| Vintage Pulp | Aug 3 2019 |
Closer... closer... come just a leeetle closer, my unsuspecting little morsel.
This interesting Technicolor lithograph from Colortone Line published in 1957 stars an unknown red-haired model and is titled “Inviting Eyes.” But we think “uninviting eyes” might be more descriptive. Is it just us, or does the model look like a cat about to rip apart a helpless little bird? She's less intense in other lithos, and there are many, which indicates that she was probably a famous model. But we can't place her. We know—you count on us for this stuff, but even Joe DiMaggio struck out once in a while. As a consolation for our general ineptitude, we have two more of her lithos below. Notice the third one is actually from the same session as above. That satiny bed in the background confirms it. Know who this model is? Drop us a line.
Edit: And as of February 2021 we have the answer. She's Hollywood born model Virginia De Lee. We have more info about her we'll share soon, as well as more images.
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 2 2019 |
Please help me. My husband is on death row and I need to save him so I can kill his cheating ass myself.
These two posters were made to promote the film noir Black Angel, which starred June Vincent, Dan Duryea, Doris Dowling, and Peter Lorre in a story credited to high concept author Cornell Woolrich. But we gather nothing survived from Woolrich except the ending. When a man is convicted of his mistress's murder, the jailed man's cheated upon but noble wife tries to prove her husband innocent with the help of the murdered woman's ex-husband, who, though cuckolded, agrees that the wrong person is ticketed for Old Sparky. They set their sights on shady nightclub owner Peter Lorre and decide to infiltrate his operation in order to find proof he was the real killer. Naturally, as this heartbroken and mismatched pair dig up clues and investigate shady characters, feelings get confused. As in many noirs, there's a final act twist, and the one used here is pretty good, helping to elevate an average thriller to something a bit more memorable. Within the genre it's a significant film, and reasonably enjoyable to watch. Black Angel premiered in the U.S. today in 1946.
Black AngelDan DuryeaDoris DowlingJune VincentPeter LorreCornell Woolrichposter artcinemafilm noirmovie review
| Femmes Fatales | Aug 2 2019 |
Summertime and the living is easy.
Born Jytte Stensgaard, Danish actress Yutte Stengaard emigrated to Britain seeking stardom and had a busy four-year career, appearing in two dozen movies and television shows between 1968 and 1972, usually playing the naive or naughty young love interest. Among her big screen efforts were Scream and Scream Again and Lust for a Vampire, and of her many remarkable scenes, her pinnacle was 1969's The Love Factor, in which she burned a coq au vin. If you know “coq” is pronounced “cock,” then you know where this is going—after leaping from bed and sprinting nude into the kitchen to save her burning dinner, she exclaimed, “The coq's ruined!” That's writing, folks.
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 1 2019 |
Unstoppable forces meet immovable opinions in John D. MacDonald's novels.
John D. MacDonald is a polemical writer. We've jumped around his lengthy bibliography enough to be intimately familiar with his strong opinions about a wide ranging array of subjects. His basic approach is, “I've thought about this social phenomenon/cultural development/historical factoid much more carefully than anybody and here's the ironclad dogma I've developed about it.” Which is fine, we guess. His observations about the inexorable direction of civilization remain insightful half a century later. We've built a house of cards and MacDonald took pains to point that out, with intelligence and some wit. But in seven books we've read, which he wrote in three different decades, he consistently cheats when writing about people, choosing in general to portray them as weak willed cardboard cutouts so they serve as foils for his sociological philosophizing.
This, more than any other reason, is why so many contemporary readers say MacDonald's writing hasn't aged well. But in our opinion he's still worth reading. There's real menace in his work, which is job one for a thriller author. In 1953's Dead Low Tide his hero is suspected of using a spear gun to skewer his boss, seemingly over either a real estate project or the man's slinky wife, but someone may be setting him up for the crime. His actual prospective love interest, a longtime neighbor, is drawn into the mess in her efforts to provide an alibi. MacDonald dishes out the twists, despairs the loss of Florida wilderness to fast-buck builders, and laments what's in the hearts of men. It's a good book, but you don't need us to tell you that. The man sold a skillion novels for a reason. We're moving on to The Executioners after this, which is the source material for the film adaptation Cape Fear, and we have high expectations.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 31 2019 |
You'll need to use some deodorant before I do anything like that again.
