Geoffrey Dale
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cinterrobang.bsky.social
Geoffrey Dale
@cinterrobang.bsky.social
110 followers 290 following 610 posts
some strangeness to the proportion


https://letterboxd.com/cinterrobang
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Two-page spread from a 1973 edition of the 1967 picture book "A Day of Autumn," by Betty Miles, illustrated by Marjorie Auerbach. Picture of a child's bedroom as three-colour linocut* in pink, orange, green, and their combinations. The left hand page features a chest of drawers, against which rests a tennis racquet. Its flat top is populated with books, papers, a pen, an alarm clock and a statue of a cowboy on horseback. The arm of a sweater pokes out from the top drawer. Above this furniture is a window with pink, breeze-blown flowered curtains, where hangs a grinning orange jack-o'lantern shape with wild thick extensions approximating hair. In the black nighttime sky beyond, a crescent moon and a cluster of stars. The right hand side depicts a child asleep in the top berth of a bunkbed, arm dangling down. On the floor in nighttime shadow, a basketball and an abandoned pair of high-top sneakers. In the image's bottom right hand corner, in a colourless arc that suggests a pool of light creeping into the room, is printed the text: Sleep through the autumn night. Sleep while fast cars Slip over the road. Sleep while fast clouds Slip over the moon. Warm in the windy night, Soft in the sharp night, Under the white moon's light, Fall into sleep. *(probably? it appears to have been stamped, certainly.) (read it here, if the spirit moves you: archive.org/details/dayofautumn0000mile )
October 1, 2025 at 8:33 AM
cinterrobang.bsky.social
Might have a couple regrets about the time he spent in the North African theatre, though.
Images of the actor Gavin Macleod from his RAT PATROL episode, "The Fatal Chase Raid." In this first colour screengrab, his sweaty, wild-eyed bald man in desert combat fatigues sits in the passenger seat of an army jeep, sneering. Sneering, again, wild-eyed, teeth bared and gritted, behind a high-calibre jeep-mounted machine gun, bright blue sky above him. Finally, in the desert dunes, screaming at the top of his lungs as Christopher George, in a consequential desert slouch hat, looks back at him seemingly unbothered.
September 17, 2025 at 7:47 PM
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Quick question did we ever find out who Toronto's Queen of Outer Space was?
Black and white newspaper ad from The Toronto Star, Friday September 5th, 1958, promoting the upcoming Toronto release of QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE. Features elements of the film's advertising art -- namely an uncomfortable-looking Zsa Zsa Gabor filling our a scant high-rising black dress with an almost impossible decolletage as she lies on the floor* supporting herself with her outstretched right arm. Behind her, in the starless black void of the titular Outer Space, a pointed, girthy rocketship approaches an annular space-station. "Zsa Zsa is Coming!" Movie starts on Monday at NINE local theatres. In Color. Most intriguingly, copy at the ad's base asks "Who will be Toronto's Queen of Outer Space?" and informs us we can "enter the Parkway Plaza queen of outer space popularity contest. Hundreds of valuable prizes! Ballots available at all theaters." Stay tuned, folks! *("I dunno... space floor?") #filmsky #scifi #scifisky
September 5, 2025 at 9:43 PM
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If you see this, post a DC cover you love
September 4, 2025 at 11:36 PM
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In these final two successive grabs, she stands in front of a grey brick wall behind a dark wooden dressing screen, an article of clothing draped over its edge. In this first picture, her eyes are cast downward. In this second picture, her bare arm rests along the screen's top edge, smiling now, lips pursed as she looks at someone offscreen.
September 2, 2025 at 3:59 PM
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Here's Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter as "Mona Bern" in the third season MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE episode "Illusion."
