now you know I have to watch this one.

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Hell Squad and Tank Battalion
Double Bill PressbookRead More »

Kidnapped Coed, also known as Date with a Kidnapper, is a grindhouse (low budget, gritty, quickly shot) movie that was paired with Axe, which made the video nasties list in the 1980s over in the UK, and Hitch Hike to Hell (1977) on double bills. Both were directed by Frederick R. Friedel. I’ve not watched either, yet, but Kidnapped is either ignored as a boring, not so action-packed, grindhouse effort or praised as a pensive meditation with some artsy flair and carefully planned tracking shots. Either way, I found the pressbook’s cover interesting enough to share it with you. It sells the exploitation and the leering quality that grindhouse should be edged with, art or not. I love that tagline too.

Born in Brooklyn in 1948, Friedel had no training in film, no experience on a film set, and no idea of what actually was involved in film production. But he did know that Orson Welles had made Citizen Kane when he was twenty-five and decided that he wanted to make a feature by that age himself. (Cagey Films)

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Kidnapped Coed (1976) PressbookRead More »

Here’s a funny thing. I like to research the movie when I post the pressbook for it. For Wild West Days I decided to try ChatGPT to see how it would respond to my simple prompt: “Tell me about the movie serial Wild West Days 1937.”

It didn’t do well. Twice it gave me completely wrong information and twice I corrected it. It finally got it right on the third prompt. How it could have been so off the mark I’m not sure, but imagine someone asking about the movie who didn’t already know something about it? That person could have walked away thinking it was a B Western made by both Republic and Monogram, starring Ray ‘crash’ Corrigan, Ken Maynard, and Hoot Gibson. Oh, and it was directed by Louis King and John English. Louise Stanley played the romantic interest too. Yikes~!

Finally, third time was the charm. “You’re absolutely right again, and I deeply apologize for the confusion in my earlier responses. Wild West Days (1937) is indeed a Universal Pictures film serial, not a B-movie Western as I mistakenly suggested. Let me provide the correct details about the serial.”

So let that be a warning to you, as Criswell said (well okay, I added the AI): “Future [AI] events such as these will affect you in the future” and “We are all interested in the future [of AI], for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” Amen, brother.

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Wild West Days (1937) PressbookRead More »

An enjoyable entry in the Sherlock Holmes series by Universal, Terror By Night is a solid 60 minutes of whodunit that director Roy William Neill keeps fast-paced and tensely mysterious given the confined setting of a “moving” train. Significant back projection helps maintain realism and Neill’s high-contrast lighting adds to the noirish look. The one failing movies taking place on trains or boats or planes have is the instability of simple motions of people walking or standing on something moving, sailing or flying; characters are always so motionless and stable while the normal jerks and bumps normally experienced in real life are not shown onscreen. The production costs for such realism can be high, but would be a welcomed sight. You can see a good copy of this movie on YouTube. The character actors appearing in the Sherlock Holmes movies were superb. To learn more about them I highly recommend reading Sherlock Holmes and the Fabulous Faces: The Universal Pictures Repertory Company by Michael A. Hoey.

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Terror By Night (1946) PressbookRead More »