1964's The Mark of a Man tells the story of a mill worker in a dead end town who has simple desires, but whose girlfriend wants him to show more ambition. You know that's a recipe for trouble. Collier's prose is better than normal for Midwood, according to one review we read, but we're more interested, as usual, in artist Paul Rader, who was showcased on scores of Midwood covers and is great here as well. We've featured him often, but if you're unfamiliar with his work we suggest you behold his genius here, here, here, and here. You'll be glad you did.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 31 2019 |
The movie is n° 2 but its star is second to none.
There sure are lots of Emmanuelle/Emanuelle movies out there. Sylvia Kristel, Laura Gemser, Monique Gabrielle, Olinka Hardiman, Krista Allen, Natasja Vermeer, and many others inhabited characters with that name. But we'd never heard of Shulamith Lasri, aka Julie Margo, nor her contribution to the pantheon Emanuelle nera n° 2, aka The New Black Emanuelle. Pulp Intl. abhors a vacuum so we figured what the hell and decided to check the movie out. Plotwise Lasri is a famous model who's had some sort of break with reality and is in a mental institution trying, with the help of doctors, to restore memories that might be the key to her trauma
Sounds deadly serious, doesn't it? But like many serious low budget movies, unintentional humor rears its clumsy head. At one point Lasri disrobes and Danielle Ellison gapes at her and says, “Your body. You're like a queen of the night. Or a panther.” At which point Lasri forms a claw with her hand and goes, “Grrrrr...” Frickin' hilarious. The two then dance naked, as women often do when they hang out together. Does Lasri ever get her head straight? Maybe. But even if her mind is cured, her body will remain bonkers, and that's what these movies are all about. Emanuelle nera n° 2 premiered in Italy today in 1976.
IsraelItalyEmanuelle nera n° 2The New Black EmanuelleShulamith LasriJulie MargoDanielle Ellisonposter artcinemasexploitationnuditymovie review
| Mondo Bizarro | Jul 31 2019 |
John Dillinger's body—most of it anyway—to be exhumed in September.
At the request of his family, Great Depression-era gangster John Dillinger will be exhumed from the Indianapolis grave where he was buried in 1934 after being shot down by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago. There's been no official explanation for the request, however the dig should resolve a couple of pieces of Dillinger folklore. The first would be whether it's him in the grave at all—an urban legend that the FBI shot the wrong man has simmered since his death. And the second would be whether there's a cock attached to the corpse—a particularly odd legend suggests that Dillinger had a monster member that was somehow snipped before burial and whisked away by a morbid collector.
The rumor of body part theft is no surprise. Grave robberies had been a problem in the U.S. throughout the 1800s, and while these had waned by 1934, as a precaution Dillinger was buried under scrap iron and slabs of concrete covered by a layer of poured cement. The bit about him being hung like a mule is harder to trace. Some say it was caused by a morgue photo which appeared (if you really used your imagination) 
to show him with an erection, but being the subject of at least one Tijuana bible certainly didn't hurt either. In the dirty comic “A Hasty Exit,” which we think was published in mid-1934 before his death, Dillinger uses a massive unit to pleasure his girlfriend Evelyn Frechette and her pal Nellie. Of course, everyone in Tijuana bibles had dinosaur dicks, but we're speculating here.