Succession of colour screengrabs from the television program "Mission: Impossible," featuring the actress Barbara Bain. In this episode she's undercover as a cabaret singer named Mona Bern, a pale thirtysomething woman with a substantial blonde flip, considerable eyelashes, and muted red lipstick. Here, she's head and shoulders under stage lights in a black satin top hat and corset, a slim lace bow tied around her neck. #tvsky #classictv #filmsky Here, agitated and speaking forcefully in a mottled green dress. Staring off into the middle distance in a scarlet gown. Looking forlorn behind the wheel of a 60s european coupe, wearing a tan trenchcoat.
September 2, 2025 at 3:59 PM
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Back in the news. 1975's got sights to show you!
Black and white newspaper ad from The Toronto Star, August 30, 1975 listing features showing at several Drive-In theatres for the August long weekend dusk-to-dawn programs. #filmsky More drive-ins! More movies! Between these two images, I count 36 movies over 11 theatres. It took me 50 years to see 31 of them. I hope it takes me another 50 to see the last five; pretty sure you can't cross the rainbow bridge if you still have movies to watch I don't make the rules. #filmsky
August 31, 2025 at 5:39 PM
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39 years (!) since the Toronto opening of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2, delayed a week so that each individual print could be shorn of almost ten minutes of footage at the behest of the notoriously puritanical Ontario Film Review Board.
Black and white newspaper ad from the August 29, 1986 edition of the Toronto Star, announcing the opening of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2. Toplined by its tagline "After a decade of silence... the buzzz [sic] is back." Featuring the film's poster artwork, the five creepy lookin' members of the Sawyer clan gathered crouched together on the floor in a parody of the artwork for the previous year's THE BREAKFAST CLUB. One of them is a corpse. It's rated Restricted by the OFRB, with additional inline warnings that it features "Brutal Violence," and that it "May Offend Some." It may just, at that. There's a weekend 11.45pm late show at the Eaton Center, which was probably a NIGHTMARE. I saw it opening weekend at The Film Factory in Newmarket, an experience which ranks as one of the most disappointing nights I've ever had at the movies. Real good picture, though. #filmsky #horrorsky Black and white newspaper ad from the August 16, 1986 edition of the Toronto Star, announcing the *impending* opening of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2, scheduled for August 22. The artwork is the same as previously described, although there's an inline caveat that the movie is at this point still "Subject to Classification." Uh-oh! #filmsky #horrorsky
August 29, 2025 at 8:50 PM
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One final hiccup: imdb correctly lists MASSACRE's LA debut as Sept 10, 1982. Entirely unsure, then, how it apparently played for a week here in Winnipeg ONE MONTH EARLIER, tucked away in a minuscule aud in a downtown second-run multiplex. Was this a Rittenberg test-run? Who can say? Funny old world!
Black and white newspaper ad from The Los Angeles Times, Friday, September 10, 1982, announcing the opening of THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE at about 30 area theatres and drive-ins. It features another iteration of the previously mentioned MASSACRE original art, though the drill bit is notably absent, and there is no way, at least in this reproduction, to discern that these unfortunate women are being spied through the legs of a degenerate psychopath. "Close your eyes for a second... and sleep forever." #filmsky #horrorsky Black and white newspaper ad from The Winnipeg Sun, Friday, August 13, 1982, listing movies showing at the Eaton Place CinePlex 7. Beneath the evocative neon-styled font of the original CinePlex logo are plain text titles and showtimes for: AIRPLANE; THE STORY OF O; BAMBI; MONTENEGRO ("Back by popular demand"); THE SECRET POLICEMAN'S OTHER BALL; THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, and, of course, THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE... a full month before it's apparent Los Angeles premiere?! #filmsky #horrorsky
August 22, 2025 at 8:58 PM
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Creswin was a Canadian distro est. in 1978 by Larry Rittenberg, who had grown up in a Toronto theatre family. He'd shutter it for a few years when he became GM of New World/Mutual, then reopen sometime after in the early 80s. Rittenberg passed away a few years ago. He did some very important work!
