| Femmes Fatales | Oct 3 2019 |
She captures your attention from the first sentence of the first paragraph.
She was born Donna Mae Tjaden, but launched her show business career as Janis Paige, and under that name appeared in films like Of Human Bondage and Fugitive Lady, before transitioning almost exclusively to television around 1953. The above photo is credited as being from the “1950s,” which seems a bit broad to us. We can do better. The back tells us it's a Warner Brothers promo, and as we mentioned, Paige moved into television in 1953. We think the photo is most likely from 1950. Paige starred in the Warner crime drama This Side of the Law that year.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 2 2019 |
Sci-fi invasion film is a Missione impossible.
The hydra of myth had seven heads. The movie 2+5: Missione Hydra feels like there wasn't a single head involved. It originally premiered in Italy today in 1966, but was re-released in 1977 as Star Pilot, an opportunistic move inspired by the success of Star Wars. But where Star Wars made history, Star Pilot is historically awful. The plot involves aliens who crash land on Earth but need to go back to their home planet located somewhere in the constellation Hydra, and can only repair their ship with the help of a few human scientists. As a bonus they plan to abduct these accommodating people for intensive—possibly even invasive—study.
2+5: Missione Hydra is very nearly the worst science fiction film we've ever seen, perhaps second only to the infamous Star Crash. Its unique terribleness was brought about by a perfect storm of factors, including a budget completely inadequate for the film's ambitions, which resulted in cheap sets, shoestring special efx, ridiculous costumes, bad music and sound, and stunt work that looks as if it was performed by the guys who fight with wooden swords at medieval fairs.
Adding to these problems is a script that is not only inept, but filled with attempts at light-hearted humor that fall flatter than buckwheat crêpes. Leontine and Leonora Ruffo are dealt the worst characters, and must try to bring to life, respectively, a frisky sexpot and a cold alien space babe. But they're overmatched by the writing. The only positive with 2+5: Missione Hydra is the usual one when it comes to awful films—if you have a few quick-witted friends and some booze, this could turn into one of the most entertaining movie nights you've ever had.
Guys, was that our screenwriter back there on the side of the road? Maybe we should stop. We might need him.
We have come to Earth to fertilize your women. And your men. And possibly some trees. Our semen funnels can induce fertilization in anything.
Among our species, my funnel is considered enormous.
You had me at “fun,” space stud.
This is the fertilization chamber. To excite you we have installed mood lighting and will transmit the Chili Peppers', “Party on Your Pussy.”
We can't fertilize on this! It's barely big enough for a reverse cowgirl, let alone a standard missionary.
Heh. They have no idea we're recording the fertilizations. We should do quite well with these on the galactic candid porn market.
How did your fertilization go? Mine, all things considered, was better than expected.
ItalyStar Pilot2 5 Missione HydraLeonora RuffoMario NovelliAnthony FreemanLeontineLeontine Mayposter artcinemasci-fimovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 1 2019 |
Nobody will suspect murder! You've told everyone you'd literally die if the Red Sox missed the playoffs!
Above, a September 1956 issue of Murder! magazine, which was the first issue ever published. It was put together by the same people who did Manhunt, was similar in content, with crime, procedural, and adventure tales, but lasted for only five issues. The action cover was painted by Frank Cozzarelli to illustrate Lionel White's “To Kill a Wife,” and it looks like the wife wins out definitively. Other contributors include Richard Deming, Carroll Mayers, Jack Ritchie, et al. And to Sox fans, better luck next year.
Murder!Lionel WhiteRichard DemingJack RitchieDan SontupJack Q. LynnFrank Cozzarellimagazine artliterature
| Femmes Fatales | Oct 1 2019 |
The golden girl with the gun.
Swedish actress Britt Ekland was one of our early femmes fatales. We posted her more than ten years ago. Today we're bringing her back, again in character as CIA agent Mary Goodnight from the 1974 James Bond hit The Man with the Golden Gun, but in three new poses. And of course she looks amazing in all of them. She was one of the Bond series' most popular so-called “Bond girls” for good reason. See the original shot here.
| Intl. Notebook | Sep 30 2019 |
For British movie lovers Continental Film Review was their ticket across the English Channel.
Continental Film Review was first published—as far as we can discern—in November 1952. We decided on that month because we saw a copy from February 1953 numbered Vol. 1 Issue 4, and the masthead said the magazine was published the first week of every month. CFR would go on to become one of Britain's most popular film magazines, exposing English language readers to the wide variety of foreign movies being made across continental Europe. The above issue appeared this month in 1966 with cover star Maria Pia Conte, and numerous film personalities inside, including Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Bates, Rossana Podesta, Evi Marandi, and more. We have other issues we'll get around to sharing at some point. In the meantime see more here, here, here, and here.
