Welcome back!!! Ugh... It's so hard for me to do anything any more. I thought posters would take me out of myself--if only for a few minutes.They are usually a great distraction. But not now. I have too many aches and pains from my surgery. The severe neuropathey that has developed in my hands and fingers makes handlimg them difficult. Writing out commentary on these pages is painful and I make so many mistakes. But I still managed to get 10 to share with you. It's a mixture of trash and treasures. I hopr there is something here you'll enjoy...
THE FOREST:
This movie is garbage. I’ll say that up front. But somehow this 80’ fright flick’s poster works. (The poster is better than the film.) I already have one but…
I AM DIVINE:
Several years ago (2012), I “backed” (via Kickstarter or one of those sites) this documentary about Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine. John Waters has always been one of my favorite filmmakers. Divine starred in just about all of his movies through the original HAIRSPRAY. Of course, I had to back this documentary. I had been looking for a copy of this poster for years. I had seen French and Spanish versions, but I wanted one in English. The few I had seen in English proved to be impossible to get… at least for me. I can’t believe I actually scored this one. I was the only bidder, too. How is that possible?
THE MAD ROOM:
This was cheap, but that’s not the only reason I bought this. The poster is rather unexciting, but that’s okay. I saw this movie as a kid. It was weird… the brother and sister of Stella Stevens are released from a psych facility after being accused of killing their parents. Strange, bizarre drama ensues. Shelly Winters is also in the film as an older woman that Stella Stevens is a companion to. I need to see this again. I don’t remember much…but I was just kind of weirded out by the movie as a kid.
ZOMBIE:
Not that I needed it (I didn’t. I already have one or two… OOPS!), but stupid and impoverished me can’t seem to NOT buy posters now and again that I already have if I see them going at a decent price! (See THE FOREST above.) By now, everyone knows that ZOMBIE was an unauthorized Italian sequel (prequel?) to George Romero’s 1979 classic, DAWN OF THE DEAD (which was released as ZOMBI in Italy. This film, ZOMBIE, was originally released in Italy as ZOMBI 2). Whatever…it’s still one of the all-time great zombie shockers!
THE BLIND DEAD (aka TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD):
Oh my stars! I totally didn’t expect to get this, but I’m glad I did. I’ve been after the US release one sheet for a long time. They are surprisingly hard to find despite being such a boring (and colorless) poster. I’m not even sure the image is from the movie. I saw the film years ago… And really need to revisit it. The image of the girl… Is she supposed to be a zombie? As I recall, the only zombies in the movie were those of the blind Templar monks. I think the distributor was trying to cash in on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and used some random picture to fool audiences into thinking they were seeing a more gruesome movie than they actually were. Certainly a different kind of movie than they were seeing. The BLIND DEAD movies are fun, but not your average zombie flick. This poster also confounds me a bit as it is apparently rolled. This is from the very early 70s. Although there have been several rolled posters over the years, rolled one sheets weren’t really a thing until the mid 80s. It just seems odd that such a low-budget, imported horror flick from the early 70s would be rolled. But apparently it is. That’s an unexpected bonus, I suppose. Thank you, eMovie.
LADY FRANKENSTEIN (European A1):
This was an unexpected surprise. LADY FRANKENSTEIN is only mildly interesting (despite the sleaze factor of Lady —who is no “lady”—Frankenstein using the creature as her own personal “distraction”. Oh my!), but for some reason it has always intrigued me. Is it because “star” Joseph Cotten dies in the first few minutes? Or featured “star” Mickey (Mikey?) Hargitay (aka Mr Jayne Mansfield and Mariska’s father) only appears in it briefly as well? I had never heard of star Sarah Bay (as she s billed in the US version of the film and it’s one sheet), but here she is billed under her real name, Rosalba Neri. Checking her IMDB, I see that she’s done plenty…lots of exploitation and even some Hercules-like movies. Nice Euro (Italian?) art on this one, I think. Why not?