Black and white newspaper ad for "TWO SHOCK HITS" at Toronto-area drive-ins. The hits are the previously mentioned THE TOOLBOX MURDERS, here paired with TORSO, whose artwork features the film's blockletter title treatment, underneath which an apprehensive attractive blode is menaced by a large hacksaw brandished by a black leather driving glove. "A psychosexual killer is on the loose!" #filmsky #horrorsky Black and white newspaper ad for a triple feature at the Toronto-adjacent Scarboro Drive-in, where THE TOOLBOX MURDERS is playing with SECOND COMING OF EVA and VICIOUS VIRGINS. EVA is illustrated by an ambiguous image line drawing of what is both a woman's smiling, heavily done up face and a hunching nude female form with downward swept hair. It's repurposed from the key art for another, entirely unrelated motion picture, THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE. #filmsky #horrorsky Black and white newspaper ad for a double feature at Toronto's Coronet theatre, featuring -- again -- THE TOOLBOX MURDERS and, identified in simple plain text, "Russ Meyer's 'SUPER VIXEN'." #filmsky #horrorsky
August 22, 2025 at 8:58 PM
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I say "Toronto," but it seems to be most of Eastern Canada. It also opened in Montreal and Ottawa, for example. I assume Creswin (who had released TOOLBOX in '78) was also responsible for MASSACRE's Vancouver debut, earlier in May, which had used the original art.
Black and white newspaper ad from the Vancouver Sun, Friday, May 30, 1985, advertising the opening of THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE. It features the film's original title treatment, where the word "Massacre" appears scrawled in blood. A very small portion of the original artwork is also used; likely imperceptible unless one is familar with the illustration -- a cutout of a screaming woman faced with an enormous dangling drill bit, seen through the perspective of a man's open legs. "Close your eyes for a second and sleep forever." #filmsky #horrorsky Another, smaller ad from The Sun from the same weekend, which nevertheless shows more of the original art, where another (Slumbering? Massacrered?!) woman lies on the floor below the screaming brunette. The BCFCO (who has, with the help of the "Restricted Cougar" logo, rated the film Restricted) advises you the movie contains "frequent gory violence." #filmsky #horrorsky
August 22, 2025 at 8:58 PM
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A Curiosity: It's the 40th anniversary of the belated Toronto theatrical release of 1982's SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, promoted with the key art (and tagline!)from THE TOOLBOX MURDERS.
Black and white newspaper ad from the Toronto Star, Friday, Aug. 23, 1985, trumpeting the opening of THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE. It's illustrated by the key art from THE TOOLBOX MURDERS, depicting a faceless man in a ski mask and a dark belted trenchcoat holding a power drill with a spade bit as he looms over a gasping, frightened woman in an aftermarket halftone bikini. We are warned that "What he does to your nerves is almost as bad as what he does to his victims." The title treatment still belongs to the original MASSACRE advertising, with a stylised "Massacre" evoking a scrawl of POSSIBLE HUMAN BLOOD! And with the inclusion of MASSACRE's original tagline as well, there are three seperate horrifying admonitions for this one humble motion picture. It's also playing at the Glenway 5 in Newmarket, which is where I tried to convince a visiting cousin to drive us to on Saturday night. He was all for it, until he (17) started to sweat getting carded for a restricted movie. I was an oversized 14 going on 23, so I did my best to reassure him that in my recent experience it wasn't gonna be a problem, but... no dice. We stayed in and instead watched THE JOY OF SEX on cable, as I recall, while our parents played silly bugger in the upstairs living room. Joke was on him, I guess; I'd already seen it on tape. Then again, I sure wish I'd had the experience of seeing it projected. Hm. Maybe the joke's on me, after all. Theatres Branch Ontario cautions that it features BRUTAL VIOLENCE. Boy, it sure does! #filmsky #horrorsky Colour one-sheet poster for THE TOOLBOX MURDERS. Same faceless man in ski mask and trenchcoat, etc. Here, though, it's clear the woman in trouble (Penthouse Pet Kelly Nichols) is naked amidst the grayish green water of a bubble bath, whose weak froth does its level best to obscure her naked breasts. In the title treatment, the "T" in "Toolbox" is represented by a rightward-facing claw hammer, the rest of the letters seemingly stamped in ELECTRIFIED BLOOD, which is also what drips out of a rusted toolbox, slightly ajar directly beneath. It's a CalAm Artists Release. #filmsky #horrorsky
August 22, 2025 at 8:58 PM
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Hooray!

