| Intl. Notebook | Jul 19 2018 |
Putting Monroe on the cover was a Smart move.
Above, a few scans from the Hong Kong celeb magazine Smart Weekly, with Marilyn Monroe looking druggy but very sexy on the cover. Even halfway around the world Monroe was a guarantor of magazine sales. This was issue #98 from Smart, and you'd think after nearly a hundred print runs the publishers would pay for a better process, but no such luck. Graininess tended to be a characteristic of mid-century Hong Kong mags and this one from 1956 is no exception. We can't read it, but we don't have to. When it comes to Monroe, we (and you too) already know what they're writing.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 18 2018 |
What would you do to get your hands on $3.5 million?
Gil Brewer wrote a lot of books. Wild rates in the bottom tier, according to most critics. When private detective Lee Baron takes over his father's investigative agency his first case is an old flame asking him to intercede on her behalf with her angry, cuckolded husband. Baron finds not an angry spouse but a mutilated corpse. Arms removed, face chopped apart with a hatchet, it's clear somebody was very angry at him. Or they were trying to obscure his identity—which means the corpse might not be the husband at all. When Baron uncovers a connection to a $400,000 bank robbery ($3.5 million in today's money) he begins to think he's landed a case that can put his agency on the map—if the police don't shut him down before he gets started. We agree this isn't Brewer's best, but it's still a mildly entertaining jaunt into Tampa, Florida's underbelly circa 1958. Above are two editions from Fawcett Crest and Gold Medal (aka Fawcett Crest).
| Femmes Fatales | Jul 18 2018 |
Reiko Ike leaves everyone's tongues tied in nots.
Yes, we just shared a rare calendar page of pinku legend Reiko Ike, but what are you gonna do when she stars in photos like this one? We can't not post it. That's a double negative, we know, but some thoughts can only be expressed that way. We can't not not share this photo, because that would be immoral. Is that even right? Not the immoral part. The not part. If you decide you're not not not not going to do something, that means you're going to do it, right? Or maybe you can only successfully use a single double negative, and all the extra nots can only be used as emphasis rather than meaning, like saying you're never never never never going to do something, in which case that would mean you're not going to do it. Tricky questions. We could avoid them by using a single positive, but that would lack the exactness of the double negative. We will post it lacks the punch of we can't not post it. The meaning is similar, but the double negative removes our control over the decision, which is useful when the Pulp Intl. girlfriends look at the site. Baby, we couldn't not post it. So the double negative is better than the single positive and there's no such thing as a double positive. Well, maybe that's not strictly true. For instance, we're double positive about posting this photo. And gramatically speaking, people do say yes yes under certain circumstances, but those circumstances shouldn't occur while looking at naked photos on a computer. If that happens, we can only suggest that it's time to ask someone on a date.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 17 2018 |
Howell Dodd's fox force five.
Above, five beautiful original paintings from Howell Dodd, early 1950s. These are from assorted true crime magazine covers, except for the top image, which fronted Mark Reed's 1952 paperback Lay Down and Die! Top notch stuff.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 16 2018 |
Hold my calls, people. I'm formatting my new laptop.
This is a nice cover for Office Affair by Mark West. The novel is an entry in the office sleaze genre, and the story is focused on a love triangle and business sabotage. Basically, an exec gets two new women on his staff but when things start to go wrong with his business he needs to find out which one is on his side, and which is trying to torpedo him to advance her own career. We've featured many of these on the website and we're not likely to run out soon. West contributed at least a couple. You can see another example from him here, and an entire collection from various authors here. This one is copyright 1961, with art by unknown.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 16 2018 |
Neglected baseball comedy reminds viewers that the American pastime was also the African American pastime.
Major League Baseball is known as America's pastime. But for decades it was really only the pastime for whites, due to the fact that black participation was banned by every team, and black spectatorship was limited by apartheid laws. But during that time African Americans formed their own leagues, and those teams and players are part of wider baseball lore. As far as we know The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, which is set in 1939, is the only major movie about black baseballers during the pre-integration era. That alone makes it worth a gander. James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams in the starring roles are bonuses. The plot involves various Negro League athletes who band together and barnstorm around the U.S. They're trying to get out from under bad contracts with their original teams, or bad jobs in mundane professions, but of course this break toward freedom leads to trouble.
The film benefits from excellent exterior location work. Director John Badham makes use of the old sharecropper cabins, winding rural roads, and rickety wooden stadiums of the American countryside. These would have existed in abundance when the film was made in the mid-1970s, requiring little in the way of set design. The authenticity is palpable. In other areas the film misses the mark, particularly in the tone of the performances, which are Vaudevillian and over-vernacularized. But
one aspect of the film hits a bullseye. James Earl Jones expresses it succinctly when he hears that the Major Leagues are scouting black players: “So the white man is finally moving in,” he says, as if speaking about the mafia. He goes on to predict the death of Negro League Baseball. Jones's point is crystalline: the Major Leagues broke the color line not out of altruism or justice, but in order to protect its product.
