| Femmes Fatales | Nov 25 2023 |
If she was fishing for compliments she probably got them.
Danish actress Kirsten Lindholm strikes an interesting pose in this promo image made around 1970. Acting under her own name and as Kirsten Betts, she had small roles in seven movies, including The Love Factor, Crescendo, Twins of Evil, The Vampire Lovers, and Lust for a Vampire. Four of those were horror flicks made by Hammer Studios, which is why she's remembered by cult movie fans as a “Hammer horror babe,” which is like being a James Bond girl but with more blood and screaming. She was also a model, and turned up at one point in Playboy, which made occasional use of this pose, as we've seen previously with Dolores Donlon. We've not yet screened a Lindholm/Betts movie during our long pulp project, but that's probably inevitable. Expect to see her again.
DenmarkThe Love FactorCrescendoThe Vampire LoversLust for a VampireTwins of EvilPlayboyKirsten LindholmKirsten Betts
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 24 2023 |
Cold War spies make waves in the City of Canals.
The Venetian Affair, which premiered today in 1966, has a rather interesting promo poster. It was painted by U.S. artist Frank McCarthy, who was big in paperback covers early in his career, moved into high-budget movie promos such as James Bond posters, and finally made a mark in realist fine art. We love this piece from him. There's a lot going on. If you check out his effort for You Only Live Twice here you'll see how dense and chaotic his work could be, same as above, where he has people falling off the bridge, off the gondola, and guns being brandished everywhere. In addition, his likenesses of the movie's stars are good. He was a major talent.
The first observation you might make while watching The Venetian Affair is that it would be impossible to make a similar movie in that city today. Nearly four million tourists visited Venice in 2022, making nearly every street—and certainly every site of special historical note—like the mass exodus from a just-completed football game. With that level of humanity about, closing parts of the city or main squares—while maybe possible—would not be practical or economical.
But The Venetian Affair was made back when quiet streets and dark corners existed. Old world architecture always makes for a good spy movie backdrop. That's exactly what you get in this adventure about a mind control drug being used to foment conflict between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Robert Vaughn stars as a former CIA agent who was fired after he married Elke Sommer, who was suspected of being a double agent. Vaughn never found out whether that was true because he and Sommer were torn apart by turbulent events. But when a bomb blows up a Venice political conference and Sommer is thought to be involved, the CIA drags Vaughn back into its clutches to find Sommer, as well as the crucial clue that might explain the bombing.
Vaughn is a cool and composed actor, any movie with Sommer is one we'll watch, and co-stars Felicia Farr, Luciana Paluzzi, Ed Asner, and the venerable Boris Karloff are all enticements, but we can't say The Venetian Affair is a scintillating example of a Cold War spy flick. It's such a fertile sub-genre, one that produced some of the best movies of 1950s through 1970s. Even against the beautiful Venice backdrop it mostly falls flat due to a screenplay that never hits any highs. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it. Though it lacks highs, it also lack any serious lows. You can spend your time worse ways. Plus—Sommer. What more do you need?
ItalyU.S.S.R.Soviet UnionVeniceCold WarThe Venetian AffairRobert VaughnElke SommerFelicia FarrKarlheinz BöhmmKarl BohmLuciana PaluzziBoris KarloffEdward AsnerFrank McCarthyposter artcinemamovie reviewcommunism
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 23 2023 |
Temperatures rise and tempers fray in Ard thriller.
We've been searching for everything we can find by William Ard because his books have been consistently good. This Popular Library edition of 1955's Hell Is a City has George Mayers cover art. We dove right into it, and the narrative (which is unrelated to the movie of the same name) focuses again on Ard's NYC private investigator Timothy Dane, who this time tries to prove that a slam-dunk murder charge is a frame put together by a predatory cop.
