Spanish title: Nido de Ratas (Nest of Rats)
Stars: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger
Directed by: Elia Kazan
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

"Winner of eight prizes of the Academy!"

Of all the lobby cards in the Cineartista collection, few are printed on card as thick as this one, and few feature less colors.

Designed to promote the release of On The Waterfront with the new title Nest of Rats, this is just one of several renamings for a film you’d think would have had plenty of name recognition after eight Oscar nods (while it was called Nest of Rats in the Mexican, Venezuelan and Argentinian release, the Spanish version was called The Law of Silence, the Italian release was known as Fist in the Neck, and the Brazilians saw Union of Thieves).

Of course, the film is an absolute classic, which should make this pinhole-free lobby card worth some serious coin… but my own suspicions are that this was printed for a re-release, not an original theater run, mostly because of the cheap nature of the design, the lack of distributor credits, and the thicker cardboard, which was more prevalent in the 60’s than the 50’s.

That said, it’s Brando, so… you know… sweet.

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.