SPOOK STORIES TRADING CARD MYSTERY

Way back when, before the digital age of DVD's -- heck, before videotape even -- Monster Kids like me had to rely on something called commercial television for their dose of monster movies. We had to wait all week for the late night or Saturday afternoon showing from network offerings like "Chiller", "Weird, Weird World", or "Science Fiction Theater". When they were over, that was it. No slo-mo, no fast rewind or frame advance (that was only possible with 8mm home movie projectors and a handful of Castle Films bought from the camera store or through FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLANDs mail order business, Captain Company). We also didn't have the luxury of libraries stacked deep with our favorite monster flicks like today, where you have the capability of watching almost any title that comes to mind. Back then, we were on a strict diet of mainstream monster titles that to us were well known by then, thanks to the aforementioned FAMOUS MONSTERS and other monster 'zines.

So, when we were collecting Spook Stories trading cards back in the early 1960s -- you know, the ones with funny-captioned photos from the Universal and Hammer films -- there were a few stills that we couldn't recognize.

For instance, card #25 shows a poor sod who appears to be stumbling into a pond that looks an awful lot like quicksand. We had no idea what movie it was from. I didn't pay much attention to it after that, and after all these years a came across a movie still on the 'net that reminded me of the long-forgotten card with the unknown movie picture on it.

Well, here it is. The photo is from Hammer's SHADOW OF THE CAT. Mystery solved!

[Photo from theblackboxclub.com]