To reach your full potential in life you need to stretch yourself.
Maria Grazia Buccella is a former glamour model, a Miss Italy contestant, and a screen actress with numerous movies to her credit. Some of her appearances include in Le gentleman de Cocody, aka Ivory Coast Adventure, and Vittorio De Sica's Il Boom. The photo above appeared in the Japanese magazine Road Show around 1968.
In mid-century action magazines trouble always has a woman at its center.
Adventure for Men is new magazine for us, part of a group a friend couriered over from the U.S. last year. The art in this April 1968 issue is uncredited in the masthead, but two spreads are signed by Howell Dodd. The stories range from tales of wild 1890s San Francisco to uncharted Madagascar to your nearby nudist camp. And of course, par for the course for such publications, all the adventures seem to revolve around women, which makes them miss-adventures, so to speak. But we'll admit we haven't read all of the magazine yet. The piece “Sex Mistakes Most People Make!” for example. We figured we're better off not knowing. But we did read the story on the sex camps of the Red Chinese. In times of stress people will believe anything, and there was no greater time of stress than the Cold War, a period during which most people feared they were seconds away from nuclear incineration. We're all still potentially seconds away from nuclear incineration, but back then those fears were openly exploited for political gain and monetary profit by con artists as diverse as the U.S. government and the New York City tabloid industry. Adventure for Men joins in the fun with its China sex camps tale.
During the 1960s, when Chinese were already suffering from both famine and widespread state violence, many were sent to prison camps to work and be re-educated. Conditions were generally awful, and often life threatening. Inmates were cold, underfed, besieged by vermin, and physically abused. As terrible as all that is, it still isn't enough for Adventure for Men, as journalist Alexander Ford takes the harrowing story of Chinese dissident Kuo Chung-hsaio and his wife and inflates it into sleaze fiction. Oh yeah. Political imprisonment can be erotic. All Reds are perverts. But the “sex camps” trumpeted on Adventure for Men's cover refers not to any state sanctioned sexual abuse. That accusation is never made. No—it refers to a specific voyeuristic prison official. This official would not let Chung-hsaio see his wife unless the couple had sex while he was in the room watching. Chung-hsaio describes through Ford how humiliating and horrible the experience was, though he neglects to explain how he and his wife were even able to sexually function with their tormentor staring from the corner. Naturally, in the end it's the official's deviancy that creates the opportunity for the couple's daring escape. Do we buy this titillating tale of how a jailer got his rocks off, let his guard down, and ended up permanently cooled by Chung-hsaio's righteous hand? Not even a little bit. It's right from Hollywood's b-movie playbook—smash cut and they're out. But we'll admit that for short form sleaze it's actually pretty good. Scans below.
2nd Amendment, motherfucker. If you say it's your right, then it's my right too.
Bernie Casey exercises his right to bear a chrome plated Colt Super .38 automatic in this cool promo photo made for his 1972 blaxploitation flick Hit Man. We love Casey. He died just last year, and was pretty much unheralded, but he appeared in a lot of fun movies, including Sharky's Machine, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Cleopatra Jones, Boxcar Bertha, and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. He also had the good fortune to get naked with both Pam Grier and Claudia Jennings. The Jennings scene is flat amazing, but the Grier scene, which is actually from Hit Man, is hilarious. As Grier climbs atop him and presses her naked body full length onto his the expression on his face reads something like: “Oh. My. Freaking. God.” That's probably the only time in his life he wasn't 100% cool.
Representative democracy in action.
Nature-attacks-man covers are commonplace on men’s adventure magazines, and we’ve seen virtually every species in the animal kingdom get their revenge eventually. Today it’s the eagles’ turn thanks to this November 1957 issue of Man’s Adventure with art by Clarence Doore. What would be nice is if there were a piece of fiction to go along with this striking painting but there isn’t. So we’ll make one up: It was a tough call for the eagles. Some pointed out that humans don’t generally hunt or eat eagles, and many agreed that this fact was in man’s favor. Plus they put us on their coins, some noted, which is a nice tribute. But others said it isn’t about only us raptors, but rather all the birds—our brethren the turkeys, the ducks, and especially the chickens, those most hapless of fowl. Though the few of us who’ve had a chance to eat chicken agree they’re incredibly tasty. But we digress. Even if some of us have no love for the other birds, consider the big picture. Man is turning nature into a parking lot. And for what? Money—the very substance they use our images upon. Oh bitter irony. Plus, have you noticed how hot it’s been lately? They definitely have something to do with that, the destructive fuckers, and since we don't have sweat glands elevated heat is a real inconvenience. So, eagle-on-man violence—all those in favor? Nays? Right, let’s go. Aim for the eyes. They really hate that.