Ard reveals this in chapter one, when young Jamie Colyero, barely more than a boy, shoots the cop who tries to rape his sister Rita. The cop had been after her for weeks, and finally plants heroin on Jamie, engineers an arrest, then tells Rita the charges can possibly dropped if she meets him at a hotel and gives up her goodies. Out of desperation to help her brother, she agrees.
Unbeknownst to her, she's followed to the hotel by her brother, who's out on bail, and Jamie kicks in the door and ruins the cop's plan—lethally. Dane is in the picture shortly thereafter, working for a newspaper editor who wants to expose the lies of a rival sheet that has used its pages to turn the dirty cop into a saint. All of this will swing the next mayoral election, so the stakes are as high as can be.
Long story short, the book is great. Like other Ard tales it moves exceedingly fast for a piece of vintage fiction, racing through numerous twists and scrapes, with intermittent bursts of action, until it reaches a conclusion that shakes the city to its foundations and leaves readers satisfied. If you enjoy 1950s crime novels, read anything by Ard. You won't regret it.
| Femmes Fatales | Nov 23 2023 |
Not just another brick in the wall.
Lizabeth Scott, who you see above, has an outsize legacy in film history thanks to her appearances in several film noir landmarks: Dead Reckoning, I Walk Alone, Pitfall, and Too Late for Tears come to mind. She also appeared in Dark City, Paid in Full, The Racket, the bizarre British noir-adjacent melodrama Stolen Face, and others. The above promo image was made when she appeared in one of her best movies—the Barbara Stanwyck headlined film noir The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, from 1946.
The Strange Love of Martha IversDead ReckoningI Walk AlonePitfallToo Late for TearsDark CityPaid in FullThe RacketStolen FaceLizabeth ScottBarbara Stanwyckfilm noir
| Intl. Notebook | Nov 22 2023 |
Clean-up needed in the peepshow aisle. Repeat. Clean-up in the peepshow.
This guy should probably have been in combat gear slogging through stifling heat on a Pacific island, but instead, today in 1942, he was getting a cheap thrill by checking out a reel called “Back to Nature.” Maybe he had bone spurs that kept him out of uniform. In any case, he's using a coin operated mutoscope, which had been patented in 1894 and quickly became popular throughout the U.S. They were often stationed in arcades and carnival peep shows, and usually contained tittilating content—in this case a nudism vignette—though they sometimes showed travel, nature, or comedy. We weren't sure whether the racier displays featured any actual nudity, but we quickly found out because the internet knows all. Some enterprising folks have uploaded various mutoscope reels, which you can see at a YouTube playlist here.
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 21 2023 |
So by the time the documentary ended I was thinking, You know what? Maybe female mantises have it right.
Above: a cover for So Wild the Flesh by Mel Corbin, published in 1969 by Saber Books. The art is by Bill Edwards, and everything of his is worth sharing. If you're curious about the content of this one there's a short write-up on it at Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks.
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 21 2023 |
Did somebody order a spaghetti western with extra cheese?
We take every opportunity we can to show you the work of Renato Casaro, even when it's used to promote a movie as bad as Carogne si nasce. Casaro painted a lot of spaghetti western posters but this one is a bit more intense than most. There's a reason for that—the character he painted was intense. The movie is known in English as Cry of Death, and it deals with conflict that erupts between squatters and ranchers in fictional Houstonville, Texas, and the marshal—Glenn Saxson—who first tries to stay out of it, but later chooses a side when he realizes that inside the land rights struggle is a deeper problem regarding someone's secret past and corruption amongst the town bigwigs.
This is one cheap-ass movie. The budget is exemplified by a barroom brawl during which a character is shoved through a cardboard wall. Every castmember is a b-level actor at best. And the script—don't even bring up the script. It's like it was accidentally shot full of holes during one of the gunfights. But we'll give this cheeseball movie one thing—the main bad guy is amazing. He's played by ex-bodybuilder Gordon Mitchell, and he looks like a demon wearing bronzer. Spaghetti western producers were good at casting villains, and Mitchell fits the tradition with a capital V. Otherwise, this flick—even with its final act twist—is nowheresville. Carogne si nasce premiered in Italy today in 1968
That's right. I'm the bad guy. You never guessed, did you?