Parenthetically, here's CinemaScope having a throwdown with VistaVision on opening weekend north of the border, while off-model Hitch tries to pinch Jimmy Stewart.
Black and white newspaper advertisement from the Toronto Star Friday, November 12th, 1954, trumpeting three then-current movies: BLACK WIDOW ("the cast of the Year creates the excitement of the year in the first crime-of-passion story in CinemaScope"), WHITE CHRISTMAS (in its "Second Joyous Week!"), and REAR WINDOW (featuring an (Hirschfeld-adjacent?) illustration of its director, an enormously fat scowling man with a cigar pointedly fastened in his small right hand). Oh, and SABRINA is held over at the Nortown (which has free parking). #filmsky
August 21, 2025 at 10:57 PM
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August 5, 2025 at 5:38 PM
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We may have missed it in direct conversation with its D2D roster mate SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, but AIRPLANE's disco sequence itself has the distinction of containing what's easily among the most purely invigorating, luminous shots The Movies have to offer we mere mortals:
August 3, 2025 at 9:59 PM
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For those breathlessly curious, we opted for the Parkway's regular Saturday program, instead. Got a different August Long D2D planned for tonight. Didn't wanna get too tuckered.
Black and White newspaper ad from the Kitchener Waterloo Record, Saturday August 2nd, 1980, promoting the current triple feature at the Parkway Drive-In. AIRPLANE, plus "second big hit!" LITTLE DARLINGS (don't let the title fool you.), plus "third big hit!" MEATBALLS. Each title is sparingly illustrated with elements of their promotional artwork. A Jet Airplane Tied in a Knot?! Smug Bill Murray festooned with adoring teenaged girls in bikinis?! The program has been rated "Adult Entertainment" (functionally equivalent to an MPAA PG) by Theatres Branch, Ontario, although it warns that Little Darlings is "not suitable for pre-teenagers." The Parkway Drive-In suggests you "Come Early!" #filmsky
August 3, 2025 at 9:59 PM
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Here's a curious grab bag from 1977. Kick things off early with a 1966 episode of Magical World of Disney (in color!), slither into Bakshi's gorgeous post-apocalyptic fairy tale, re-rewatch the biggest movie of all time, then zone out through the wee smalls with some perfect automobilesploitation.
Black and white newspaper ad from the Kitchener Waterloo Record from Saturday, July 30, 1977, promoting a "Sunday - 5 Hits! Dusk-to-Dawn Show!" at Kitchener's magnificent Parkway Drive-In. Four titles are illustrated by isolated elements of their poster artwork: STAR WARS; WIZARDS; DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY; VANISHING POINT. The first movie of the night, a repurposed 50-minute episode of The Magical World of Disney, RUN, APPALOOSA, RUN, is listed in plain text as an "added hit in color." Colour is curiously misspelled. See all five hits for regular admission price. Come early, stay Late! Just know that the FREE LIST is SUSPENDED. So you're gonna have to cram into the trunk if you wanna save your money for the pinball machine and a two a.m. cheeseburger with a coupla ice cold pickles. (I can only imagine the "First Showing At A Drive-In!" come-on for Wizards was specific to the greater KW metropolitan area. Happy to be proven wrong!) (The Parkway, after all, *was* the most magical place to have ever existed.)
August 2, 2025 at 7:34 PM
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Long weekend as we drag ass into the dog days. Time for another traditional August Long Sunday Dusk-to-Dawn at the ozoner of your choice. Might replicate this 1980 bill from my own history, spend some time with my old friend Paramount Pictures at the beloved Parkway. Paradise on earth.
