| Femmes Fatales | Oct 18 2023 |
What's a girl have to do to get service in this joint?
In this photo from a 1972 issue of Heibon Punch we see cinema star Reiko Ike, who decided to hit the Kyoto nightlife scene, but after terribly slow service was forced to take matters into her own hands and hop across the bar in an effort to get a mai-tai. In the bartender's defense, he didn't ignore Reiko intentionally. He fainted when she came in the door. This is (or was) a real world Kyoto bar that appeared in the pinky violence flick Sukeban gerira, aka Girl Boss Guerrilla, which Reiko had a major role in. The photo isn't an official promo from the film. At least, the magazine text doesn't mention it. But we recognized the place. In any case, Reiko got her mai-tai. Until the bartender regains consciousness drinks are on the house, and she's the toast of the town.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 17 2023 |
There are no limits to what Diana Dors can convince men to do.
After all these years working on this website it remains a surprise when promotional posters of extremely high quality are uncredited, but such is the case with these two Italian beauties made for Nel tuo corpo l'inferno, a movie originally produced in England as Tread Softly, Stranger. The Italian title translates as “hell in the body,” which we rather like. It fits the plot, which revolves around George Baker avoiding a gambling debt by fleeing London to the small town where he was raised, only to find that his brother who lives there is also in debt, having stolen money from his employer. He's spent it on femme fatale Diana Dors, who's way out of his league, money-hungry, and willing to pit the brothers against each other if it improves her station in life.
Baker, being of sound mind and body, wants Dors badly. With just a little nudge, he and his brother are convinced by Dors to stage a heist. The phrase “corpus delecti” in legal terms means that a crime has to be proved to have actually occurred before anyone can be convicted of it, but in vintage cinema nobody has to prove anything because the scales of justice tend to be cosmic. As viewers, then, you know the brothers could be convicted by karma for just attempting the crime. They get the loot, but they certainly won't get to keep it—though how they lose it will come as a surprise. And if one of the brothers gets Dors, they probably won't get to keep her either. In mid-century crime movies thems the breaks. Tread Softly, Stranger premiered in Britain in 1958, and in Italy today in 1960.
ItalyEnglandNel tuo corpo l'infernoTread Softly StrangerDiana DorsTerence MorganGeorge BakerPatrick Allenposter artcinemamovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 17 2023 |
You don't have to be a cannibal for her to make you hungry.
Sticking with Italy today, the poster above is not one you'll see often. It was made for Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali, an entry in star Laura's Gemser's expansive Emanuelle series. In English this was called Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, and you really don't need to know more to figure out what's in the movie. The shot used by Fulvia Film for this poster is from a scene in which Gemser paints herself with a glyph before pretending to be the reincarnation of a cannibal goddess and attempting to rescue a friend who's slated to become dinner. On the poster her lower regions are covered by a painted-on loincloth, but we don't have to do that here, so you also see two uncensored production photos of her as she actually appeared during the scene. We watched and wrote about the film ten years ago, and it was one wild trip. You can read what we wrote about it here, and see a crazy piece of Japanese promo art for the movie here. It premiered in Italy today in 1977.
ItalyEmanuelle e gli ultimi cannibaliEmanuelle and the Last CannibalsLaura Gemserposter artcinemahorrorsexploitationnudity
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 16 2023 |
It's a score sheet. I didn't tell you in advance because I didn't want you to get nervous. But I guess you did anyway.
Above: one of our regular check-ins with paperback illustrator Paul Rader, whose work is always excellent. In addition to being adept, his pieces are usually humorous. See some good examples here, here, here, here, and here.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 15 2023 |
I've almost got you! After I rescue you please don't feel any sense of gratitude that becomes confusingly sexual!
Yup, it's another disaster thriller. We told you we can't resist these. Rain of Terror was published in 1955 and came from Malcolm Douglas in a Gold Medal Edition fronted by James Meese cover art. The story takes place partly in Rome, but mainly in the fictitious Italian town of Asceno. We're always baffled when authors don't just choose a real town, but whatever. The Asceno area is being battered by a weeklong rainstorm, with flooding, looting, and chaos. Newspaperman Jake Abbott is sent to get the story. Once there, the waters nearly destroy the town, and a cache of long lost jewels appears, along with two Botticellis. The fight over these riches is predictable, but what isn't is Abbott's almost Kafkaesque nightmare as he's trapped in a town that becomes like a labyrinth. His misadventures, romantic entanglements, arrests, beatings, and wrong turns read like farce or metaphor. Rain of Terror isn't as good as other disaster thrillers we've read, but it's memorable.
| Femmes Fatales | Oct 15 2023 |
This one must be defective. It hasn't made me want to smile at all.
Coca Cola's advertising tagline—“Have a Coke and a smile”—is probably one of the most famous in corporate history, though it hadn't been thought of yet back when U.S. actress Ann Sothern posed with a Coke for this promo image made for her 1947 movie The Judge Steps Out. Back then the company's slogan was, “Coke knows no season.” Sothern knows no season either. She accumulated a hefty number of credits on radio, television, stage, and screen—more than one hundred, if we count correctly—including in The Blue Gardenia, Shadow on the Wall, and Super-Sleuth. We've shared a couple of promo images of her before, one of which was amusingly similar to today's. Have a look here. Sothern will be back.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 13 2023 |
That bimbo has no idea she can't get hair dye here. When her roots grow out we'll see if men still think she's so amazing.
