 Diamonds are forever, but Connery wasn’t. 
Sean Connery made as many appearances in sixties and seventies tabloids as just about any celeb of his time period, so here he is again in an article promoting his role in Diamonds Are Forever, which would premiere just a couple of weeks after this December 1971 National Police Gazette hit newsstands. we talked a bit about the source novel for the film, and author Ian Fleming's troubles with his publishers. It's interesting, so check here if you wish. In Gazette, Connery speaks of his futile struggle to portray James Bond as a balding hero, and quips about making his stylist thin his wigs so there was almost no point in wearing them at all. Connery said about Bond’s aging, “No one is immortal—not me, not you, and not James Bond.” It was a commendable sentiment, but naïve. Seems as though Connery didn’t realize United Artists had already branded Bond well beyond the point where the character was tethered to any concept of aging. The studio proved that when it brought the much younger Roger Moore on the scene for 1973’s Live and Let Die. Moore would later give way to Dalton, who gave way to Brosnan, who gave way to Craig, as Bond himself remained eternally forty-ish through the passing years. Elsewhere in the Gazette you get a report on the hash capital of the world, the world’s greatest racing systems, and the usual assortment of random beauties in bathing suits. All that, plus hashish toasted cheese, below.
       
 Hey, check it out—I can see the ironic conclusions of our character arcs from here. We better both have a drink. 
We got hold of one of the more unusual Robert McGinnis paperback covers in the form of Daniel Banko's 1972 Fawcett Gold Medal mystery Not Dead Yet. McGinnis had range, but it's still a surprise when a cover of his doesn't feature a femme fatale. This one is even more unusual due to its rooftop setting featuring a man who's wielding grappling hooks and a second who's simply drinking. Does the unusual art relate to the story? Yes, it's a moment directly from the narrative.
Banko weaves a find-the-real-killer tale in which a man named Matthew Kitterman catches his wife in bed cheating and is accused of murdering the lover. He didn't do it—he only remembers snapping a Polaroid of the tableau and bolting. He sort of flips out and next awakens in the bed of an older woman with whom he finds aid and comfort. Hunted by police and shunned by his lawyer, he finally decides he must—let's say it all together—find the real killer! In detailed and low velocity fashion he finally gets around to doing that, leading to a scene where he tries, with assistance, to break into his own house, but pauses for liquid fortification.
The book, unfortunately, did not thrill us. It reads more like a longish character piece than a crime novel. Banko can write fine, but his focus isn't particularly upon the murder nor its solution so much as portraying a man whose life has been upended and who reacts in unpredictable ways. The tale never recovered to become a gripping thriller. At least not for us. Even Norman Mailer's front cover approval didn't sway our opinion. But hey—we got the McGinnis art, and that was worth the price.
 Oh, hey. Um, I guess it's probably better to hear this from your best friend. Your wife has been cheating on you. 
Above: Daniel Taylor's They Move with the Sun, from 1948 originally, with this Popular Library edition coming in 1952. The cover art is uncredited, but it fits nicely with our collection of cheaters caught together, which you can see here.
 Okay, first of all he never listened to me. That's where the blame for this really starts. 
Above: an unusual cover for Hank Janson's novel Beloved Traitor, published by the British imprint Roberts and Vinter in 1960, with a lettering style the company used to good effect on other novels. The cover painting is by the Spanish artist Joaquin Chacopino Fabré, sometimes known as merely Chaco. We have two more good examples of his work here, and we'll see if we can dig up more later.
 But enough about why I did my entire house in leopard. What type of feline-inspired design do you have in your house? 
