Spanish title: Moby Dick
Stars: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn, Orson Welles, Herman Melville
Directed by: John Huston
Distributor: Warner Bros (for 20th Century Fox and United Artists)

"The White Whale had almost destroyed him…"

The second of our two lobby cards for John Huston’s Moby Dick, this design is by far the superior of the two.

The first relies on photo art and cheap reproductions of the original artwork shown here, whereas this one is just an A-1 design, beautifully put together, with an amazing recreation of Gregory Peck in action, as well as a breaching whale crushing a whaling fleet.

The colors are vivid, the title is well worked into the design, and even the black and white still image is framed with color, so as to work it into the overall design more fully.

The pity of this particular card is that, by the time we got it, someone in a Mexican theater somewhere had used it for a little doodling – there’s ink smudging in the white title font, as a result, along with the hand-written words, "La Panzona" (or "The Fat One"). Why? It’s all a bit of a mystery.

Oh well. With a design this busy, you barely notice a little biro here and there, especially in a frame (which is where we keep it).

Spanish title: La Novicia Rebelde (The Rebellious Novice)
Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr, The Bil Baird Marionettes
Directed by: Robert Wise
Distributor: 20th Century Fox 

"Radiance that floods the screen and warms the heart"

This undeniable classic has introduced millions of people to the musical feature genre, over several generations, and the lobby card promoting its Mexican release certainly hits all the right notes.

The original art up top isn’t actually original art at all – it’s still images used to promote the film on the official poster, painted over so they appear hand-painted, but from a distance you’d never know. The black and white inset features a recognizable scene with Julie Andrews and her Von Trapp Family Singer co-stars, which is always a plus, and the colors are definitely vivid.

What’s not quite stellar about this card? Well, 20th Century Fox decided in the 60’s that they could save a little time (and money) by setting up a template design for their lobby cards; one that included those odd green columns down the sides, and an ugly, bright yellow background clearly designed to catch the eye more than sell the mood of a film.

There were hundreds of films promoted with lobby cards like this one, and though this is one of the better designs of that lot, when you see a few of them together, it’s nowhere near as impressive as fully original work. In fact, that much bright yellow ink in one place is liable to give you a headache.

Still, a spoon full of sugar…

Spanish title: Leyenda
Stars: Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennet, Alice Playten, Billy Barty, Cork Hubbert
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Distributor: 20th Century Fox

"Good does not exist without evil. Nor love without hatred.
Nor innocence without guilt. I am the Dark."

You won’t find many Tom Cruise movies here – mostly because he’s a nutbar – but we couldn’t resist this eerie design. The couple embracing while a giant horned demon looks on? Great stuff.

Legend is the story of a demon who decides to end daylight by killing a unicorn and marrying a fairy princess, only to be challenged by a simple farm boy (Cruise) and his Elven friends in a fight for the future of the universe. It took over three years to complete, partly because the soundstage it as being shot on burned down during the shoot.

Mia Sara hadn’t yet taken her star turn as Sloane Petersen in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when she did this role, but it didn’t seem to do much for her career either way, as she all but dropped off the face of the pop culture planet afterwards; a fate that has befallen a lot of Tom Cruise’s leading ladies over the years (Elizabeth Shue anyone?)

This lobby card is in the kind of shape you’d expect from a recent release (if we can call twenty years ago ‘recent’. And hey, if we hold on to it long enough, it’ll eventually be worth something.

Spanish title: Moby Dick
Stars: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn, Orson Welles
Directed by: John Huston
Distributor: Warner Bros (for 20th Century Fox and United Artists)

"Before the shark… there was the whale!"

This is one of two different lobby card releases for this film, and this is definitely the inferior one. The odd choice of circling Gregory Peck’s head with a thick white border from the still image above it is definitely not one of the great moments of Mexican lobby card design, and the artwork looks almost like a lithograph, which would indicate that it’s been taken from unoriginal second or third generation art and might have been promoting a re-release.

On this copy, the upper right hand corner has been torn off, and there’s minor damage on the bottom corner, presumably when it was torn down off the cinema wall back in the day. 

All in all, if not for the great still image of Peck driving a spear through the side of the whale, this would be headed for the bottom drawer… but hey, it’s Gregory Peck, and thus it’s worth keeping.