| Intl. Notebook | May 9 2020 |
I'm smiling now, but if another man asks where my on button is located he'll regret it.
These photos show Elmina Humphreys bizarrely costumed as the official Radio Queen for the 1939 Radiolympia trade and consumer show, at which she greeted guests as a personification of the spirit of radio. This was held in London, and was the last Radiolympia before World War II forced a long hiatus. It's likely that Humphreys was a show business hopeful, but we found no mention of her anywhere except in reference to her appearance here.
| Vintage Pulp | May 8 2020 |
I'll have to call you back. Something urgent just landed on my desk.
Above, yet another office sleaze cover from Greenleaf Classics, that most reliable of low rent imprints. Too Many Partners was written by John Dexter, a pseudonym for various authors, in this case one who remains unidentified. This was published in 1966 with Robert Bonfils art.
| Hollywoodland | Vintage Pulp | May 7 2020 |
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can stay her from the swift completion of her appointed seduction.
Above is a trolley card for the classic Lana Turner/John Garfield film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice, which according to the text, opened at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles today in 1946. What's a trolley card? Pretty much self-explanatory, that. But you don't see many surviving examples, so this is a real treasure. The opening date represents new info. All the websites we checked said the movie opened in L.A. May 9. Maybe the managers of the Egyptian had connections at MGM. Awesome connections, we guess, to have helped them beat the rest of town by two full days. With that kind of juice, it's safe to assume they only had to ring once at the studio gates. We worked in the L.A. film industry. Relationships are everything. Or maybe the movie actually opened today, and the internet is wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Not that we're trying to sound superior. We've made errors more than once. Interestingly, we were able to locate a vintage photo of the Egyptian with its marquee advertising Postman. It's a great movie. Nobody needs us to tell them that, but we did anyway, at this link.
Los AngelesMetro-Goldwyn-MayerThe Postman Always Rings TwiceJohn GarfieldLana Turnerposter artcinemafilm noir
| Vintage Pulp | May 7 2020 |
They finally figured out a way to convince their boyfriends to go hiking.
Above, a poster for Joshi daigaku maruhi report: Nikutai nyûgaku-shiki. This never had a U.S. release, thus no English title, but the Japanese would translate to something like Women's University (Secret) Report: Body Entrance Ceremony. This one is super obscure, and we were unable to find a copy. Again? Yes, again. It premiered in Japan today in 1977.
JapanNikkatsuJoshi daigaku maruhi report: Nikutai nyûgaku-shikiWomen's University (Secret) Report: Body Entrance CeremonyRina NagisaMariko Kitazawaposter artcinemapinkuroman porno
| Vintage Pulp | May 6 2020 |
So, I'm off to that crucial business meeting with— Wow, that thing's transparent, isn't it? Well, money can wait.
Above, a beautiful Bob Abbett cover for William Campbell Gault's Sweet Wild Wench, published by Crest Books in 1959. Abbett used a still of Brigitte Bardot from the 1958 film En cas de malheur as his inspiration. It certainly worked on us—we wanted to read this entirely because of the cover art. The story deals with a promiscuous private eye named Joe Puma who's hired to look into the activities of a Los Angeles cult, but soon finds himself tangled up in two murders, multiple lovers, and various pulp fiction tropes, which his main character actually refers to in his interior monologues as being like “something out of the pulps.” We appreciated the meta touch, the narrative has a nice L.A. feel, and there's a pretty good fight scene about three quarters of the way through, but the long and winding mystery resolves with a fizzle. Two Gaults down, two meh results. We'll dutifully try another.
Los AngelesEn cas de malheurLove Is My ProfessionCrest BooksWilliam Campbell GaultBob AbbettBrigitte Bardotcover artliterature
| Intl. Notebook | May 6 2020 |
He's about to become an unneeded accessory after the fact.
Here's a photo we've seen around the internet for a while, a 1948 shot of a man in divorce court in Chicago begging his wife's forgiveness as her lawyer looks on. No other context was provided on any of the web pages we checked, but we have an idea of the details here. The soon-to-be-bachelorized husband is saying, “I made a terrible mistake, honey! It's just that she was young and smokin' hot and I thought you were going to be at your mother's another two days, but now that I've experienced unspeakable perversion and mind-bending sexual variations I didn't even know existed, I realize it's you that I really want!”