This fun image stars French actress Danièle Gaubert, who we recently saw in La louve solitaire, aka The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl, and who also appeared in Snow Job, Camille 2000, and more than a dozen other films. This is from the French magazine Moi and was first published in 1969. Gaubert is another actress who hooked up with a dictator, or a dictator's son. In 1963 she married Leonidas Trujillo Martínez, son of Dominican Republic strongman Rafael Trujillo, a guy who killed tens of thousands of his fellow citizens. Could you imagine an actress linking herself to a dictatorship in 2023? Back before the social media age such romances occurred often (which is why you have to especially respect those who refused to do it). There are, of course, women involved with dictators today—sadly authoritarians get to reproduce too—but those women aren't global film stars. Gaubert was divorced from Trujillo Martinez by 1968, made several more movies, and was out of show business by 1972.
 I'm no doctor, but if a man isn't moving and isn't snoring, he's probably a corpse. 
Above: a cover for Drury Lane's Last Case by Ellery Queen, who was actually Daniel Nathan partnering with Manford Lepofsky. It's originally 1933, with the above edition from Avon coming in 1952.
 She's one cool cat burglar. 
We have bit of tasty French style for you with this poster for La louve solitaire, a film that premiered today in 1968 and starred Danièle Gaubert. The movie is sourced from a series of novels by Albert Saine-Aube, and plotwise Gaubert plays a Parisian real estate agent by day/leotard wearing cat burglar by night. When she's caught in the act of a robbery by two government agents who've been lying in wait for her, she's blackmailed into working for them. The government duo want her to make a daring theft that will help bring down an international drug smuggling network. She's assigned a helper in the form of Michel Duchaussoy, so the movie becomes a sort of partners-in-crime adventure with a side of romantic tension. Gaubert, of course, finds herself in more danger than she expected, and after the caper the crooks she's robbed are hellbent on revenge.
Just looking at the poster, which you may have noticed is actually a French- and Dutch-language promo from Belgium, you can tell that the movie provides high style in a similar vein as cult flicks such as Danger: Diabolik and Modesty Blaise. Like those films, La louve solitaire features nice outfits, hip lingo, and nightclub scenes, plus Gaubert rolling around in a blood-red Pontiac Firebird that qualifies as pure car porn. Also like those other movies, La louve solitaire isn't fully successful from an execution standpoint, however because it's among a group that was at the forefront of portraying women as physically dangerous ass-kickers with specialized skills (Gaubert's thief character is a trapeze artist), it's worth seeing for historical perspective alone.
                  
 Um... let me call you back. All of a sudden there's a really hairy situation I need to handle. 
Bill Edwards, the king of comical facial expressions, strikes again on this cover for Love's Final Act, written by Mark Daniels, 1964, for Saber Books. Daniels wrote a few other sleazers, including Wake Up with a Stranger and Lust of a Wanton. The latter cover is in our wanton soup collection, which you can see here.
 Let me go! I can save her! I just need a good nurse, a set of woodworking tools, and a shoehorn! 
We already shared a 1952 Pocket Books cover for Ellery Queen's The Dutch Shoe Mystery, but this 1959 Pocket Books art by Jerry Allison goes a different direction, so we have a different, equally silly take on it. The Pulp Intl. girlfriends didn't get the joke last time, we suppose because they aren't old enough to know the same useless things we do, so we'll offer the reminder that a traditional Dutch shoe is made of wood and known as a clog. The Dutch Shoe Mystery features no clog that needs removal, just a ruptured gall bladder. Before the doctor can perform the operation, the patient, a millionairess who founded the hospital, is strangled with a piece of wire. Suspects: a few family members and the immediate medical staff. The “Dutch” in the title comes from the name of the hospital: Dutch Memorial. The “shoe” comes from the standard footwear of surgeons: white canvas moccasins which are the sole (oops) clue. Third in the Ellery Queen series, the authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee (aka Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky) basically update the classic locked room mystery by staging it in a medical facility. Good? Well, they published more than thirty subsequent Queen capers, so take that for what it's worth.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West's considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy. 1971—Manson Sentenced to Death
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed. 1923—Yankee Stadium Opens
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008. 1961—Bay of Pigs Invasion Is Launched
A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.
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