Vintage DR. CYCLOPS Glass Movie Slide…From England!

Yes I’m still here, gang. Now, I could say that I wanted to leave my last post up at the top of the main page for as long as possible because it was a Leap Day special, and maybe there is, or was, a little truth to that. But, the more honest reason for the delay is that I’ve just been so busy with work, I’ve had relatively little time to tax the brain cells dedicated to writing, and when I do have time, all I really want to do is lie down and listen to the radio or watch whatever local professional sporting event happens to be, erm, happening. (I’m so glad baseball season is upon us once again.)

Furthermore, despite having almost unlimited things to write about (I got a lot of junk stuff), I simply couldn’t think of anything that got the creative juices flowing enough to render me typin’. No jive, this latest update was very nearly a look at the Atari 8-bit computer version of Superman: The Strategy Game; I even had pictures and a large chunk of the article already down before I decided I had lost interest. (Not in the game or computer, just in the babbling about it.)

Still, I wanted to get something up before too much time had passed, lest whatever readers I happened to retain started getting antsy. I needed to dig something out that would make for a quick ‘n easy stop-gap post; something I could snap a single picture of, ramble about for a bit, and then go on my merry way.

In the end, it came down to either a Simpsons air freshener from 1990, or our subject today. Did I make the right decision? Who cares, it’s a new update!

Remember the super neat Ken Maynard Lucky Larkin glass movie slide post? Of course you don’t; here, take the link. Well, we’re entering that arena once again, but this time, it’s not related to an antiquated (and possibly lost) sagebrush saga, but rather, some golden age horror/science fiction. Dig this:

Oh this is the stuff right here. I’m a sucker for vintage memorabilia from the horror and/or sci-fi genres, though since I’m far from the only one, it tends to be highly sought after (read: more expensive), and as such, I don’t add things like this to the collection as often as I’d like. Still, when this one crossed my path online, already affordable and then I received a discounted offer on top of it, well, I could only resist for so long.

Quick refresher: glass movie slides were quite literally advertisements projected on theater screens back in the day. They could be for local businesses or products, or, as we have here, pitches for other movies showing or to be shown at the respective theater. In this case, we have one for 1940’s Dr. Cyclops, and what’s more, it’s from England! Who knows how many of these could still exist or what my odds of coming across another are, but I’m guessing the number has to be pretty low in either case.

I bought this last year (from a seller in Jersey; go figure!), and as I recall it, I hesitated some before finally deciding to spend money that I shouldn’t. The reasons are, or were, twofold: 1) It’s not exactly a graphical feast. There is, as you can see, a nice old timey look to the slide, but it lacks the fantastic artwork that can really make these things ‘pop’ even in this day and age (go back and look at Lucky Larkin if you don’t believe me). Sidenote: they spelled “Janice” wrong. 2) Despite a love for vintage horror and sci-fi in general, where Dr. Cyclops in particular is concerned, to be totally frank, it has never been one of my favorites. Still, the various other factors related to the slide won me over in the end, and even if I don’t really care about the movie, I’ve also never really regretted buying it. Plus, who cares, it’s a new update!

Dr. Cyclops regards a crazy scientist stationed deep in the jungle who has developed the ability to shrink stuff. He shrinks a bunch of visiting biologists who, understandably, balk at being miniaturized and thus decide to defeat the mad doc and return themselves to their normative dimensions. Or something along those lines; like I said, it’s never been a favorite of mine. Look, just read about it, okay?

Anyway, the slide itself. First off, there was just no good way to get a picture of it; the glass that houses it is apparently the most reflective in the known universe. As such, please enjoy my hand’s cute reflection in it. (Seriously, this was the best I could do. But who cares, it’s a new update!) Also, note the label at the very top; I know it’s a bit hard to see (I briefly considered taking a picture specifically of it, until like Atari 8-bit Superman, the notion got nixed). It reads “HERBERT BAKER” and underneath “THAXTED (Dunmow) ESSEX” though what precisely that refers to, I’m not sure. It could have been the distributor of the slide, or perhaps the proprietor of the theater that ultimately projected it. The latter would be cooler than the former. ‘Course, it could just be the labeling of a very proud former owner of the slide, I dunno.

Thaxted is a town in Essex, and Dunmow was, near as I can tell, a railway station there that now no longer exists. I still don’t know how all that relates to the slide, though.

One more thing: 1940 was the year Dr. Cyclops, an American picture, premiered in, say it with me, America. (The United States, I mean; savvy?) But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s when this slide hails from. It could have debuted in England later, or possibly even be from a later re-release either way. I’m not sure there’s any way to definitively know. Also, keep in mind 1940 was World War II time, even though the U.S. hadn’t officially entered it yet. How that impacted the release of an imported sci-fi movie to Britain, I do not know. I imagine they probably had bigger things on their collective mind. Even IMDb doesn’t reveal the pertinent information.

So, you now know about as much as I do about this slide, which is admittedly relatively little. There’s a real possibility someone out there knows way more than I do about it. Nevertheless, it’s vintage horror/sci-fi, it’s a piece of cinematic history, it’s (probably) fairly rare, and, last but not least, it’s cause for a new update. What more could you possibly want in a post?

See y’all the next time I feel like typing stuff!