We have other Wade Miller books to read, but we picked up this copy of 1960's Jungle Heat and moved it to the head of the line because the story is set in Malaya (now Malaysia), and the last book we read that the authors (Bob Wade and Bill Miller writing together under a pseudonym) set in an exotic country was phenomenal. Jungle Heat was originally published in 1954 under the name Dale Wilmer, with this reattributed Pyramid edition coming a bit later, and it finds Miller taking on the unexpected challenge of writing in first person from a woman's point-of-view. The lead character is Hollywood b-actress Roxy Powell, who is sent to Malaya with a small crew to shoot background footage for an upcoming jungle adventure. Never mind that a communist revolution is brewing. What Hollywood wants, Hollywood gets.
Plantation boss Llewelyn Kirk, under whose roof Roxy and the crew are residing, is one of those characters who's colonial through-and-through but thinks that because he's been in Malaya for twenty years he isn't an invader and knows what's best for locals. Since the authors agree with this paternalistic sentiment, the narrative is steered—to an almost ludicrous extent—toward Kirk being correct. We won't get into any of it except to say that, generally, anti-communist fiction from the mid-century era was unavoidably propagandist. In this case the authors are basically correct in their regional political analysis, but gloss over important details and whiff on overarching points. For example, there's an interesting scene where a Malayan tells Kirk that he'd heard blacks in America are unjustly killed by whites. Kirk assures him it isn't true. We almost did a spit-take on that one.
Roxy first hates, then by a circuitous path, comes to adore Kirk. She's initially driven by her need for “respect,” which here doesn't mean respect as normally understood, but is instead code for sexual desirability. Because Kirk ignores her, she hates him. Therefore she embarks on a campaign to discover his humanity—i.e. his sexual attraction to her. Even if you didn't know the author, that's when you might suspect a guy—or two—was in the driver seat. Okay, so if the politics take liberties and the justification for romance is male fantasy in disguise, is the book any good? Well, sure. There's a nice jungle setting, a fun Hollywood sidebar, a backdrop of war in which enemies circle ever closer, a traitor hiding in the fold, and love blossoming amid chaos. With all that going for it, the book has to be good. But that said, Wade/Miller definitely wrote better.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 12 2023 |
Now where was that stall where they were selling those cursed monkey's paws?
We discussed Agatha Christie's They Came to Baghdad in July and showed you the Fawcett Crest/Cardinal edition. This is an edition produced by the Scottish imprint Fontana Books in 1954. The cover painting here is of very high quality, and as you can see in the zoom we've provided, crosses into fine art. There's a reason for that. The piece is signed by “Johnston.” On other websites this person's identity, beyond his last name, is considered a mystery, but not here. He's Scottish painter Robert Johnston, who was well regarded in fine art circles and whose canvasses are collected today. We've provided an example below, and a signature comparison so you can see why the identification is ironclad.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 12 2023 |
She's going to drop a Yakuza in the corner plot.
This hansai style promo is an addendum to the tateken promo we previously shared for Onna mekura hana to kiba, known in English as Blind Woman: Flower and Fangs. Basically, you get the same idea as the previous poster, with Arai wearing the same cool cheongsam but posed in a striking—if impractical—shooting posture. She hits practically everything she shoots at anyway, though. The magic of movies. Onna mekura hana to kiba premiered in Japan today in 1968.
JapanShochiku CompanyOnna mekura hana to kibaBlind Woman: Flower and FangsChizuko AraiKoreharu Hisatomiposter artcinema
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 11 2023 |
With Bogart and Bacall in the starring roles an unusual fugitive movie takes flight.
This beautiful poster for La fuga was painted by Italian artist Luigi Martinati, and you doubtless recognize Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. They starred in four movies together and had a dual cameo in a fifth. This promo was made for their fourth outing Dark Passage, retitled to “the escape” in Italy. And therein lies the plot. Bogart breaks prison and undergoes a backalley cosmetic surgery procedure on his face in order to evade the cops and have a chance to solve the crime for which he was unjustly sent up the river.
The filmmakers decided to use the gimmick of having the first section of the film in Bogart-vision—i.e. first person pov until he gets his new face. It makes sense. Otherwise they'd have needed to have another actor play pre-surgery Bogart, or have resorted to clunky make-up and prosthetics. Bacall co-stars as unlikely shelter and succor, plus the prospect of love—if Bogie can survive. It's a good movie.
But we're going to tack upwind at this point and suggest that Dark Passage, while good, isn't as scintillating as its reputation. Certainly it isn't in the class of To Have and Have Not, Key Largo, or The Big Sleep. But hey—it stars B&B, and that's all audiences of the era really cared about. Three years into her film career Bacall had grown into superstardom—or stardom as it was called back then—and dished out a performance here that did plenty with a thin script and a belief defying scenario.
The other star here is San Francisco, where most of the movie was shot. The city appeared in many period productions, but we can't think of it ever being used to such an extent as in Dark Passage. Since we lived across the Bay in Berkeley for a couple of years, we got to know San Fran well and it's fun to see it as it once was. Dark Passage—slightly overrated and all—is fun too. It premiered in the U.S. in 1947 and reached Italy today in 1948.
ItalySan FranciscoLa fugaDark PassageHumphrey BogartLauren BacallLuigi Martinatiposter artcinemamovie reviewfilm noir
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