Since we were on the subject of werewolves a couple of days ago, here's a fun promo shot of Claude Rains about to precipitate doggie drool onto Evelyn Ankers in their 1941 horror flick The Wolf Man. Ankers had trouble with other weird creatures too, including ghosts in Hold That Ghost, a vampire in Son of Dracula, an unseen troublemaker in The Invisible Man's Revenge, and a reanimated monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein. All that experience and she never learned to look up. Well, in her defense Rains is unusually sneaky, plus canines don't usually climb trees. 

Yesterday we talked about the cute werewolves in The Howling, and today, speaking of monsters, we have a 1985 photo of Italian model and actress Dalila Di Lazzaro. What's monstrous about her? She appeared in Mario Mancini's 1972 horror film Frankenstein ’80 and 1973's Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, and in the latter she was the female monster. That's called casting against type.

Italian artist Sandro Symeoni painted posters for all genres of film, from zany comedies to spaghetti westerns, but we like him in thriller mode best. Above are five examples of his work promoting 1950s and 1960s crime and horror movies. Their English titles are, top to bottom, The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll, Deadly Inheritance, Scandal Incorporated, Grisbi, and The Revenge of Frankenstein. Plenty more Symeoni to see—just click his keywords below. 

Estelita Rodriguez was born in Guanajay, Cuba in 1928, signed with MGM at the tender age of fourteen, signed with Republic at seventeen, and appeared in such films as Tropical Heat Wave, Rio Bravo, and the unforgettable Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. This promo shot dates from 1945 and was made when she was playing the character of Lupita in the musical Mexicana with Tito Guízar and Constance Moore. 

Above are three dust jackets for the classics of macabre literature Frankenstein, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and Dracula, by Shelley, Poe, and Stoker respectively. These books are photoplay editions, i.e. novelizations of silent film source material. The editions usually had a handful of production photos inside, as well as film production credits. Basically, these were seen as forms of advertisement for the movies, and back then it was the books people were interested in, not the dust jackets. As a result, the jackets were not well treated by owners, and often were thrown away. That may seem strange, looking at the art above, but it’s true. Picture an old movie. Any old movie. And now imagine a scene set in a study or den. See all those books on the walls? No dust jackets. Back then books were thought of as classiest and most impressive sans jackets. That’s why the items above are extraordinarily rare, and are each worth a fortune today. The first two were painted by Nathan Machtey, and the third is signed G.B., who is a painter unknown to us so far. But all three look rather the same, don't they, with a looming, monstrous shape menacing an insensate woman? They are pure brilliance. We’ve seen some of these at auction for $5,000, and we hear they can go for much more. Much, much more. Of course, the most expensive ones are first editions, with book and dust jacket paired and in good condition, but if the book and jacket are separated, the jackets still go for mucho dinero. We’ll keep an eye out for more Machtey work, and try to identify that second artist. We'll also look for more photoplay editions, and share whatever we uncover. 

You already know from our previous posts on the subject that we’re big fans of Italian poster artist Sandro Symeoni, so today we have six more pieces from this prolific master. Above you see Un’idea per un delitto (aka Brainstorm), and below are Gli amanti del chiaro di luna, Nude… si muore (aka Naked You Die), Gli altri racconti di Canterbury (aka The Other Canterbury Tales), L’altra casa ai margini del bosco (Behind the Shutters), and La strage di Frankenstein (aka I Was a Teenage Frankenstein). See more Symeoni here and here.