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Pulp International : vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Vintage Pulp May 7 2023
ON THE MARK
Anonymous Italian cover artist hits the target.


Above: a pretty nice cover with a bullseye motif for Angeli neri di Brooklyn by Thomas Wright, from Editions ERP, entry fifty-four in their I Gialli dello Schedario series, published in 1959. Wright was a pseudonym often used by author Aldo Crudo, who wrote more than four hundred books beginning in 1957. The cover artist is unknown to us. We thought it could be Mario Ferrari. Alternate option, there's a possible artist signature in red ink but we can't read it and it doesn't correspond to any we could find. It might be from the person who owned the book. We've run into book signers before. Anyway, we like the art. 

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Femmes Fatales May 7 2023
PERMISSION GRANTED
It's better to apologize later than to ask now. But she's not going to do either.


This photo shows French actress Nicole Calfan and was made for her 1975 thriller Permission To Kill, also known as The Executioner, a film we've taken notice of because it starred Ava Gardner in one of her later roles, and future Bond boy Timothy Dalton in one of his first. Calfan has made more than seventy movies and is still busy today, having appeared in four in 2022, plus a television series. We'll try to track down Permission To Kill and report back.

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Vintage Pulp May 6 2023
A HELL OF A PLACE
The weather is warm but the amenities leave a lot to be desired.


This is a great poster for a forgotten b-movie, proving yet again that even the most minor productions often had unbeatable promo art. Hell's Island premiered today in 1955 and starred John Payne, Mary Murphy, and Francis L. Sullivan. Payne plays a casino bouncer who's promised $5,000 to fly to the fictional Caribbean island of Puerto Rosario to locate a valuable ruby. Unfortunately, his employer has selected him because one of the thieves might be amenable to Payne's persuasion—namely his ex-girlfriend Mary Murphy. Naturally, once he arrives in Puerto Rosario he gets romantically tangled up with her again. She's married, which is a bit disloyal, but her husband is unjustly imprisoned on a nearby island. She still believes in that “for worse” thing enough to ask Payne to rescue her spouse, so he tries to make a deal: the husband for the ruby. But Murphy claims to know nothing about the gem. Is she lying? Have another look at the poster. Does that look like an honest person to you?

To get to the heart of the matter, Hell's Island is one of those mid-budget thrillers meant to feature fast paced, hard boiled dialogue, but which is saddled with unintentional laugh lines thanks to an inferior script. For example, at one point Payne lays in agony on an operating table awaiting surgery, and asks the doctor, “Can I have a cigarette?” The doctor's response? A shrug and, “Why not?” We don't think doctors—who saw a lot of tar-filled lungs up close in surgery—were cavalier about smoking, even back then. Here's another funny line: “About an hour ago he takes his fighting cock and goes away.” There are many more. But what we can say in film's favor is that it improves once it stops trying to be sly. The latter half speeds toward a climax that's just good enough to save the movie from the avoid bin. It's unusual to encounter a film that's part unintentionally comic ineptness, and part competent adventure, but that's what you get here. Proceed accordingly.
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Hollywoodland | Mondo Bizarro May 5 2023
MID-CENTURY CUBISM
Hollywood actresses went to the Max to solve their beauty problems.

We've been seeing this photo online of late labeled as an ice cube mask meant to cure hangovers circa 1947. That seemed unlikely to us, because why would ice cubes on your chin help with a hangover? The only thing that helps a hangover is a sustained interval of unconsciousness. So we dug around and discovered that this is in reality a beauty aid. It was created by Polish inventor and beautician Macksymillian Faktorowizc, who would later become globally famous as Max Factor, and it was specifically made for use by actresses to cool and refresh their faces after being under the hot lights of Hollywood movie sets. Back then (and even today for all we know) actresses constantly washed their faces with cold water, but this required fresh applications of make-up after every rinse. So Factor's mask theoretically was both a time and labor saver. Believe it or not, it wasn't the craziest contraption he invented. In any case—not a hangover cure, but another small internet mystery solved.

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Vintage Pulp May 4 2023
KNOCK KNOCK, WHO'S DEAD
If nobody answers you're about to find a body.

Above is Robert McGinnis cover art for Hampton Stone's 1957 novel The Girl Who Kept Knocking Them Deadwhich is basically a crime procedural, told from first person perspective by an assistant D.A., but focused on the narrator's capable partner Jeremiah Gibson. The saga begins with the strangulation murder of a New York City woman who had been leading a double life. That murder leads to others, as the mysterious killer tries to cover his or her tracks. The title of the book is a potential misdirection play. You expect the killer to be one of the female characters, but there are men who might be guilty as well. Overall, the tale isn't compelling, but that isn't an issue with writing skill, so much as voice. It's too limited. Stone's narrator isn't interesting. His genius investigator Gibson is, but with everything filtered through the admiring partner's recollections the tale never takes flight as it might have. We probably won't try Stone again, but he wrote a lot of books, so you never know. 

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Femmes Fatales May 4 2023
POOL RESOURCES
There's nowhere to swim. But there will be. Eventually.

We said we'd show you an image of Jane Greer without a gun, and here she is, all dressed down with no place to swim. This is a really lovely photo, we think, showing her in a different light from the femme fatale we all know and love. If you haven't seen those photos of her in murder mode, just start at this post. You'll assuredly be seeing Greer here again. 