Meanwhile the attorney, who's almost smiling over this scene, is like, “Let me tell you why I love being a divorce lawyer. It's because your wife, like so many of my female clients, is hellbent on revenge, and has a hotel room booked on State Street, some bottles of Champagne waiting on ice, and three flavors of edible panties ready to be gnawed directly off her vulva. I'm heading over there with her right now. Call her Monday, and if you still want to reconcile, by then she'll probably be multi-orgasmic. She told me success turns her on, so it's a good bet. Oh, and your divorce agreement stipulates that you have to pay her legal fees, and I'll be billing by the orgasm. Okay, chat soon.”
| Vintage Pulp | May 5 2020 |
The most important entrance requirements are proper positioning and good lubrication.
Roman porno filmmakers used every possible Japanese social niche and professional realm for sexploitation fodder, so there's no chance they would overlook a milieu as ripe as higher education. Above are two pretty posters for Joshidaisei: sex hōteishiki, aka College Girls: Sex Equation, with roman porno goddesses Mari Tanaka and Hitomi Kozue. It premiered in Japan today in 1973. Basically, they're attending university but decide to do some nude modeling as a side hustle and things go weird in that roman porno sort of way. We looked around for a copy of it with no success, so we'll have to hope we see it later.
Want some bonus images? Alrightee, we are always happy to comply. Below you see Tanaka reacting with embarrassment after getting busted raiding the fridge when she's supposed to studying for her poli-sci exam. Meanwhile Kozue's study session has been so intense she doesn't even have the strength to make it to the kitchen. This is more or less how we've felt the last few weeks of this lockdown thing, but there's light at the end of the tunnel, or so we're being told. We shall see. Plenty more Tanaka and Kozue in the website. Just cllick their keywords below.
JapanNikkatsuJoshidaisei: sex hōteishikiCollege Girls: Sex EquationMari TanakaHitomi Kozueposter artpinkuroman pornocinemanudity
| Vintage Pulp | May 4 2020 |
He's also managed to double his entendre.
Above, beautiful cover art by Jack Faragasso for Max Weatherly's The Long Desire, published 1959 by Zenith Books. Faragasso had an extensive career which you can learn about at his website. We also shared a couple of other pieces from him, here and here.
| Femmes Fatales | May 4 2020 |
The things we put ourselves through in the name of fashion.
What we've subjected ourselves to over the ages in order to be alluring is astounding. Bone corsets, Victorian wigs, thongs, bikini waxing, back waxing, ball waxing, nostril waxing (which we recently learned is a thing), stiletto heels, and the list goes on. Obviously, women have it far worse than men. We don't want to sound unduly incredulous, because we get that all the things we do to ourselves show how important the mating game is. If a fashion trend gets you that partner you seek for a night, a lifetime, or any time between, is there really any length that is too far? Still, though, from our generational perspective, the torpedo bra is among the strangest of all fashion items, and this shot of model Donna Reading shows how extreme the look could get. It comes from an issue of Daily Girl and dates from around 1970. Reading, who was also known as Donna Marlowe (sometimes Marlow), acted as well as modeled, and appeared in a dozen or so television series, including The Benny Hill Show and Monty Python's Flying Circus. The real circus act was wedging herself into this medieval device. We've expressed our wonder concerning this subject before, here and here. Meanwhile, below, Marlowe bans the bra.
| Vintage Pulp | May 3 2020 |
If you were framed for murder you'd be pissed too.
These posters for They Made Me a Killer are about as nice as you'll find from the mid-century period. They're both framable classics, so it may come as a surprise to know the film is a bottom budget b-noir, only sixty-four minutes long, and streamlined in plot. Basically, Robert Lowery, who soups up cars for a living, gets suckered by a femme fatale into driving getaway for a bank robbery. He's literally hijacked. Bank guards die, and a witness is shot. When Lowery is eventually left behind, the cops pick him up and he tries to explain that he's a patsy, but they don't believe him. This leads to an astonishing sequence. Lowery convinces the cops to take him to the hospital, where the fact that he had nothing to do with the robbery can be confirmed by a critically wounded witness. But the witness is barely hanging on and is unable to speak at all. Lowery decides to escape and upends the hospital bed onto the cops‚ critically injured occupant and all. He hadn't killed the bank guards, but the guy in the hospital bed surely couldn't have survived being dumped on the floor. It's weird and kind of funny, but the scene does let us know the hero's motivations for finding the robbers may not be as simple as merely clearing his name. You have time to kill? This lightweight thriller is fine. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1946.
They Made Me a KillerRobert LoweryBarbara BrittonLola Laneposter artcinemamovie reviewfilm noirmovie review
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