The Great Mexican Lobby Cards Caper

By Oren Shai • Jul 28th, 2009 • Category: Updates

My last update featured photos of of Mexican Lobby Cards I got from my friend, Roy Frumkes, who found them at a visit to a vintage store in Huntington, NY. Roy, Rob Neilson, Glenn Andreiev and I ventured out there to scavage more memorabilia…

This resulted in many more Mexican Lobby Cards, from classic Hollywood to Exploitation. A selection of those is featured below…

Vera Cruz, 1954

Vera Cruz, directed by Robert Aldrich, takes full advantage of Burt Lancaster’s intense smile. For Lancaster it’s almost a part of the wardrobe, and it works. As the lobby card shows, him and Gary Cooper probably had two of the strongest profiles in Hollywood (Kirk Douglas should also be thrown in that mix).

Gary Cooper also stars in Delmer Daves‘s The Hanging Tree. Daves made many great Westerns (3:10 to Yuma, Broken Arrow, The Last Wagon) and The Hanging Tree might be the best. It also features one of the best performances by the late-great Karl Malden. The next card is for the classic, High Noon.

The Hanging Tree, 1959

High Noon, 1952

Anthony Mann is my favorite Western director, and Winchester ’73 was his first. It is also the first film released with audio commentary, which James Stewart recorded in the 1980′s for a laser disc release.

Winchester '73, 1950

Montana and Rocky Mountain are two Westerns starring another favorite, Errol Flynn. In Too Much, Too Soon, Flynn co-stars as John Barrymore to Dorothy Malone’s Diana Barrymore. It is one of my most anticipated films as it is rare and almost impossible to get a hold of. One of Flynn’s last performances is bound to be great as him and Barrymore were drinking friends. Flynn’s outragous recollections of Barrymore are documented in his excellent autobiography, My Wicked Wicked Ways. The title, Too Much, Too Soon, was later borrowed by The New York Dolls for their second album, which was produced by the mastermind behind the Shangri-La’s, the producer, ‘Shadow’ Morton.

Montana, 1950

Rocky Mountain, 1950

Too Much, Too Soon, 1958

Dorothy Malone also stars in American International Pictures’s original Beach Party alongside Frankie & Annette. The Beach Party series was a great influence on my music video for Charlie Megira. Although we looked at a different entry, Bikini Beach, as a reference.

Beach Party, 1963

Next to Annette Funicello, Hayley Mills was the great discovery made by Walt Disney in the 1960s. Pure charisma there. My personal favorite is The Parent Trap (to which Annette sang the theme song), the one I found was for Pollyanna.

Pollyanna, 1960

Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, starring Vincent Price and Frankie Avalon, is great fun. The sequel, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, isn’t. A great looking poster for a pretty terrible film. Oddly enough, directed by the Italian horror master, Mario Bava.

Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, 1966

Baby Face Nelson is a lost classic by the great Don Siegel, with Mickey Rooney in the title role. It is told to be a great film. Hopefully at some point it will see the light of day on DVD. Following it are Jacques Tourneur’s horror classic, Cat People, Douglas Sirk’s Magnificent Obsession and Frank Tashlin‘s vehicle for Martin & Lewis, Artists & Models.

Baby Face Nelson, 1957

Cat People, 1942

Magnificent Obsession, 1954

Artists and Models, 1955

If any director comes close to Tashlin’s nihilistic approach to cinema, it’s Joe Dante. One of the best filmmakers working today. Piranha was his first film as a solo director.

Piranha, 1978

And another modern classic…

Coffy, 1973

I have never seen these two, but Riot in a Juvenile Prison wins the best title contest. And Girls Town has Mamie Van Doren, Paul Anka and The Platters. Who could ask for anything more?

Riot in a Juvenile Prison, 1959