I'm pure evil, but I can smile winningly. See?
Though I'm from hell and consume only souls, I can mimic human rituals such as drinking beer.
But I don't mimic swallowing it. My master should serve this pisswater to the thirsty wretches in his realm.ItalyCarogne si nasceCry of DeathGlenn SaxsonGordon MitchellRenato BaldiniNello PazzafiniMirella PamphiliRenato Casaroposter artcinemaspaghetti westernmovie review
| Intl. Notebook | Nov 20 2023 |
The sights are incredible there.
The photo series above was made to promote the famed Parisian nightclub Le Crazy Horse and its featured dancers. Posing on a terrace with a line of sight to the Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysées, and Arc de Triomphe are Anna Portobello, Rosa Fumetto, Bonita Super, Maria Tuxedo (who we've featured before), Eva Wowor, Sophia Palladium, and Prima Symphony. That was today in 1968.
FranceParisLe Crazy HorseAnna PortobelloRosa FumettoBonita SuperMaria TuxedoEva WoworSophia PalladiumPrima Symphonyburlesque
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 19 2023 |
Possession is nine-tenths of breaking the law.
We're back to Richard Himmel today and his franchise character, Chicago tough guy lawyer Johnny Maguire. I Have Gloria Kirby came third in the Maguire series, first appearing as this Gold Medal original edition with uncredited cover art in 1951. As we mentioned before, Maguire is a lawyer, but Himmel basically treats him as a detective, and his narrative follows all the expected forms of private dick novels.
As with the earlier books, there are some good moments here. There's an excellent scene that comes after Maguire and his occasional love Tina, who works in a stenographer's office in Maguire's building, have just narrowly escaped a brutal maiming. Maguire has finished explaining to the confused and terrified Tina why everything has been happening, including why he made her burn a mink coat in the building incinerator a couple of days earlier. It's all about seventy thousand missing dollars:
“Do you know where it is, Johnny?”
“Sure. Sure, I know where it is.”
“Where?”
I dropped my gun on the desk. “You've got it.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you've got it. It's in your office. I put it there myself.”
Tina passed out. She went limp and collapsed to the floor. I let her lie there. She needed the rest. I went into my bottom drawer for the bottle. That bottle had been getting a hell of a workout. Out in the hall I rang for the elevator.
[snip]
When I went back in my office, Tina was sitting up on the floor drinking out of the bottle. “For people that burn mink coats and have seventy thousand dollars lying around, we sure drink cheap liquor,” she said.
That's pretty good. The book isn't at that level all the way through, but it's well written and keeps the tension cranked to high. The final showdown between Maguire and his organized crime nemesis is highly unlikely, but not to the extent that it ruins the tale. As mid-century detective—er, lawyer—novels go, we think I have Gloria Kirby is in the upper half of the distribution.
That's pretty good. The book isn't at that level all the way through, but it's well written and keeps the tension cranked to high. The final showdown between Maguire and his organized crime nemesis is highly unlikely, but not to the extent that it ruins the tale. As mid-century detective—er, lawyer—novels go, we think I have Gloria Kirby is in the upper half of the distribution.
| Femmes Fatales | Nov 19 2023 |
Friends have told me I need to be more upbeat. So I got new friends.
Alida Valli was born in Pola, Italy, a place that's now part of Croatia, back in 1921, and was acting in Italian movies by 1935. She eventually became a global star and racked up more than one hundred film credits, including in The Paradine Case, The Third Man, Les Yeux san visage, aka Eyes without a Face, and The Cassandra Crossing. The shot you see here was made for her 1950 drama Walk Softly, Stranger.
ItalyCroatiaWalk Softly StrangerThe Paradine CaseLes Yeux san visageEyes without a FaceThe Third ManThe Cassandra CrossingAlida Valli
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