THE CRAWLING EYE

Released on October 7, 1958 in the UK where it was known as THE TROLLENBERG TERROR (based on a 5-part 1957 British TV series), it was released in the U.S. as THE CRAWLING EYE on December 31, 1958. Yet another alternate title was the unimaginative CREATURES FROM ANOTHER WORLD. The science-fiction/horror film was produced by Tempean Films, directed Quentin Lawrence, written by Jimmy Sangster, and released by Eros Films. It starred Forrest Tucker (Anton Differing took a powder at the last minute) and a couple of fetching actresses, Janet Munro and Jennifer Jayne.

THE MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN gave it a fairly decent (and accurate) review: "Several sequences in this Alpine science fiction production are genuinely alarming, although much more could have been made of the dramatic moments. The film gives the impression of having been shot and edited in a great hurry and the characteristic addiction to close-ups of such details as severed heads and melting flesh is more in evidence than in most science fiction pieces. More accomplished direction might have resulted in a film as effective as the Quatermass film series"

Interestingly, John Carpenter said that it was one of the inspirations for his film, THE FOG.

Following is the one-sheet theatrical release poster and the U.S. lobby cards. You'll notice that half of them feature scenes where someone is being strangled. If you watched the trailer above, you would have seen the title "a stranglehold of terror!" Hmm. . . 

CALLING DOCTOR X!

Warner Bros./First National Pictures' DOCTOR X (1932) starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and Lee Tracy is a horror film although it was also promoted as a romantic comedy. Made during the pre-Code Hollywood years, elements such as murder, rape, cannibalism and prostitution are included in the story that the Hays Code would have surely wanted excised. Wray would of course star as Ann Darrow in KING KONG the following year.

Movie heralds were handouts that were an inexpensive way to draw customers to theaters:

Fay Wray studio portrait for DOCTOR X:

DOCTOR X trailer:

DOCTOR X adaptation from BOY'S CINEMA (February 25, 1933):

DOCTOR X filmbook from MONSTER WORLD #8 (May 1966):

Cover painting from DOCTOR X by Ron Cobb.

See my post of THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X HERE.

LBJ: SUPER-HERO!

There's been a lot of off-the-wall comics published over the years and I've shared a few of them this week. But the one I'm showing today has got to be one of the strangest. Think of President Lyndon Baines Johnson as a super-hero. That's right, it's not a typo. You'll have to read it to believe it.

Published in 1966 by Parallax Comic Books, Inc. THE GREAT SOCIETY was a parody of LBJ's domestic policies and featured various other political figures of the day, including Robert and Edward Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Robert McNamara. The villains were contemporaneous global bad guys such as Nikita Kruschev, Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong, with George Wallace adde for good measure. Even Lady Bird Johnson was tossed into the mix as "Wonderbird", a take-off on Wonder Woman. It was a follow-on title after BOBMAN AND TEDDY, also published in 1966.

Edited by Ann Weingarden, the book was written by -- wait for it -- D.J. Arneson with pencils by Bill Fraccio and inks by Tony Tallarico (!) and sold for a buck.

Parallax published two more parody titles, KOSHER COMICS (1966) which, like MAD, spoofed popular characters such as Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, Dick Tracy and Superman (with all stories but one penned by novelist, playwright and screenwriter Henry Slesar) and THE MAN FROM M.O.T.H.E.R. (1967), a spy spoof, sometimes considered an early graphic novel.

In case you've forgotten about some of these people (or have never heard of some of them before), here's the cast of crazy characters found in THE GREAT SOCIETY:

• Super LBJ [President Lyndon B. Johnson]
• Bobman and Teddy [Robert and Edward Kennedy]
• Shadower [Vice President Hubert Humphrey]
• Captain Marvelous [Robert McNamara]
• Disagreein' Hornet [Everett Dirksen]
• The Phantasm [Secretary of State Dean Rusk]
• Gaullefinger (villain) [Charles de Gaulle]
• Fu Man Lai (villain) [Mao Zedong]
• Dr. Nyet (villain) [Nikita Kruschev]
• Sicko Kid (villain) [Fidel Castro]
• U.N. Man [Arthur Goldberg - US Ambassador to UN]
• Wonderbird [Lady Bird Johnson]
• Chefman (villain); Colonel America [Barry Goldwater]
• Along Ranger [Richard Nixon]
• Whiteman [George Wallace] (villain)