BritainContinental Film ReviewMaria Pia ConteEvi MarandiTaina BérylTaina BeryllTayna BeryllAlan BatesVanessa RedgraveJacqueline MillsSenta BergerFrance AngladeEstella BlainMabel KarrRossana PodestaThommy BerggrenHarriet AnderssonZbigniew CybulskiJarl KulleChristina Schollincinema
| Modern Pulp | Sep 29 2019 |
Junko Mabuko is unjustly detained yet again.
It's Junko Mabuki again, beset by her usual troubles on this poster for the roman porno flick Dan Oniroku joen fujin, which premiered in Japan today in 1980. This movie seems to have been retitled for its English language release either Blazing Bondage Lady or Madam Rope Flame. Different sites say it's one or the other, but both titles kind of mean the same thing, so both are probably correct.
How does Junko get caged? It's her husband's fault. He accidentally runs over a woman who's a star S&M performer and her widower shows up to claim Junko as his own (and as a bonus also kidnaps her sister, played by the ethereal Izumi Shima). Junko's captor introduces her to aspects of bdsm such as whipping and enemas (always a favorite of roman porno flicks), and her shame and resistance eventually turn to acceptance and pleasure.
Mabuki burst onto the roman porno scene in 1979 and in 1980 made a dozen films. Nikkatsu thought they had another Naomi Tani on their hands and even staged a press conference at which they introduced Mabuki to the assembled journalists while she was done up in bondage gear. These types of publicity stunts weren't unusual for Nikkatsu. They had barely enough time to congratulate themselves for finding a new star when in 1982 Junko abruptly retired.
Mabuki burst onto the roman porno scene in 1979 and in 1980 made a dozen films. Nikkatsu thought they had another Naomi Tani on their hands and even staged a press conference at which they introduced Mabuki to the assembled journalists while she was done up in bondage gear. These types of publicity stunts weren't unusual for Nikkatsu. They had barely enough time to congratulate themselves for finding a new star when in 1982 Junko abruptly retired.
But Mabuki left behind more than a dozen films and established herself as one of the era's most popular stars. Even so, we rarely recommend these movies and can't recommend this one either, but we love roman porno posters, which taken out of context are always amazing art pieces. Junko is like art too, below. Rest assured, this is not the last we'll see of her.
JapanNikkatsuDan Oniroku joen fujin団鬼六 縄炎夫人Junko MabukiIzumi ShimaOniroku Danposter artcinemapinkuroman pornobdsmshibarikinbakunuditymovie review
| The Naked City | Sep 29 2019 |
An L.A. woman's derailed life comes to an end by knife.
Another night in Los Angeles, another murder, and another Los Angeles Examiner photographer on hand to document the aftermath. This collection of shots shows Bill Stewart in police custody, and Miriam Lake, who he thought it would be good idea to stab in the back, dead on the floor. This is one destitute pair of Angelenos. Stewart is covered in grime and is missing a shoe, while Lake's Hermosa Beach domicile is a studio with stove, sink, three beds, and sofa all in one room.
We're not putting Lake down for being poor. Quite the opposite. Billions of people live modestly, and more should. But if you look around Lake's place, and focus past the disaster of a kitchen table, the general mess, and the stained furniture, you see a pile of boxes in the corner, stacked three high. We surmise that these are possessions she wished to hang onto, even though she had no space at the time. That tells us she wanted or even expected to get out of this flat one day. But no thanks to Stewart, those expectations never came true.
Below is twelve year-old Charles Pratt, a neighbor who saw Stewart leave Lake's house. He's been brought into the police station as a witness. Since he's too young to know what death really is, he seems pretty jazzed to be the center of attention. We imagine him bragging about it at school. That's probably what we would have done at that age too. But the fullness of time brings all of us to the edge of the abyss. If Pratt is still around he'd be about eighty today, and by now knows precisely what death is. We wonder if he ever thinks about Miriam Lake, murdered his entire lifetime ago. Probably. This all occurred today in 1951.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 28 2019 |
Here she comes now. Biff, Chad, Chip, Connor, Tanner, and Cody all say she's amazing in the sack.
