Lobby cards from Message From Space

What are lobby cards? you're asking yourself. (If you're younger than a certain age.) And what is Message From Space, you're probably asking yourself, regardless of how old you are.

Way back before the Internet, before the IMDB, before satellite or even cable TV, the only way that the movies could advertise their wares was via posters, stills and lobby cards, which theaters put in their lobbies for people to look at, so that they'd hopefully decide to see the film the next week, or whenever it was coming to town.

Now that the Internet can disseminate photos, trailers, etc., there's no need for movie companies to make lobby cards or stills, and they've fallen by the wayside.

For the collector of this ephemera...such as myself...it's sometimes interesting to see just what the "powers that be" at a movie company's publicity/marketing department thought were "good" stills - captured scenes from a film that would actually draw people in to see the movie.

As an example, here are 5 lobby cards from Message From Space, a film made in Japan with Vic Morrow (Combat) as the star. Pretty much a Star Wars ripoff, as was common at the time.