The adventures of a lifetime. Below are ten covers for Wildcat Adventures, a men’s magazine that existed from 1959 to 1964. Its rarity makes it expensive, which is why we haven’t bought any yet, but we’ll keep our eyes open. Cover art is by John Duillo, Basil Gogos, and others. Thanks to menspulpmags.com for a few of these images, and you can see more there.
Cutting the head off the snake.
Above and below, a July 1956 issue of Real Adventure magazine with uncredited art on the cover and throughout the issue. Inside you get model Peggy Ray, and a self-written feature by boxer Sandy Saddler in which he denies being a dirty fighter. The article includes a photo, which you see in panels three and four below, of Saddler mugging Willie Pep. That’s not the first appearance on Pulp Intl. for that image. Police Gazette featured it on one of its covers in February 1951 with a little photo-illustrative tweak. It’s worth glancing at and you can see it here. So was Saddler a dirty fighter? Consensus seems to be that if he felt victimized himself, he tended to cross the line. According to theboxingmagazine.com, this happened during Saddler’s fourth fight with Pep, which featured, “elbows, butting, heeling with the glove and lacing, they were everything-gos foul-fests from start to finish. While Pep and Saddler wrestled on the inside, Saddler thought nothing of putting Willie in a headlock before throwing him to the floor. Even the referee was knocked to the floor several times in an attempt to separate the two fighters. Needless to say, the boos and jeers shook the joint to the rafters. Saddler said afterward that he felt insulted by those who insisted he was a dirty fighter.”
Saddler won 144 bouts against only 16 losses, which would seem to indicate a considerable amount of talent. He retired in 1956, at the earlyish age of thirty, after he hurt his eye in a traffic accident. Afterward her became a trainer and counted among his clients a young George Foreman. He died in 2001 but was honored by The Ring magazine a couple of years later when editors ranked him as the fifth greatest puncher of all time. We have about twenty scans of Saddler, Pep, and others below.
Anita Ekberg single-handedly changes the ethnic makeup of an entire country. The cover of this November 1956 issue of True Adventures is great by itself, but as a bonus readers are treated inside to a photo feature on superstar Anita Ekberg, who had been filming the adventure flick Zarak, aka Zarak Khan. The movie concerned the exploits of an Afghani outlaw (or resistance fighter, depending on one’s point of view), and Ekberg, rather amusingly, played an Afghani girl named Salma. Criticisms were voiced concerning the blue-eyed Swede’s casting in the role, but these rang hollow, considering the presence of Kentucky-born Victor Mature in the lead. In any case, the film’s producers Irving Allen and Cubby Broccoli didn’t care if Ekberg made an unlikely Afghan—to them having her shimmy around in a midriff-baring harem outfit was worth it. Were they right? You can be the judge of that for yourself by checking this link.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1920—Negro National Baseball League Debuts
The first game of Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana. The league, one of several that would be formed, was composed of The Chicago American Giants, The Detroit Stars, The Kansas City Monarchs, The Indianapolis ABCs, The St. Louis Giants, The Cuban Stars, The Dayton Marcos, and The Chicago Giants. 1955—Williams Wins Pulitzer
American playwright Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his controversial play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which tells the story of a southern family in crisis, explicitly deals with alcoholism, and contains a veiled subtext concerning homosexuality in southern society. In 1958 the play becomes a motion picture starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. 1945—Germany Announces Hitler's Death
German radio in Hamburg announces that Adolf Hitler was killed in Berlin, stating specifically that he had fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany. But in truth Hitler had committed suicide along with his mistress Eva Braun, and both bodies were immediately thereafter burned. 1960—Powers Is Shot Down over U.S.S.R.
Francis Gary Powers, flying in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane, is shot down over the Soviet Union. The U.S. denies the plane's purpose and mission, but is later forced to admit its role as a covert surveillance aircraft when the Soviet government produces its remains and reveals Powers, who had survived the shoot down. The incident triggers a major diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. 1927—First Prints Are Left at Grauman's
Hollywood power couple Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who co-founded the movie studio United Artists with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, become the first celebrities to leave their impressions in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, located along the stretch where the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame would later be established.
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