Freaks vintage lobby card, 1932
As Halloween is quickly approaching I’ve pulled together some pretty cool eye-candy to help feed your inner ghoul - vintage “lobby cards” used to advertise horror films from the last seven decades. The use of lobby cards can be traced back as far as 1910 (The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale houses a collection of cards from silent westerns from 1910-1930).
Dracula’s Daughter vintage lobby card, 1936
Frankenstein vintage lobby card, 1931
Many lobby cards came in sets of up to twelve cards to help promote the film. In some cases, avid collectors have shelled out loads of cash for vintage lobby cards, such as the card pictured above for the 1931 film Frankenstein which sold at an auction this past summer for over $10K. But most of the cards in this post can be had for more reasonable sums via eBay or Etsy. I’m especially fond of the B-movie lobby cards from the 50s and the 60s that celebrated oddball films like 1956’s The Indestructible Man (starring Lon Chaney Jr.), or the impossibly strange sounding The Brain from Planet Arous (1957), and I think you will be too. Happy viewing, creeps!
Lobby card for the 1978 film, Magic
Lobby card for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, (1975)
Suspiria lobby card (Mexico), 1977
Lobby card for The Bride of Frankenstein, 1935
Lobby card for The Mummy, 1932
Lobby card for the Indestructible Man, 1956
Lobby card for Queen of Blood, 1966
Lobby card for Phantom of the Paradise (starring the great Paul Williams!), 1974
Mexican lobby card for Popcorn, 1991
Lobby card for Teenage Monster, 1958
Mexican lobby card for Cat People, 1942
Lobby card for The Amityville Horror, 1979
Lobby card for The Brain from Planet Arous, 1957
Lobby card for The Last Horror Film (also known as Fanatic), 1982
German lobby card for Halloween, 1978
Lobby card for Dracula, 1931
Lobby card for Terror Creatures from the Grave, 1965
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
¡Películas muy locos, ay caramba! The awesomely lurid art of Mexican B-movie lobby cards