The William Castle Memorabilia (Part 3)

And now, a message from the director of The Tingler, Mr. William Castle.

Today's post, which is presented in TEXT-O, is the exhibitor's instruction manual for the PERCEPTO gimmick for William Castle's classic film The Tingler!

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT!

Well, luckily I have this PERCEPTO manual, and now I will forever know how to "do it".

So, in The Tingler, Vincent Price is this semi-evil doctor whose main goal in life is to prove that a creepy lobster-like creature grows in your spine when you are scared. And of course, he calls this spine tingling crustaceany thing The Tingler!

INTERESTING FACT -- The Tingler is the first film to show the movie-fied effects of the psychedelic drug LSD in a scene where Vincent Price freaks out on acid. 

WANNA SEE?!? OF COURSE YOU DO!!

When they originally showed the film in theaters, the great William Castle came up with an almost completely insane (and hilarious) gimmick -- during a scene where The Tingler gets loose in the theater, the theater owners would SHOCK certain seats with a joy buzzer type contraption which he entitled PERCEPTO! Genius. I can only hope that one day I can be PERCEPTO'd.

As you can see, this manual was sent to all the theater owners by Columbia Pictures to show them how to hook up these crazy things to the seats. They were apparently powered by car batteries, and controlled from the projection booth. They were cued by a moment where the screen goes black and Vincent Price yells...

"THE TINGLER IS LOOSE IN THE THEATER! 

EVERYBODY, SCREAM! SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES!"

There was another part to the gimmick as well. The theater would hire a couple of girls to scream and freak out, running around the theater and fainting during the "SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES!!" scene. They would then be dragged out on a stretcher by a couple of ushers, while the audience freaks out, or laughs at them for being stupidly scared.

GAH! I WANT TO SEE THIS IN A THEATER IN 1959! GIVE ME A DANG TIME MACHINE, YOU LAZY SCIENTIST JERKS!

You can download the PERCEPTO manual for The Tingler HERE!!

Oh, and if you're looking for an early Christmas gift for me, well you can just go buy me a Tingler.

Enjoy! And don't forget to SCREAM!! SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES!!

The William Castle Memorabilia (Part 2)

Today's grooviness is the full set of lobby cards from William Castle's film, Project X!

Although it's not technically a "great" film, Project X has got a few cool things going for it. First, it's (obviously) directed by William Castle, and it's his only Sci-Fi film. Second, the psychedelicarrific special effects were produced by Hanna-Barbera (who later recycled some of the character animation effects into Johnny Quest). But my favorite thing about the film is the really entertaining performance from Henry Jones, who plays a semi-mad-scientist that hooks computers up to a spy's brain and projects his dreams and memories onto some sort of hologram monitor thing! Super cool. I definitely enjoy this film a whole bunch.

As you'll notice from looking at the lobby cards, there is also some really awesome Star Trek-y set design, and in fact, they used a bunch of sound effects from the show. Most recognizable though, is the classic Star Trek sliding door sound effect!

The movie, which is set in the future year of 2118, is about a government panel bringing a cryogenically frozen spy back to reality to help them figure out what sort of crazy people-killing device the evil Chinese have created. Also, for some reason, they feel the need to distract him by inducing an amnesia type situation and make him believe he lives in the year 1968 as a bank robber on the run, hiding in a rural farm house.

Yep. It's your classic "amnesia = interesting Sci-Fi plot device" kind of story!

Before you ask, YES, I do own

this poster.

The movie has been notoriously hard to find for almost forever, but it's finally being released by the  magical gods at Olive Films on DVD and Blu-Ray, followed by another Castle oddity, the comedy The Spirit is Willing starring Sid Caesar!! That's right, the first William Castle films being put on Blu-Ray are going to be two of his most obscure films. I find that odd, but hey, I'm not complaining! I'm so excited, I pre-ordered both of them two months ago!

Below you'll find the complete set of eight promotional lobby cards from Project X. These cards are perfect, as they give you an excellent feel for the aesthetic of the film, along with some of the super cool poster art, including William Castle's trademark silhouette logo.

By the way, the last one is my favorite, but that's only because I like brains floating in gigantic fishbowls of  Hi-C Ecto-Cooler.

And as always, you can CLICK on the photos to enable the ENLARGE-O-MATIC PHOTO EMBIGGENER®!!

The William Castle Memorabilia (Part 1)

William Castle is by far my favorite film director. He made some of the most fun and entertaining films of all time and was a master horror filmmaker and showman. Most of his movies are some of my favorite films. He created gimmicks and a filmgoing experience that was copied by some of the more popular great filmmakers, including his idol Alfred Hitchcock.

By the way, Psycho would not exist as the classic it is if William Castle's House on Haunted Hill didn't.

Some of William Castle's most infamous gimmicks include an ILLUSION-O ghost viewer for 13 Ghosts, a $1,000 life insurance policy for Macabre, seat-belts for I Saw What You Did, and PERCEPT-O shocking seats for The Tingler!

Because he is my favorite filmmaker, I have collected tons of his cool movie memorabilia, and this is the first descent into that abyss of Castletoscity!

Today, we've got the giveaway coin from one of his few comedies, ZOTZ!.

So in the film, Tom Poston is this eccentric ancient languages professor who comes into possession of a coin with the word ZOTZ on it. Inscribed on the letters it tells him that the coin will give him magic powers to slow down time, cause instant pain, or death. Hilarious mishaps ensue at a magical rate, and it basically becomes William Castle's version of the Disney film The Absent-Minded Professor.

THE MAGIC WORD FOR FUN!

(and yes, I do own this poster)

It's not Castle's greatest movie, and it's far from his worst. It has some cool supporting roles played by Jim Backus (aka Mr. Magoo and Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island) and the Marx Brothers' old lady comic foil, Margaret Dumont. There's also some cameos by super awesome 1950s/60s character actors Fred Clark, James Milholin, and Tom Poston's old comedy partner Louis Nye.

Instead of something as insane as shocking your butt every time Tom Poston yelled ZOTZ! (which would have been super amazing), the gimmick this time was the coin. They handed these things out to everybody who bought a ticket, and now I've got two of them, and obviously, they are ZOTZTASTIC!!

Well that's it for today, but check out the AWESOME trailer for ZOTZ! below!

ZOTZ!... Uh, I mean ENJOY!