Above, another paperback for the campus sleaze bin, R.C. Gold's Teenage Temptress, published 1967, by Midwood (who else?). No cover credit, but it's a pretty nice illustration. We have a lot of these types of covers in the website, but our faves are here and here.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 27 2019 |
Treasury agents build a better louse trap.
Above is a poster for the 1949 film noir Trapped, which with its focus on the techniques used by treasury agents to foil counterfeiters, falls into the procedural crime category. Lloyd Bridges plays a convict whose printing plates have somehow made it back into circulation. Treasury agents spring him so he can help catch the perps, but Bridges is no snitch—at first opportunity he beats the tar out of his minder and escapes. But hubris has been the downfall of many a film noir tough guy. Turns out the treasury guys expected the escape attempt, and the agent let himself be battered to make the break believable. The hope is that the now-free Bridges will run straight to the counterfeiters. It's a fun idea, but on the whole what you get is a somewhat perfunctory noir, enlivened just a bit by a nice nocturnal climax in a tram garage. As a bonus, in a co-starring role as the loyal girlfriend you get Barbara Payton, whose infamous cautionary Hollywood story is probably worth a movie all its own. Check what we mean here. Trapped premiered in the U.S. in Los Angeles today in 1949.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 26 2019 |
Leisurely gentle lovemaking? Oh, and I suppose all those cows I need to inseminate today can just wait, huh?
Many authors took on the challenge of writing about mental disability during the mid-century period. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road, and numerous other books touched upon it to lesser or greater degrees. Add H.M. Appel to the list. His character Lonnie, generally referred to in Brutal Kisses as “the half-wit,” finds himself the prime suspect in a murder mystery. Someone in town has taken an axe to sexually precocious Mazie Callahan, and several people had motives.
We'll say this much for the book—it's probably better than it has any right to be, considering its numerous unoriginal elements. Hard working old pa? Check. Virginal good girl? Check. Loutish local boy? Yup. Mandatory Saturday night dance? A cow that's like a member of the family? Check and check. Brutal kisses? Let's just say men are a rough sex to deal with. Though some, in this book as well as in real life, work hard to be better. The story finally culminates in an Agatha Christie style gathering of suspects, with the killer unmasked on the final page. But you'll know who it is long before then.
This was originally published in 1936 as The Farmer's Daughter, with this Uni Books abridged edition coming later (there's no copyright date inside). The uncredited cover art was retasked from an earlier book, and if you look below, you'll see it was altered as well as recycled. The original had a horse in the background, while the Uni edition has a— Well, we don't know what it is. A scene from the Saturday dance maybe. It's hard to tell because the cyan plate was printed askew, and the whole thing has a psychedelic look as a result.
In any case, Brutal Kisses is a reasonably entertaining expenditure of all-too-precious reading hours. Appel's take on mental disability would be considered offensive today, but you know offense is lurking before you go in, right? The best defense is to note it then put it aside, or else you can't read any of these old books. Appel's so-called half-wit Lonnie isn't going to win any prizes for realism or generate much from readers in the way of understanding or compassion, but he isn't nearly the worst written character of this type to be found in vintage literature. Not a ringing endorsement, we know, but it's all we can offer.
We'll say this much for the book—it's probably better than it has any right to be, considering its numerous unoriginal elements. Hard working old pa? Check. Virginal good girl? Check. Loutish local boy? Yup. Mandatory Saturday night dance? A cow that's like a member of the family? Check and check. Brutal kisses? Let's just say men are a rough sex to deal with. Though some, in this book as well as in real life, work hard to be better. The story finally culminates in an Agatha Christie style gathering of suspects, with the killer unmasked on the final page. But you'll know who it is long before then.
This was originally published in 1936 as The Farmer's Daughter, with this Uni Books abridged edition coming later (there's no copyright date inside). The uncredited cover art was retasked from an earlier book, and if you look below, you'll see it was altered as well as recycled. The original had a horse in the background, while the Uni edition has a— Well, we don't know what it is. A scene from the Saturday dance maybe. It's hard to tell because the cyan plate was printed askew, and the whole thing has a psychedelic look as a result.
In any case, Brutal Kisses is a reasonably entertaining expenditure of all-too-precious reading hours. Appel's take on mental disability would be considered offensive today, but you know offense is lurking before you go in, right? The best defense is to note it then put it aside, or else you can't read any of these old books. Appel's so-called half-wit Lonnie isn't going to win any prizes for realism or generate much from readers in the way of understanding or compassion, but he isn't nearly the worst written character of this type to be found in vintage literature. Not a ringing endorsement, we know, but it's all we can offer.
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