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11/16/17

WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS & MONSTER ZERO Pressbook (UPA, 1970)


ADDENDUM (2022):  The item originally referred to below as the Pressbook for this film is actually the Advertising section, the set of ad slicks that usually accompanies pressbooks.  It was only later, when I acquired the actual pressbook (seen above), that I realized what was going on.  To add to the confusion, both are nearly identical in their content.

Here is a very scaled-down pressbook for the 1970 double-feature that was WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS and MONSTER ZERO.  As you have probably seen from the myriad examples of pressbooks elsewhere on this blog [click the pressbooks tag to see them all], they are very useful to help you know what items existed for certain films...but this one focuses only on the different sizes of newspaper ads.
Also, this pressbook is 8.5 x 11", which, though easier to store and less likely to be folded, allows less room than its predecessors for art and text. 
Speaking of text, there isn't much.  In fact, there are two brief synopses of the films, and only two sample newspaper articles.  These are worth reading; note the first one, which begins the ballyhoo right away, with the title of "New Science Photography Makes Monsters More Human Than People." 



The article makes several confusing claims.  It says that military models for WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS were "motor driven" and "more than a yard long." Some were motorized, yes, but I didn't think any WOG models were nearly that big...until Sean Linkenback reminded me of the Maser cannon being pulled by the tank-like vehicle:
Here it is (almost) in scale with Tsuburaya himself:

Another claim is that the previously-mentioned NEW camera equipment "enable[s] the filming of 0.1 mm movements." So, a tenth of a millimeter... with no context given as to how this would be useful, or why.  Of course, bear in mind that any "new" technology referred to is from films that were already 4 and 5 years old, respectively! 

I can't let the last paragraph go by without quoting it (italics mine):  "The frightening hide of Godzilla's body were [sic] made from plastic and foam rubber, while the skins of wild dogs provided the fur on the land-bred monster."

The skins.  Of wild dogs.  Say what, now? Is this entire article was the victim of mis-translation?  Besides all that, WHO is the "land-bred monster"? King Ghidorah?...who of course is from space. [Again, Sean points out that they were referring to Sanda.  I think the real problem with this article is that they are conflating the films of their double-feature.]

I know in the beginning, I said pressbooks help answer questions about collecting movie ephemera, but sometimes they do create more mysteries and unanswered questions!

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