Spanish title: Maciste Contra Los Monstruos (Maciste vs the Monsters)
Stars: Reg Lewis, Margaret Lee
Directed by: Guido Malestesta
Distributor: Embassy Pictures Corporation (US), Telexport (Italy)

"A mysterious world in the prehistoric apocalyptic era, millon of years before Christ!"

In the world of Italian swords and sandals pulp film ‘epics’, Maciste is a fairly regularly-seen character.  In fact, he first appeared on film in Italy in the 1914 silent flick, Cabiria. He’s usually a sort of Hercules, who has incredible strength and gets in all manner of peril trying to help people against injustice.

In this film, despite the title, the story actually focuses on two warring tribes, with Maciste stuck in the middle. Not many monsters to be seen, but when you look at the variety of titles this film has had over the years, it has been clearly named not with story in mind, but box office.

In the US, it was Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules, while in the UK it was Collossus of the Stone Age. In Germany, it was Germanicus in the Underworld. And in the original Italian, Maciste contro i mostri (Maciste vs the Monsters).

The lobby card design is all original artwork, though none of it is particularly impressive. There’s a real focus on the monsters, obviously, but the character portrayed looks nothing at all like Reg Lewis, so there’s a good chance this was actually stock art being reused from other films.

Looks good, framed, hanging in a den, though! 

Spanish title: La Dama y el Vagabundo
Stars: Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, Peggy Lee
Directed by: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson
Distributor: MGM (for Disney)

"She’s from the leash and license set… he’s footloose and collar free!"

With the Walt Disney company not running an office in Mexico, it was left to MGM to distribute this undeniable animation classic south of the border, and more’s the pity. You’d have to think the artistic boffins at Disney would have put together a better lobby card than this collection of cut’n'paste stock imagery.

The film is obviously outstanding, and that’s why it has a place in our collection, but it would be nice to have seen promo art for this film that was as creative as those that made it in the first place.

Spanish title: El Samurai Asesino
Stars: Toshiro Mifune, Michiyo Aratama
Directed by: Kihachi Okamoto
Distributor: Films de Mexico

"Friends and enemies, looking for glory but never obtaining it!"

When our lobby card dealer mentioned he had an inexpensive one in stock for a samurai movie with "some guy called Mifute… Mifube… Mifune maybe?" – we kind of jumped at it.

"Would it be The Seven Samurai? Maybe Yojimbo? Sanjuro? Some other Akira Kurosawa-directed classic perhaps?" We could hardly wait to get it in our hot little hands…

Alas, while this didn’t turn out to be a promo item for a Kurosawa film, it still represents a classic of the samurai film genre, starring the single greatest Japanese actor of all time – Toshiro Mifune.

One interesting aspect of the card involves the distributor of the film – Films de Mexico. They don’t show up in a lot of our collection, and they’re not easy to find in Google searches, but for those looking for details of such things, their address was De C V Monterrey, 101-7g, Piso Mexico.

The story is a little more complex than most – involving a situation that has become known as ‘the incident at Sakurada Gate’, in which a group of assassins teams up with a samurai (in the days when the samurai were all but considered useless in the eyes of China’s warlords) to kill a shoganate’s counselor. The twist? The counselor is the samurai’s father.

If nothing else, go rent this for the epic finale; one of the greatest action endings you’ll ever witness.

As for this lobby card, it’s just awesome. The splash of blood behind a determined, sword-swooshing Mifune – can’t beat it, although the card seems to have been printed on sub-standard stock, and thus isn’t coping with the years as well as one would hope.

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: El Barco mas Loco del Ejercito
Stars: Jack Lemmon, Ricky Nelson, John Lund, Chips Rafferty, Tom Tully, Joby Baker, Warren Berlinger, Patricia Driscoll
Directed by: Richard Muprhy
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Another of the 1960’s Columbia Mexico lobby cards, which are notable due to their slightly smaller size, slightly thicker cardboard, and lack of original art (see Requiem for a Heavyweight), this version of El Barco Mas Loco del Ejercito features a still of a big gun and several cast members, but none of them are particularly distinct – certainly not enough to add value to the card, anyway. But Ricky Nelson and Jack Lemmon fans will be happy with a set of close-ups of the actors, and a pair of caricatures below them.

This particular card has a set of four corner pinholes, as most cards of the era do, but otherwise it’s in spectacular condition.