Spanish title: Paris en Abril
Stars: Doris Day, Ray Bolger, Claude Dauphin
Directed by: David Butler
Distributor: Warner Bros

"Nights in Paris! Romantic encounters! Endless pleasures! You’ll cheer for this spring-time celebration!"

This lobby card is a great example of how cinema art designers often mixed original art with cut’n'paste images and illustration to create something that looks all hand-painted. On the left hand side of the card is a ‘from scratch’ watercolor portrait of Doris Day (spelled Dorys Day on the poster, oddly enough), with illustrations of Paris in the bottom right hand corner, and what looks like more paintwork on the right hand side, with the image of Day and co-star Ray Bolger. Only, if you look closer, you’ll see that those portraits on the right are actually a cut-out that has been painted over to give it a hand-painted appearance.

This technique was common back in the day, when saving a few days of painting was the difference between beating a deadline and missing it entirely. While high standard original art would stop people in the street, sometimes it just wasn’t possible to hand-paint an entire lobby card, so artists cut corners to achieve ‘the look’ they wanted, as quickly as possible.

The years haven’t been too kind to this particular lobby card, although the colors and artwork lend it to framing in a big way, but someone has had a scratch at Doris Day’s amply presented groin (if she once wore that strapless outfit in the film, I’d be surprised), and a few small tears on the sides and corners make it less than mint in value.

But heck, I like it enough to keep. After all… It’s Doris Day, reimagined by a leering Mexican cinema promo artist… what’s not to like?

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: Los Goonies
Stars: Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Martha Plimpton, Curtis Hanson, Robert Davi, Joe Pantoliano
Directed by: Richard Donner
Distributor: Indefilms 

"The light, the map, the caves, the death traps, the treasure… all part of the adventure of The Goonies"

This lobby card design is pretty standard – it’s the illustrated image from the poster that was used all over the world. So why is it here? Because it’s awesome – duh. 

"The only thing we serve here is tongue! You boys like tongue?"

Nothing much to add, except that it was released in South America by an outfit called Indefilms, which still seems to be in operation in De Valle. The printing of the lobby card was handled by Impresora Rodelo S.A.

Spanish title: Intriga de Honolulu (Intrigue in Honolulu)
Stars: John Wayne, Nancy Olso, James Arness
Directed by: Edward Ludwig
Distributor: Warner Bros

"He traveled 6000 miles on a secret mission to squash a group of assassins who threatened the world!"

In general, I’m not a fan of the cut’n'paste lobby cards, at least not as much as those with original artwork, but it must be said that this particular lobby card design makes tremendous use of the black and white publicity stills upon which it’s based.

John Wayne has never looked more barrel-chested, there’s schlocky Hawaiian references like beach print shirts and hula dancers all over the thing, and though The Duke was getting on a little at the time of this film, he wears it well.

If there’s anything troubling about this lobby card, it’s the concept of the film itself; Wayne and James Arness play a couple of all-American House Unamerican Activities Committee heavies who travel to Hawaii to break up a Communist Party chapter, thus saving the US from evil. Of course, it was actually legal to be a member of the Communist Party at the time, but don’t let things like legality stop you from booing those evil socialists and their ’share the wealth’ ways!

Stomp ‘em! Stomp ‘em, Duke!

Co-star Nancy Olson apparently wasn’t a big fan of the anti-Leftist nature of the film, and only agreed to be in it because it meant six weeks in Hawaii and the chance to work with Wayne. She reportedly figured nobody would ever see it, and was said to have often argued about politics with right-winger Wayne between shots. 

On a trivial aside, in the German version of this film, there’s no mention of Communists at all – instead, Wayne and Arness battle marijuana dealers! In fact, the German title for the film is "Mathuana"

Another interesting aside is that, in the case of this lobby card, the WB logo looks to have been shakily painted on to the design by hand, rather than based on print-ready art, making one wonder whether it was an ‘official’ release or perhaps something a little under the radar…

This particular lobby card isn’t exactly cherry, with tears on the bottom corners where some unwitting Mexican theater worker once tore them from the wall. A pair of pinholes in each of the top corners, and another in the bottom center indicate that this card adorned a theater wall more than once, but the colors are fantastic and the design is so cool that it makes this a card well worth framing.

Spanish title: Caceria en los Mares
Stars: John Wayne, Lana Turner, David Farrar, Lyle Bettger, Tab Hunter
Directed by: John Farrow
Distributor: Warner Bros

"The elusive Sea Captain and his blonde woman in an explosive, suspense-packed story of high daring on the high seas!"

Usually, you’ll find the great American heroes playing great American heroes in war movies. In this romantic thriller, however, John Wayne plays German freighter Captain Carl Erhlich, desperately playing cat and mouse with the allies, trying to keep from being blown out of the water. 

Wayne didn’t enjoy the shoot, however, as he picked up an ear infection while diving, and spent half the shoot in abject pain as a result. More to the point, his ear was so swollen, he had to be shot from his ‘good side’ for the majority of the flick. 

In terms of this lobby card, it really catches the eye; original art of John Wayne and Lana Turner in a passionate, if slightly fearful, embrace sets off a still image of The Duke casting off on his boat. The colors are vivid, the paintwork is good, but there’s one thing that, if you look closely, will jump out at you… the artist has used the faces from the bacl and white still photo as the basis for his painted Wayne/Turner portraits.

What’s interesting about that is that he’s only taken the faces – the pose, the clothes, they’re completely original, but the faces… total copy.

Regardless, it’s a heck of a design, looks great in a black frame, and if you dig The Duke (or Lana), it’s a great tribute. 

Spanish title: Juego de Pijamas
Stars: Doris Day, John Raitt, Carol Haney, Eddie Foy Jr
Directed by: George Abbott, Stanley Donen
Distributor: Warner Bros

"Cheers, suggestion, incitement… and howls of enthusiasm
as you die of laughter"

This is a great piece of Mexican lobby card art, from the beautiful colors right on down to the pantless depiction of Doris Day in a heart-emblazoned pajama top.

The upper left hand corner features some cut’n'paste work, demonstrating that the bouffant hairdo of John Rait is unmatched in all of film history. That said, Day isn’t far behind, and the inset image on this card shows Carol Burnett in a scene from the film with what could only be called a ’soup bowl cut’.

Come for the movie, stay for the 1950’s equivalent of the mullet.

Spanish title: Aventuras de los Comandos (Adventures of the Commandos)
Stars: Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Arthur Kennedy
Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Distributor: Warner Bros

"Boldness, morals, and intrepidity as never seen before, in a chilling
adventure…"

While this card isn’t exactly an awe-inspiring piece of original art (a lot of WB film lobby cards of this period followed a similar cut’n'paste format, and even shared the same font face), you’ve got to love Ronny Reagan’s flyaway curl.

Also noteworthy is the misspelling of Arthur Kennedy’s name as ‘Arthu’. A closer look shows that there’s a double space between his first and last name, which would indicate that someone in the print process simply lost a letter – and nobody thought it prudent to re-print the run.

In terms of card quality, this isn’t one of the best in my collection, with several sets of pinholes and some other associated holes from general wear.

But hey, it’s Errol, and thus it remains in the vault. 

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.