From Zombos' Closet

I Was an American Spy (1951) Pressbook

The good old days, when we were focused on enemies from without and Reader's Digest sensations that shocked the nation instead of dodging the rocks we're throwing at each other now. This one's a dramatization of a true hero, Claire Phillips. She spied on the Japanese during World War II and survived a lot of hardship and torture. This pressbook pushes the patriotism and zippo lighters, along with a song, Because of You. The poster art does a good job of exploitation without excess.

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Walk Into Hell (1956) Herald

Here's the theater herald for Walk Into Hell, formerly titled Walk Into Paradise. The movie didn't make any money when it was called Walk Into Paradise, so switching over to Hell did the trick. Americans are like that.

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Raiders of Ghost City (1944) Pressbook

Here's another great pressbook courtesy of Joe Dante and Charlie Largent (Trailers From Hell).  This file copy of Raiders of Ghost City pressbook contains a typed, on onion paper, breakdown of the cost for 6000 pressbooks. It rounds to 20 cents per book, with printing and artwork costing the most. Presumably the cost of producing the pressbooks was offset by the sales of promotional material (see the ad mats and showmanship pages) for the theaters promoting the serial.

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Rhythm of the Islands (1943) Pressbook

Here's another pressbook courtesy of Joe Dante and Charles Largent (Trailers from Hell). Acquanetta, known by all monsterkids as the exotic and wild jungle woman, appears in her first credited role in Rhythm of the Islands. Later she would go ape for Universal and swing with Tarzan in Tarzan and the Leopard Woman. I will also note that Jane Frazee makes an appearance in this movie too, because...fans of The Honeymooners will recall TV or Not TV, where Ralph and Norton pool their money together to buy a television set. Bad idea from the start, but Ralph mentions Jane Frazee for a laugh as the two of them squabble over who gets to watch what. My favorite episode for sure.

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Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938) Pressbook

Bulldog Drummond heads to Morocco in this thirteenth outing in a whopping twenty-five movie run. It's a shame audiences are no longer thrilled by foreign intrigue themes with their spys and mysteries of foreign locales. I'm sure to theater audiences in the 1930s through the 1940s, it must have been thrilling to think about other countries and cultures. Now, of course, politics, easier global travel, and the Internet pretty much take the mystery and intrigue out of it.

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River Gang (1945) Pressbook

Here's another pressbook courtesy of director Joe Dante (Trailers from Hell).  What makes this one rather special is the inclusion of a cost sheet, typed on onion paper (you young whippersnappers can Google onion paper). The cost of 8000 pressbooks (six pages for this one) for this movie was a stiff .13 cents per pressbook (rounded off). 

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Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 1963 Release Pressbook

You can't simply live by horror movies alone, no matter how much of a fan you are. There are so many movies that are beautiful, ugly, happy, sad, and just plain mind-expanding or my eyes! dreadful. That's the wonder of cinema: you have the trashy to the sublime to the breathtaking; whether in the eye or the ear or the cadence of the story itself, it's really filled with many emotions. Toward the breathtaking side of things there's Lawrence of Arabia. This 1963 release pressbook for the movie, after it had won a box-full of Oscars, is breathtaking too, in its own way.  

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Appointment with Murder (1948) Pressbook

Interesting to note that this low budget movie does get a nicely produced pressbook to promote it. I like the mustachioed clock with the skull pendulum. It's an odd little embellishment that, while not exactly well placed, does hint of pressing danger. I've not seen the John Calvert Falcon movies, three in all, but this pressbook does wet my appetite to see this one. My favorite series is Boston Blackie with Chester Morris. I've yet to come across any of those pressbooks. But it is only a matter of time.

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Buck Jones in White Eagle (1941) Pressbook

Wasn't it great knowing the good guys from the bad guys? The early Westerns always kept it simple. Perhaps too simple. By the time they rolled around to television, we expected everything to be wrapped up nice and neat by the end, even with the commercials. Buck Jones starred in the 1932 movie, White Eagle, and followed his role into this serial, the eight from Columbia. From Ron Backer's The Gripping Chapters, the Sound Movie Serial book: "There were apparently a lot of mountain lions roaming the Wild West, as can be seen in the cliffhanger to Chapter Ten of White Eagle (1941)...One lesson to be learned from many of these serials was how easy it was to dispose of a large ferocious beast with a very small knife."

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Borderline (1950) Pressbook

It's unusual for a noir film to toss in humor and a light touch along with the criminal goings-on, but Borderline does that. Not all that well either: with Raymond Burr as the heavy and Claire Trevor and Fred MacMurry as agents not realizing they are on the same side, this story never quite finds its footing. So Borderline may be the film's title, but it could also mean the way it doesn't quite decide what's serious and what's funny, leaving the viewer precariously watching along that borderline to figure it out. 

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The Pearl of Death (1944) Pressbook

This, The Pearl of Death, pressbook comes courtesy of director Joe Dante (Trailers from Hell, Gremlins, The 'Burbs, The Howling, and more). Interesting story: I received an email from Charlie Largent asking if I'd like a bunch of pressbooks from Mr. Dante. Me, I'm thinking I'm being punked or scammed, but it turned out to be true. We worked out the logistics and, well, here we are. I'm always happy to hear from anyone who likes what I post, but when it comes from people like Joe Dante and Charlie Largent, it makes it especially pleasant. And I could never turn down an offer of pressbooks. Never. 

Rondo Hatton is especially effective as the Hoxton Creeper, looming large and menacing, and Evelyn Ankers is always wonderful: a solid entry in the series.

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Call Northside 777 (1948) Pressbook

The Wikipedia article for this movie states it was the first Hollywood feature film to be shot on location in Chicago. One of the main reasons I like watching old movies is the glimpse of town and city life, the buildings, the streets, the storefronts, the old cars; that glimpse of a lifetime ago is always fascinating. Call Northside 777 used the documentary-style crime drama approach and was based on a true story. With James Stewart playing the reporter, how could you go wrong?

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