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: Tenías que ser tú
Stars: Ginger Rogers, Cornel Wilde, Percy Waram, Spring Byington, Ron Randell
Directed by: Don Hartman and Rudolph Mate
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

"I love you, I love you much… very, very much." 

If you ever needed an example that demonstrated the importance of using proper accents in written Spanish text, this film title does the trick. The film is called Tenías que ser tú, which translates to ‘It Had To Be You’. Take the accents out and it becomes Tenias que ser tu, or ‘It Had To Be Tapeworms’. 

Not sure what Ginger Rogers thought of tapewoms, but her character in this film runs away from potential husbands as if they had a bad case of them. Think of it as an earlier (better) Runaway Bride, with the equine appearance of Julia Roberts replaced by Ginger’s fabulous gams. Can’t beat that.

This lobby card seems to be a two-color print job, with most of it coming out all orange, with just a hint of blue gray – a trick often used to lower the price of a printing run. Fortunately, on this design that doesn’t detract too heavily from the finished product, unlike some one-color print jobs in our collection.

The lobby card was printed by Litoarte S. de R. L., and though it features little in the way of original art, the stills used for the cut’n'paste job are top quality stuff.

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.

Spanish title: El Fruto Dorado
Stars: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr
Directed by: Jack Conway
Distributor: MGM Mexico

"Romance and action in this exciting history of two adventurers looking for the coveted black gold."

Though this lobby card features perhaps some of the most amateur-looking original art that I’ve seen on a major release,  it’s definitely worth a spot in our collection just for the still image of Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr in a passionate embrace. 

The card has a tiny print company credit of "Litoarte, S. de R. L.", alongside the MGM Mexico distributor credit (apparently the office was at Abraham Gonalez 67, Mexico D. F., in case you were wondering), and features four rather sizable pinholes that might be better described as ‘doornail holes’.

Otherwise, it’s in good shape, especially for a lobby card that would be about 68 years old about now. 

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.