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Vintage Pulp May 2 2023
THE MUSIC MAN
I asked if you had a request. Never playing piano again as long as I live doesn't count.


Above is a cover for Harold Sinclair's Music out of Dixie, 1952, from Perma Books. The cover art—which we left out of our recent collection of jazz covers for usage today—is by Owen Kampen, and looking at the moment he's captured, plus the city backdrop seen beyond the shutters, we think he's done excellent work. Don't let our juvenile little quip fool you—this is a well-written and serious book (you can tell it's serious before even opening it because it's more than twice as long as the average paperback) that follows fictional jazz legend Dade Tarrant from his impoverished childhood through his rise to musical significance. It's also pretty much the most New Orleans book you can ever hope to read. Sinclair leaves no stone unturned, from funeral processions to whorehouses, from the beflowered Garden District to dirty and dangerous Storyville, with multiple passes—of course—at Mardi Gras, and even choosing to make a minor character of real-life jazz legend Jelly Roll Morton.

Sinclair loves this subject matter, clearly, and he gets so much correct, for example the fact that “jazz” was a synonym for “jism” or “jizz.” He also explains how black jazz musicians were frozen out of early recording opportunities so that late arriving white musicians could copy the form and profit from it. The concept of recording music for money is so new at this point (the book mainly takes place around 1920) that the New Orleans trailblazers don't even realize what they're losing. There's an obvious irony in a white writer getting an early crack at describing and profiting from the most black of art forms, and it must have crossed Sinclair's mind when he described Tarrant wondering who the hell these white musicians were that he never saw in town even once but who were selling New Orleans jazz. Tarrant goes on to experience many of the ups and downs you'd expect, and though none of it's new, it's usually not written with such confidence and sense of place.

If there's a flaw here, it's his heavy-handed approach to black vernacular speech. Sinclair goes so far that the dialogue is sometimes a bit of a slog. Modern writers use a light touch with accents because they've learned that once you describe a character's ethnic or geographical background, with a word here or there readers will supply accents in their own heads. With a character from France, you don't have to write, “Zees musique ees vairy niiice.” The problem with Sinclair's approach is especially noticeable when white characters from New Orleans speak unaccented English, which isn't the case in real life. So there's cultural bias in the book, which will sometimes creep in even when an author writes of others respectfully. But it's still great work. The New York Times called it the “first novel to have been derived from the rich materials of New Orleans jazz.” The first ever? Hmm... well, we won't argue. Music out of Dixie is a recommended read.

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Vintage Pulp May 1 2023
EVERY ROSE HAS ITS THORN
Sometimes it even has a small calibre firearm.

We have two brilliant items above—a pair of Italian promo posters for When Danger Lives, starring Robert Mitchum and Faith Domergue. The first was painted by Averardo Ciriello, and the second is the work of Giorgio Olivetti. Both artists are geniuses. In Italy the movie was called Una rosa bianca per Giulia. That would translate as “a white rose for Julia,” which was the working title of the movie while it was under production. The Ciriello poster is similar to the U.S. promo, but executed with more detail. Not to be outdone, Olivetti is less intricate but depicts a more desperate struggle, electing to paint Domergue unarmed—unless she's holding a gun to Mitch's head, in which case it would be a very short struggle. However, while Mitchum is getting the better of her on both posters, in the movie she tries to smother him with a pillow, so their relationship is—in a weird way—equal. You can read more about it here. After premiering in the U.S. in 1950, Where Danger Lives opened in Italy today in 1951.

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Vintage Pulp May 1 2023
DIRTY GIRL
There's no plumbing in this old shack, so I'm also an unwashed woman. Hope that isn't going to be an issue.

Above: another sleaze digest cover—Unleashed Woman, originally Dark Passion, by Gail Jordan, aka Peggy Gaddis, for Uni Books, 1950. Uni was only intermittently diligent about crediting artists, so this one goes in the unknown bin. 

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Intl. Notebook Apr 30 2023
SIGHTS OF PARIS
Because the Louvre and Versailles don't stay open late.


Above are the cover and various interior pages from Cancans de Paris issue thirty-three, which hit newsstands this month in 1966. The magazine was one of several that explored Parisian burlesque, along with Folies de Paris et de Hollywood, Paris Frou Frou, Regal, and others. For more from Cancans just click the keywords below and scroll.

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History Rewind
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
March 29
1951—The Rosenbergs Are Convicted of Espionage
Americans Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage as a result of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. While declassified documents seem to confirm Julius Rosenberg's role as a spy, Ethel Rosenberg's involvement is still a matter of dispute. Both Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953.
March 28
1910—First Seaplane Takes Flight
Frenchman Henri Fabre, who had studied airplane and propeller designs and had also patented a system of flotation devices, accomplishes the first take-off from water at Martinque, France, in a plane he called Le Canard, or "the duck."
1953—Jim Thorpe Dies
American athlete Jim Thorpe, who was one of the most prolific sportsmen ever and won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played professional baseball and basketball, dies of a heart attack.
March 27
1958—Khrushchev Becomes Premier
Nikita Khrushchev becomes premier of the Soviet Union. During his time in power he is responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, and presides over the rise of the early Soviet space program, but his many policy failures lead to him being deposed in October 1964. After his removal he is pensioned off and lives quietly the rest of his life, eventually dying of heart disease in 1971.
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