The 1949 film noir The Third Man is a best-case-scenario of what can happen when great talents collaborate. Carol Reed directs, Orson Welles, Alida Valli and Joseph Cotten act from a screenplay penned by master storyteller Graham Greene, and the cinematographer is Robert Krasker. Krasker won an Academy Award for his work here, and when you see the velvety blacks and knifing shadows of his nighttime set-ups, as well as the famed scenes shot in the cavernous Vienna sewers and bombed out quadrants of the city center, you’ll understand why. The story involves a pulp writer named Holly Martins who arrives in a partitioned post-war Vienna to only find that his friend Harry Lime is dead, run down by a truck. When Martins learns that the police are disinterested in the circumstances of Lime’s demise, he decides to do what one of his pulp characters would do—take matters into his own hands. But nothing adds up. He learns that Lime died instantly, or survived long enough to utter a few last words. He finds that Lime was a racketeer, or possibly not. And he discovers that three men were present when Lime died—or possibly three. That third man seems to be the key to the mystery, but he proves to be damnably elusive. We can’t recommend this film highly enough. Above you see a pair of rare Japanese posters from Third Man’s premier in Tokyo today in 1952. 

Too bad we can’t find out anything about this film, because the poster sure has us intrigued. It’s for a 1976 pinku flick never released in the west, but called, more or less, Wet Pistils of Three Sisters (a pistil being the female ovule-bearing part of a flower composed of ovary, style and stigma—forgive us if you already knew that). The film stars Kayoko Sugi, who made her name in torture porn flicks like Bôgyaku onna gômon (aka Violent Torture) Jûsan-nin renzoku bôkôma (aka Demon of Violence), and Gendai ryôki sei-hanzai (aka Present Day Bizarre Sex Crime). These titles may sound pretty far out, but remember we’re talking about a film industry that has made movies about women having sex with octopuses (see below), so what we really have here is restraint in action. If we ever see any of these movies—and Lord knows, we keep trying—we’ll report back. 

Roman Polanski’s first English-language film was Repulsion, starring Catherine Deneuve as a disturbed woman whose neuroses slowly escalate into a full-scale psychotic break when the departure of her sister leaves her in isolation in an apartment they share. We won’t pretend to have any new insights into such a rapturously praised film save to say that it’s certainly one of Polanski’s most interesting, a visual masterwork in deeply shadowed black and white that manages to be beautiful even as it descends into paranoia and violence. Highly recommended. And as a side note, we wouldn’t mind terribly if Deneuve’s hairstyle came back into vogue. Batshit insane never looked so glamorous. Repulsion opened in Japan today in 1965. 

We’re back folks, and what a lovely trip it was—at least, the parts we remember. Above you see a Japanese poster for Deep Throat and Deep Throat Part 2, which we gather ran as a double bill in Japan sometime in the mid-1970s. Deep Throat and its sequel starred Linda Lovelace as a woman whose clitoris was in her throat, and the first installment was the first truly mainstream porn film. 

Poster for Jerahsî gêmu, aka Jealousy Game, with pinku star Reiko Oshida. We’ll be getting back to Oshida a little later on. Jerahsî gêmu premiered in Tokyo today in 1982. 

Above, a photo of the mushroom cloud generated by Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon ever used on humans, at Hiroshima, Japan, in the final days of World War II, around 8 a.m. today in 1945. 

Original poster for Gojira tai Hedorâ, known in the West as Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster. It premiered in Tokyo today in 1971. 

We were excited, to say the least, when we found this Imai model of Thunderbird 3 complete with a miniature Alan Tracy, because we remember first seeing this show in syndication during the nineties and it was one of the coolest, if craziest, ideas in television history. If any concept ever pushed willing suspension of disbelief to its limits, it was this one, and we… Sorry, what’s that? You don’t know what we’re talking about? Surely you jest. Thunderbirds was this great British sci-fi television show conceived by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, and the entire cast was comprised of marionettes that, well… Actually we can’t possibly do it justice with words. Let’s just say if you’ve seen Team America: World Police, you’ve seen Thunderbirds. But if that still doesn’t get the concept across, you can check out the opening credit sequence in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and GO! 

We’ve been watching a lot of these old Japanese films lately because, well, they’re usually pretty fun. Today we have Toei Studios’ comedic romp Onsen suppon geisha, aka Hot Springs Kiss Geisha, and to cut right to the chase here, Miki Sugimioto stars as a character known as Prostitute with Strong Vagina Muscles. Seriously. But it’s all in good fun. Which reminds us, we feel we’ve been remiss in pointing out to those unfamiliar with pinku, Roman porno and the like that these flicks aren’t pornographic. Sexually discomfitting? Yes. Absurd? Usually. In terrible taste? Almost always. But they aren’t pornographic. Everything is accomplished through suggestion, camera angles and clever editing. Onsen suppon geisha was part of a Hot Springs series, with Sugimoto having debuted in the first installment in 1971. In this one, she’s so good at using that super strong vagina of hers that she can fuck guys to death. In the end, she’s pitted against a sexual superman and a showdown ensues. There’s also a subplot about a mad scientist type who needs vaginal juices to create a potion designed to turn Japanese girls black—see below. Is this where the ganguro trend began? We have no idea. Onsen suppon geisha opened in Japan today in 1972. 

One good pinku deserves another, and such is the case with Koyu Ohara’s True Story of a Woman Condemned: Sex Hell. It was released in March 1975, and the follow-up, for which you see the promo poster above, appeared a mere three months later. It’s almost like they planned to make a sequel all along. Anyway, installment two was called Zoku jituroku onna kanbetsusho, aka True Story of a Woman Condemned Continues, and mainly focuses on new and more devious tortures for Hitomi Kozue and her female co-stars to endure. All we can say it isn’t quite our cup of pee, but we give creativity points—we’ve never seen a woman sodomized with a plant before. Zoku jituroku onna kanbetsusho premiered in Tokyo today in 1975.