Vintage Pulp | Jan 25 2017 |
Once a Thief opens with a San Francisco nightclub drummer playing a cracking solo, cymbal crashes synched to quick edits, and we immediately think we're in for some sort of revolutionary beat generation noir, with the edgy rhythms and nervous energy that idea entails. But the movie quickly subsides to conventional pacing, telling the story of a former thief gone straight suspected of a recent murder, and the cop determined to put him away—guilty or innocent. Alain Delon plays crook-turned-family man Eddie, and Ann-Margret is his wife Kristine. Even if the movie doesn't live up to its jazzy opening, getting Sweden's hottest actress and France's hottest actor together should be a can't-miss proposition.
Once a Thief oozes cool, but in the end it's a middling heist drama that asks a bit too much of its principals. It didn't do well in 1965, and we suspect it'll be the least liked offering at Noir City. Audiences may respond to a few aspects, though: there are some nice San Fran exteriors, Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack is top notch, and character actor John Davis Chandler knocks his role of the druggy hepcat villain Jimmy Sargatanas out of the park, over the promenade, and into McCovey Cove. His line, “I don't dig women,” paired with a sneer and a fatal gunshot, will probably bring the house down. As for Delon and Ann-Margret, well, at least they look good.
Vintage Pulp | Dec 14 2016 |
It's Alain Delon again. We just saw him a couple of days ago and here he is in La motocyclette, aka The Girl on a Motorcycle. 1960's counterculture icon Marianne Faithfull stars in this experimental flick based on André Pieyre de Mandiargues' experimental novel as a woman torn between a life of security with her husband and a craving for adventure with her lover, Delon. She leaves her husband, takes a road trip across France to join Delon in Germany, and you get an introspective road movie with Faithfull riding across cheapie rear projection into a series of psychedelic interludes, her voiceover dutifully keeping us updated on her inner turmoil. Is it a pulp style movie? Not so much. Is it good? We wouldn't say that. But it had Delon in it so we thought we'd take a look, and we sure like the posters. La motocyclette opened in Japan today in 1970.
Vintage Pulp | Dec 12 2016 |
This Japanese poster was made for Le cercle rouge, a French heist movie starring Alain Delon, André Bourvil, Gian Maria Volontè, and Yves Montand. It's an excellent flick that uses a bizarre plot device—a newly paroled convict who's been talked into a jewel heist finds a criminal who's just escaped from custody hiding in the trunk of his car, and subsequently decides to team up with the guy on the jewel robbery.
There's more involved than just that, of course, but what are the odds of a criminal taking refuge in another criminal's car and turning out to be just the right partner for an upcoming robbery? We'd say it's possible only in writer-director Jean-Pierre Melville's imagination, but he makes this insane coincidence work. A third man completes the heist crew and off they go to make their big score. Or at least try. This is really good, hard-boiled stuff, with that French flair. Le cercle rouge opened in France in October 1970, and made it to Japan today the same year. The French poster above and right, by the way, looks mighty familiar. It's similar to one made for another very good Alain Delon crime movie, also centered around a jewel heist, 1969's Le clan des Siciliens. Well, don't mess with success.
Vintage Pulp | Politique Diabolique | Mar 31 2014 |
Whisper features a political figure on this cover from March 1964, namely Indonesian ruler Kusno Sosrodihardjo, later known as Sukarno, who we’re told was offered twenty prostitutes while visiting his country’s embassy in Copenhagen in 1961. In fact, the magazine goes on to claim that the embassy housed a brothel. Though it sounds like a typical tabloid tall tale, it’s actually true. Time magazine had written about it in its October 1963 issue, stating: A diplomat may be only a cookie pusher, but the kind of cookies pushed by Indonesia’s charge d’affaires in Copenhagen tumbled, not crumbled. Last week Danish police announced that Gustin Santawirja not only ran his country’s embassy, [snip] but was also a procurer on the side. Santawirja got into the tart tradein 1961 when Indonesia's President Sukarno showed up in Copenhagen on an unofficial visit. Amiably, he rounded up some girls for the visiting entourage. So successful was the venture that he decided to supplement his entertainment allowance by running a fulltime poule hall. “Poule” is French for “hen,” by the way, and Whisper was correct, but it was also late to the party. We give no credit for publishing what was already widely known.
she fled back to Italy and, because Hughes owned her American contract, she was unable to make movies in the U.S. She became an international star just the same, acting exclusively in Europe, but having attained celebrity claimed it was difficult for her. She complained: “When I am with people I am constantly watched, and I can’t get used to this sort of thing—that they look at me as a chimpanzee in a zoo.” Sounds bad, but she eventually learned to enjoy it. In 2000 she commented to Parade magazine, “I’ve had many lovers and still have romances. I am very spoiled.” So it seems even the worst parts of celebrities’ lives aren’t really all that bad. Assorted scans below.
Sex Files | Feb 3 2014 |
On this Confidential from February 1965 the publishers give their cut-and-paste artists a month off and grace the cover with a simple portrait of Brigitte Bardot and her famed pout. Inside the editors air out her love life in a way that today would be called slut shaming—pretty much stock-in-trade for Confidential. The suggestion is she won’t come to the U.S. to act because she’s busy Morockin’ around the clock with Moroccan-born producer Bob Zaguri. Elsewhere in the issue you get Romy Schneider, Jean Harlow, Alain Delon, Peter O’Toole, love behind the Iron Curtain, and an outraged report on pharmaceutical companies marking up medicines 200%, 500%, even 7,000%. Yes, medicines cost too much in the U.S. even back then. But don’t take our word for it. Take Confidential’s—their story ends by declaring that drug companies have Americans by the balls and the only way to avoid the drug price racket is to not get sick.
Vintage Pulp | Aug 16 2012 |
The West German magazine Hamburg-Hollywood-Paris willingly surrenders to the one-woman French army known as Brigitte Bardot. Oh, the humanity. A big chunk of the issue—number 14, 1960—is devoted to her. Nothing much to do but let the images speak for themselves.
Hollywoodland | Nov 11 2010 |
Two promo shots of French actor Alain Delon, circa 1960, when he was known as “the male Brigitte Bardot.” Delon was discovered in Cannes by a talent scout for American movie mogul David O. Selznick, but shunned Hollywood for a chance to be a star in France. In the end, he was a success there, in the U.S., and pretty much everywhere else too.
Vintage Pulp | Dec 1 2008 |
The French crime flick Le clan des Siciliens was pulp, noir, and French new wave all at once. It was a sensation. It starred the great Alain Delon, along with Lino Ventura and Jean Gabin, had a brilliant Ennio Morricone score, and was helmed by veteran director Henri Vernueil. And of paramount importance to us here at Pulp Intl., it also had the amazing promotional art you see above, with the three stars getting right in your face and seeming to ask, “You know who the fuck you’re talking to?” That question was answered thirty-nine years ago today, in 1969.