It's possible the public won't find out why Dillinger is being
brought back above ground (though DNA testing to prove ancestry seems like a good bet), or whether all the famed gangster's parts are intact. We doubt most people actually care. But for us pulp followers the story is somewhat interesting, because Dillinger is an icon of the pulp era.
to show him with an erection, but being the subject of at least one Tijuana bible certainly didn't hurt either. In the dirty comic “A Hasty Exit,” which we think was published in mid-1934 before his death, Dillinger uses a massive unit to pleasure his girlfriend Evelyn Frechette and her pal Nellie. Of course, everyone in Tijuana bibles had dinosaur dicks, but we're speculating here.It's possible the public won't find out why Dillinger is being
brought back above ground (though DNA testing to prove ancestry seems like a good bet), or whether all the famed gangster's parts are intact. We doubt most people actually care. But for us pulp followers the story is somewhat interesting, because Dillinger is an icon of the pulp era.As a bonus, the story has also served as a reminder that we have many more filthy Tijuana bibles we need to upload. We'll get to that as soon as we can. In the meantime, while we all wait for that September exhumation to finally settle longstanding urban legends, you can satisfy your historical interest in John Dillinger by exhuming his Tijuana bible here.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 30 2019 |
Paperback publishers double down on a legendary model.
Bettie Page has long been an inspiration in multiple media, and you can include paperback art on the list. These two covers for authors Day Keene and Jack Moore, published in 1959 and 1962 respectively, use Page's instantly recognizable form to draw the eyes of newsstand browsers, a tactic we assume was a wild success. We love both of these, especially the top image by Jack Faragasso. There are even others from the period. The artist on both of these is the legendary Unknown, by far the most prolific mid-century paperback illustrator of all time. We'll doubtless run across more from the same genius later.
| Femmes Fatales | Jul 30 2019 |
She's dangerous when her abacus is against the wall.
Above, a cool shot of one of mid-century cinema's agreed upon top beauties, Italian actress Virna Lisi, here standing against an abacus wall that she needs to keep track of all her admirers. We've never seen a wall like this before. Never seen a woman like this before either. The photo was made for her 1965 romantic comedy How To Murder Your Wife, in which she starred with cinematic treasure Jack Lemmon. Definitely see that film. It's incalculably fun.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 29 2019 |
Mysterious spiritualist can see everyone's future but his own.
For a moment Austrian born, Turkish descended actor Turhan Bey was a star, a status he achieved through a long, careful slog through numerous supporting film roles beginning in 1941. The Amazing Mr. X, aka The Spiritualist, is a movie that's his. He receives a rare top billing, and in playing a suave, mysterious seer of the future who hails from unknown shores, acts a part seemingly written for him.
Bey uses his psychic powers to warn rich widow Lynn Bari against remarrying. He's a phony, of course, but his performance is enough to hook Bari, who indeed begins to have second thoughts about tying the knot. When Bey claims he can contact her dead husband she jumps at the opportunity. A few cheap special effects convince her she's really contacted the netherworld. And of course we soon learn that Bey and his partner are doing all this to fleece Bari of her fortune.
If Bey were a real medium he'd know complications will arise. What kind? Serious and unexpected ones that snare him in a plot not of his own devising. Despite the twists, The Amazing Mr. X is murky and lacking in subtlety, and parts of it come across as comedy, so it's no surprise it wasn't the breakthrough hit Bey desired. Today it's a public domain movie available as a low quality television rip, and seems to be nearly forgotten.
It premiered in the U.S. today in 1948, and soon afterward Bey's career began slipping off the rails. He made only three movies in the next five years, then found himself back in Austria working as a photographer. His Hollywood moment had passed, though he'd return during the 1990s and score some television roles. But even if The Amazing Mr. X isn't great, in watching the cool and exotic Bey we understood why Hollywood wanted to make him a star.
It premiered in the U.S. today in 1948, and soon afterward Bey's career began slipping off the rails. He made only three movies in the next five years, then found himself back in Austria working as a photographer. His Hollywood moment had passed, though he'd return during the 1990s and score some television roles. But even if The Amazing Mr. X isn't great, in watching the cool and exotic Bey we understood why Hollywood wanted to make him a star.
AustriaThe Amazing Mr. XThe SpiritualistTurhan BeyLynn BariCathy O'Donnellposter artcinemamovie review
 |
 |