Black and white newspaper ad from the Kitchener Waterloo Record from Saturday, August 2, 1980 trumpeting a "Pre-Holiday 4 Feature Marathon" at the Parkway Drive-In, featuring "4 smash hits." LITTLE DARLINGS ("Don't let the title fool you.); AIRPLANE (Thank God it's only a motion picture!); GREASE; SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER are each illustrated with their advertising title treatments. Box office at 7. Show starts at 9. Children (under 14) free with parents.
August 2, 2025 at 7:34 PM
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May 25, 2025 at 2:01 AM
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No idea who the artist is, but that's the kisser of Smilin' Ed McConnell's Froggy the Gremlin, eventual second banana to Andy Devine on Andy's Gang!

(You are also, as ever, doing the lord's work with these magnificent snipes.)
May 25, 2025 at 2:00 AM
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Yep, more terrible, depleted memes! This time, it's the... I don't even know what this one's called. "Sophisticated Pooh?" Anyway, in this one, the plain-dressed Winnie the Pooh is considering the release of THE EIGER SANCTION (depicted in its black and white newspaper ad), and Formal Pooh is more intrigued by a black and white newspaper ad for a contemporaneous double feature of DIRTY HARRY and MAGNUM FORCE. #filmsky
May 16, 2025 at 5:07 PM
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whoah whoah WHOAH
Black and white newspaper ad from the Toronto Star, c. May, 1975, promoting a double feature of the Clint Eastwood movies DIRTY HARRY and MAGNUM FORCE. Illustrated with a MAGNUM FORCE promotional still where star Clint Eastwood, dressed in a grey herringbone blazer and slacks as SFPD Inspector Harry Callahan, crouches while pointing the barrel of his signature .44 Magnum (the most powerful handgun in the world) down the barrel of the camera lens. The image is mirrored on its vertical axis so that we're having TWO magnums pointed in our faces by TWO "Dirty Harry" Callahans. It's "Double Trouble," and opens today at the Yonge cinema and several drive-ins. #filmsky
May 16, 2025 at 5:07 PM
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Hacky use of the way-past-sell-by "distracted boyfriend meme" in service of my even hackier, worse joke. What this version suggests is the the boyfriend is "Toronto Cinemagoer and Distracted Reader, May 16, 1975," his girlfriend is "New Clint. Mountain... Spy?" and the woman he's distracted by is "Based on a big, bold bestseller!" #filmsky
May 16, 2025 at 5:07 PM
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well hold on now movie fans
Placing the previous post's image in context, a more complete view of the same page of the May 16, 1975 Toronto Star. Again featuring the EIGER SANCTION ad, but below it we now see it's also the Toronto opening of MANDINGO. Also illustrated with artwork from its poster (featuring two mixed-race couples embracing passionately while a tiny James Mason watches from a minuscule rocking chair), also based on a "big, bold best seller that sold over 9 1/2 million copies!" You are instructed to "Expect the savage. The sensual. The shocking. The sad. The powerful. The shameful. Expect all that the motion picture screen has never dared to show before. Expect the truth." Whoah. #filmsky
May 16, 2025 at 5:07 PM
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It's EIGER SANCTION day, everyone. Summer of SANC, here we come!
From the Toronto Star, May 16, 1975: a b&w newspaper ad for the opening of THE EIGER SANCTION. It features artwork from the film's poster, a familiar illustration of the actor and director clinging to a climbing rope on a sheer mountain face ("His lifeline -- held by the assassin he hunted") ready to kick his crampons into your breadbasket. It's "From the suspenseful international best-seller!" an assertion made directly above a smaller inset illustration of the cover of the film's source novel. It opens at the University and at Jackson Square in Hamilton (CITY OF INDUSTRY AND ALSO MY BIRTH!). #filmsky
May 16, 2025 at 5:07 PM