one aspect of the film hits a bullseye. James Earl Jones expresses it succinctly when he hears that the Major Leagues are scouting black players: “So the white man is finally moving in,” he says, as if speaking about the mafia. He goes on to predict the death of Negro League Baseball. Jones's point is crystalline: the Major Leagues broke the color line not out of altruism or justice, but in order to protect its product. The oldest Negro League team had been around since 1885. By the 1940s Negro League players had competed against white players and proved to be capable, and in some instances, superior. MLB had a legitimacy problem. It couldn't truly claim to contain all the best baseball players. People were growing more interested in black baseball. Money was being made on the sport beyond the confines of MLB. A lot of money. Breaking the color line cemented the legitimacy of MLB's talent claims, and it obliterated competition from Negro League baseball, which died on the vine. Today black ownership in Major League Baseball is basically 0%. Only the Miami Marlins, with Derek Jeter possessing 4% of the club, can claim—and just barely—to have minority ownership. But a merger of Negro teams into the league rather than a raid of players might well have led to a different story. MLB integrated the field, but ensured future segregation of the owner's box.
Though the color line for players was broken all the way back in 1947, today MLB has another legitimacy problem. Black participation has declined over the decades. Organized baseball requires fields, equipment, sponsorship, and other elements that are scarce in poor communities. Of course, they've always been scarce, but as public money dries up and individual wages stagnate, community support for baseball and family income allowing for participation in it are lacking. African American rostering on Major League Baseball squads is at 1956 levels. Many consider that a travesty; but America being America, many don't. MLB's front office just lately has made some minimal efforts to address the problem. It will be interesting to see how those go. The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings premiered in the U.S. today in 1976.
Though the color line for players was broken all the way back in 1947, today MLB has another legitimacy problem. Black participation has declined over the decades. Organized baseball requires fields, equipment, sponsorship, and other elements that are scarce in poor communities. Of course, they've always been scarce, but as public money dries up and individual wages stagnate, community support for baseball and family income allowing for participation in it are lacking. African American rostering on Major League Baseball squads is at 1956 levels. Many consider that a travesty; but America being America, many don't. MLB's front office just lately has made some minimal efforts to address the problem. It will be interesting to see how those go. The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings premiered in the U.S. today in 1976.
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor KingsJames Earl JonesRichard PryorBilly Dee Williamsposter artcinemamovie reviewbaseball
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 15 2018 |
Varga's whimsical pin-ups make time stand still.
Below, every month from a Varga calendar published in Esquire magazine in 1948. Varga, aka Alberto Vargas, as you probably know was a top pin-up artist through the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. We have another complete calendar at this link, a movie poster here, and an interesting historical curiosity here.
| The Naked City | Jul 14 2018 |
It was an event none of them will ever forget.
Talk about a bad end to a promising evening. These photos from the Los Angeles Examiner were shot in the wee hours of today in 1951. They show a group of people arrested after cops raided a residence in the Montrose area of Los Angeles where a “drug and sex party” was taking place. The illegal substances of choice were marijuana and benzedrine, which strike us an unusual combo, and the sex in question was distributed between what seems to be seventeen men and one woman, also an unusual combo. But we suspect the sex aspect of the story is an exaggeration. If even a couple of people were getting freaky in some rear bedroom the press would have called it a sex party because that's how you sell papers. Examiner readers probably imagined a carnal pile-up with bare asses heaving up and down and thirty-six limbs going in all directions. Which when you think about doesn't sound so bad. Well, we hope they had fun while it lasted.
| Femmes Fatales | Jul 14 2018 |
She upgraded from broomsticks and black capes a long time ago.
This promo photo was made for the Italian anthology movie Le streghe, aka The Witches, and shows Italian actress Silvana Margano in costume as Giovanna, a bored housewife who imagines herself in elaborate fantasies. This particular fever dream, in the segment called “Una serata come le altre,” or “An Evening Like the Others,” lasts mere seconds, but Margano still makes an impression in her futuristic femme fatale garb. The segment is also memorable because it was directed by Vittorio de Sica and featured Clint Eastwood, but Margano was the star of the movie, appearing in all five witch-related portions as different characters. We may get back to it at some point. This photo is from 1967.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 13 2018 |
Harlan Ellison takes readers inside the bloody gang culture of the 1950s.
We're back with more Harlan Ellison today, this time his 1958 inner city drama The Deadly Streets. He died last month—when we were reading this, in fact—and the literary world has lost a unique stylist, and a unique character. We've written about him often, such as here, here, and here. He'll continue to be one of our favorite subjects. The Digit Books edition of The Deadly Streets you see here has top notch cover art by Kirk Wilson, and inside you get a collection of short stories based upon Ellison's experiences hanging around the NYC street gang the Barons when he was researching material for his debut novel Web of the City, aka Rumble. Violence, revenge, and corruption are the dominant motifs. You get a cop who's a hit man, an avenging father/serial killer, a homicidal female gang leader, and more. As an early effort The Deadly Streets is imperfectly executed, but at its best it's like James Ellroy before Ellroy, a gritty, literary splatter painting. You really get the sense of a writer stretching his creative muscles, exploring a style that would help him go on to conceive some of the most groundbreaking fiction of his era. Fun stuff—if you can call harrowing glimpses of New York's gangland hell fun. Ellison will be greatly missed.
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