Spanish title: La Sirena Del Caribe
Stars: Jane Russell, Gilbert Roland, Richard Egan
Directed by: John Sturges
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures

"Between thousands of pirates and killer sharks, she looks for of a
lost treasure – the most fabulous adventure under the sea!"

Jane Russell was said to have been ‘two of the biggest stars in show business’, and as a result of the fact that her chest was as famous as her name, she appeared in a fair number of films in which, really, the entire shoot was based around getting her as naked as possible, as often as possible. This is one such film.

Having broken free of the clutches of Howard Hughes (who ‘discovered’ her working as a dental assistant, before making her the star of The Outlaw, and paying her a wage to promote it every day for the five years it took to get the film past censors and on to the screen), Russell made many claims that she was going to take on more serious roles, but the fluff paid well enough that it was tough to resist.

In this film, there’s much talk about pirates and sharks and treasure, but really all anyone was turning up for was a look at Jane Russell in her skimpies.

And the film delivers on that front, as is seen on the promo art for the film above; in fact, the image of the star from this lobby card was so successful at grabbing the attention of passers-by, that other (less ethical) Mexican distributors actually stole it and placed it on the promo art for other films – films that Russell had nothing to do with.

I’m a big fan of this card, for all the obvious reasons, but also because if you take Russell and her most marketable assets out of the picture entirely, it’s still a great piece of original art.

Spanish title: Tarzan el Temerario (Tarzan the Reckless One)
Stars: Johnny Weismuller, Brenda Joyce
Directed by: William Thiele
Distributor: Distribuidora Sotomayor (for RKO Radio Pictures)

"Tarzan defies enemy agents… in a hot-bed of intrigue and danger!"

This story involves Tarzan having to get his ‘jungle fever’ remedy
(trust me, white boy, there ain’t no cure for jungle fever) from a lost
jungle, so that Jane, while working as a nurse, can save folks from
falling ill. Nazis and Sheiks intervene and Cheetah serves up the
giggles – you know the rest.

This has to be one of the most abused lobby cards in our collection, what with torn corners, a healthy rip up the middle, a pencil mark or two, a coffee stain, and to top it all off, the original printing run was off-center and was mis-cut along the top.

But dude… it’s freakin’ Tarzan giving heck to fake Sheiks! How can you not like that, pinholes or not?

The design itself is fairly dreadful, but that’s usually the case with Distribuidora Sotomayor releases of the WWII era. They’ve basically gone for black and white with one background color thrown on top. all the art is cut’n'pasted from photo publicity stills, and there’s a load of blank space that just kills any idea of flow.

Heck, they even left the file number inscription on the bottom right corner of the still image; Tarzan say, "Sloppy!"

Spanish title: Hombres de Presa
Stars: John Wayne, Laraine Day, Anthony Quinn, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Judith Anderson, James Gleason
Directed by: Richard Wallace
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures (US – Mexican distributor unknown)

"An iron man in a world of violence!"

Every time I look at this lobby card, the first thing that jumps into my head is, "Oooh! A rollercoaster movie!" Alas, that’s no rollercoaster in the background, being swept away by a raging flood – it’s a railway track depicted in slightly less than fine detail.

This card doesn’t actually mention any distributor, which is rare, but it does crow the enhancement of "Vision Panoramica", which I’m guessing was a reference to Panavision (or something like it).

The story followed engineer Johnny Munroe, as he was enlisted to build a railway tunnel through a mountain, but who of course naturally falls in love with the boss’s daughter and gets in all manner of strife… kind of like the film producers, who took a million dollar bath after splashing out three mill on this shoot for what was RKO’s most expensive film of the year, only to bring in just 2/3 of that back at the box office.

It was originally slated to co-star Maureen O’Hara, rather than Laraine Day, but the studio sent her to make Sinbad the Sailor instead. Lucky for her…

This card doesn’t have any pinholes, which is a nice change, but it has what looks like minor smoke or water damage on the bottom left  hand corner… too bad.