From Zombos' Closet

Jungle Jim in Savage Mutiny (1953) Pressbook

Johnny Weismuller (who played Tarzan) did 16 Jungle Jim movies. While his acting style lacked much (though it made him perfect for Tarzan), the usual jungle mischief would provide the action. In this one, the locals need to relocate so an atom bomb test can go off and destroy their homes and livelihood. And I'd think much of the jungle animals too, for that matter. Those 1950s were tough.

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Murder on the Roof (1930) Pressbook

An all-talking production! Boy, that must have been quite a thrill to theater audiences when talking pictures replaced the silents. Earlier pressbooks used newsprint, which didn't hold up well over the years; but this one for Murder on the Roof has lots of promotion, with newspaper ads, a book tie-in, and fashions to highlight. 

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Junior G-Men (1940) Pressbook

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the antics of the East Side Kids (aka Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, The Bowery Boys) troupe's antics. Here they join with the FBI to foil terrorists. A surprising number of movies were made with various iterations of the boys, all starting from a serious play that moved onto the big screen, then an ongoing series of more light-hearted movies.

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This Gun For Hire (1942) Pressbook

Veronica Lake is wonderful as a singing magician and Alan Ladd is a block of dangerous ice as Philip Raven, a killer for hire. Their chemistry, the great Laird Cregar as a cunning but squeamish villain, and Robert Preston as the dogged lawman hot on their trail, makes for a solid and classic noir.

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Tight Spot (1955) Pressbook

Like a little ginger cheesecake with your film noir? Here's Ginger Rogers in Tight Spot, a movie with some kick as she's manhandled by the cops and the criminals. Brian Keith plays the big lug who falls for her tight legs and snippy personality. Edward G. Robinson looks short in every scene but acts big as usual. The cast is gold, the dialog a bit too sappy, but this one's a keeper even without the dancing.

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Green Magic (1953) Pressbook

An Italian documentary capturing yet another excursion into the jungle, which seemed very big (think travelogue with exploitation tossed in) up until the 1960s. Now with the Internet and cable channel shows, the big screen isn't needed anymore to show us the wild and exotic. Of course, there's straight to DVD for that now, too. I'd love to have one of those kid mask giveaways. That's another thing about today's movies, no fun giveaways to promote a showing at the local theater. Bummer. 

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The Range Busters (1940) Pressbook

Ray "Crash" Corrigan was a stuntman, western B movie star, and noted for putting on a mean gorilla costume now and then. I'm not sure if the "Crash" part of his name came from his stunt work or his appearance in the Undersea Kingdom (1936) serial. Some sources relate it to his being in the serial, since Flash Gordon, with Larry "Buster" Crabbe, came out around the same time and Republic's publicity wanted a hero to buzz off of the "Flash" name. We tend to forget how often stunt people fill in for the actors or in critical roles where life and limb are at a premium. During the serial and western cinema days, many actors were stunt people too. It certainly saved money for the studios.

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My Gun is Quick (1957) Pressbook

I bet his gun is short too. My favorite Hammer movie (no, not THAT Hammer) is Kiss Me Deadly. I guess most men would love to have million dollar dames, a gun, and an attitude to make the other two work well together, but that age of movie mystique, with girls swooning over a macho macho man who hits as hard as he can take it, doesn't quite work with today's audiences unless the name is Bond, James Bond. The "Spillane Dames" are no longer a natural for excitement, and I can't say that's a sorry-to-see-that-go thing. As a period piece, it's engagingly "huh, they got away with that?"; as a plot enticement for today's audiences, it no longer has any worth or should have. But I still like to watch Mike Hammer bust it up with his fists and red hot lips.

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The Gay Ranchero (1948) Pressbook

I'm not sure how gay the ranchero can be when crooks try to take over the local airport, but I'll let you determine that when you see the movie. What I like about cowboy movies in the 1930s and 40s is how they meshed home on the range with planes, trains, and automobiles on the tarmac. Most of us forget the transitional time between the wild wild west and the mild mild urban and suburban sprawl that moved America past the plains and into the asphalt age. If you haven't caught the movie serials, The Phantom Empire and Undersea Kingdom, they take the technological swing to meld the more mechanized cowboy with an ancient civilization that itself was mechanized with cheeky robots and death rays. And a cool wheeled-ride that purrs like a dinosaur.

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Rovin' Tumbleweeds (1939) Pressbook

You can't get more American than singing cowboy Gene Autry in a Republic picture. Add Smiley Burnette for comic relief and your Saturday matinee is complete. Westerns and horror movies have been a staple popcorn machine's worth of box office tickets for many studios, helping to pay the bills that made some of those A-listers possible, even though they may not have been so capital A with audiences.

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Roar of the Iron Horse (1951) Pressbook

The pressbook for Roar of the Iron Horse contains a lot of promotional information and ideas. Of course, in the 1950s, cowboy movies were an easy draw for the younger set, until mutant monsters and atom bombs creeped out everyone enough to make the classic monsters in the 1960s more inviting. By then, science fiction and detective shows crowded out the Western dramas across television screens while the big screens showed less and less of them too. But in 1951, they were still roaring at the box office.

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Desperadoes of the West (1950) Pressbook

Thanks to The Serial Squadron member Chris McCleary, I've been posting many pressbooks from his dad's collection. He did two great things: collected serial pressbooks to keep the history alive and met his screen heroes to boot. Here's one signed by Roy Barcroft. I miss the days when you could meet and greet your screen heroes, chat a bit, and walk away with a signed something or photograph while keeping your shirt on your back. Today, of course, it's a Wells Fargo stagecoach holdup's worth to do anything like that at a convention. 

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