THE DOLL SQUAD:
Zowie! I know some may be scratching their head, wondering why I’d be so excited about this poster. Not only is it for a film by B-movie legend Ted V. Mikels, but have you ever seen this flick? Oh my stars! I just saw it for the first time not so long ago…and it was B-movie bliss! Mikel’s has said DOLL SQUAD was the unofficial inspiration for CHARLIE’S ANGELS. I can see that to an extent. To me this seemed more like a low-rent CHARLIE’S ANGELS meets JAMES BOND (without a James Bond) kind of flick. I thought it was kind of a hoot. I used to go to these has-been celebrity conventions in the LA area. I had seen the name Francine York (Who???) on the roster of some of the conventions several times. I had no idea who she was. Her name never clicked on my radar (other than on the celebrity show list). And here she was, in all of her red-headed, cotton candy-like, fluffed out flip ‘do as the leader of the DOLL SQUAD! I looked her up and, curses… I found out she has already passed on. No more chance to see her at any celebrity shows now… Dang!
Tura Satana, from Russ Meyer’s FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!, is also in the flick. Zowie! She’s long-gone, too. Surprisingly and unfortunately, although she’s in it most of the time, Tura doesn’t do that much in the movie.
There are other familiar faces in the flick, but the real star is the cheesy, overly ambitious film itself. This is grondhouse gold. I’m soooooo glad I scored a poster for it. Hooray!
THE NAVY VS THE NIGHT MONSTERS:
This is a turd of a movie, but what a fun poster (another case of the poster being better than the movie) and it stars Mamie Van Doren! I have long, long, L – O – N – G wanted this poster. I can’t believe I finally have one. It’s not in the best of conditions, but I’m OK with that. If I don’t get one now, I may never get one. I’ve had posters in worse shape. I’m sure look nice framed behind plexiglass.
TRICKS OF THE TRADE:
Damn!!!! This is the one poster in this batch that I HAD to have. But, GRRR! People kept bidding against me. Noooo! If you’ve been following my poster collecting, you know by now that I have a strange and curious affinity for Andy Milligan films. He was an awful filmmaker, but for whatever reason I am drawn to his work. TRICKS OF THE TRADE is one of the films he made that been “lost.” Allegedly, the son of the producer melted down all the existing prints for their silver value.
This poster is apparently fairly rare.I have only seen one copy once before. It was on a Heritage Auction, not long after they started their practice of doing an auction after their weekly auction closed. I really wanted to get it, but couldn’t see bidding it up on the weekly auction and then having to bid again in the secondary auction, so I just held off until after the original auction was over. Well, I didn’t quite get it that you had to bid in the original auction to get into the secondary auction. So even though I had every intention of bidding it up in the secondary auction. I was unable to get in. The poster sold for a song. Dammit! It’s also one of the few non-horror posters of Milligan’s in color.
Jump to a few weeks ago… There is the poster again on eMoviePoster.com. I decided that there was no way I was going to let this one slipped through my fingers. I watched for weeks to see how the pricing was going. It stayed about $30. Yowza! Then, the day of the auction was going to close, it jumped up to $91. I was going to make my move just before the five minute mark and suddenly it was at $188. (Swear words!!!) Determined to get it, I bid and bid and bid...up and up and UP. I did get it but for a lot more than I had planned on spending. (MORE SWEAR WORDS!!!) Oh well, it’s finally mine. But DAMN!!!
THE DEADLY MANTIS:
Zowie! I pretty much gave up on trying to get one of these ages ago. And…here one winds up in my lap! (It’s in great condition, too!) I don’t know why, but I always call this movie THE GIANT MANTIS instead of THE DEADLY MANTIS. Even as I was writing its name in bold letters above, I originally wrote GIANT instead of DEADLY. I wonder why the incorrect title has been stuck in my head for years. It’s probably because most of these drive-in flicks with giant monsters in them were done by Bert I. Gordon, a.k.a. Mr. B. I. G. He did not do this movie. So perhaps, as a nod to Mr. B.I.G., I have mentally added the word GIANT in place of DEADLY to the title. It may not be a Gordon movie, but it kind of feels like one. The poster is fantastic and I’m happy to have it.
And that’s my 10 for this time. THANK YOU for visiting. I hope youi'll come back IF there is a next time... CHEERS!
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