| Vintage Pulp | Sep 6 2018 |
They could not resist when they saw little Nikki grind.
Back to an actual Japanese poster today, with this promo for the roman porno movie OL nikki: Waisetsuna kankei, aka Office Lady Journal: Indecent Relations, which is about two female co-workers who totally shred company rules against fraternization. Is that even the right word when it's two women? Maybe we should go with consorting. Neither is named Nikki, by the way, though we have to thank Prince for the assist there. They're actually named Mina and Aki. Nikki means “diary” or “journal.” This is yet more output from Nikkatsu Studios, more edgy weirdness from Junko Miyashita and Akemi Nijô, and another plot way too complicated to summarize. But even if we did would it matter? By now you know whether this is your thing. Decide accordingly. OL nikki: Waisetsuna kankei premiered in Japan today in 1975.
JapanNikkatsuOL nikki: Waisetsuna kankeiＯＬ日記 猥褻な関係Office Lady Journal: Indecent RelationsJunko MiyashitaAkemi Nijôposter artcinemaroman pornopinkulgbt
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 5 2018 |
First you scheme, then you lie, then you seduce.
Usually it was Japanese distributors that made amazing new versions of Western posters, but today it's happened in reverse. L'amaro giardino di Lesbo was originally made in Japan and called Utsukushisa to kanashimi to, which translates as “with beauty and sorrow.” It was based on a 1964 novel by Nobel-winning author Yasunari Kawabata, and stars Kaoru Yachigusa, So Yamamura, and the beautiful Mariko Kaga, whose likeness fronts the promo art. We watched it and the story is basically that two lovers lose their baby via miscarriage and split up because of it. The man, whose name is Toshio, gets over it and moves on with life, but his ex, Otoko, is deeply traumatized.
Years later the two meet again. Toshio is married and has a son. Otoko has a female partner named Keiko, and when Keiko meets the man who is intimately connected to her lover's tragedy, she decides to seduce him, have his baby, and give it to Otoko. Yeah. Pretty out there, but Japanese filmmakers specialize in these kinds of crazy ruminations. Does Keiko succeed in her plan? Well, male resistance is never high, but when a woman says things like, “Don't touch my right breast because that one's not for you,” even the horniest man will get weirded out. We won't tell you more, except that the movie is decently made and effective. It premiered in Japan in 1965 and reached Italy today in 1969.
JapanItalyNobel PrizeUtsukushisa to kanashimi to美しさと哀しみとL'amaro giardino di LesboWith Beauty and SorrowKaoru YachigusaMariko KagaYasunari KawabataSo Yamamuraposter artcinemalgbtmovie review
| Hollywoodland | Aug 31 2018 |
Monroe goes for a joy ride and bums out fifty-one women.
Above is a page from the Japanese celeb magazine Roadshow of Marilyn Monroe having a laugh in the rear of a convertible while acting as Grand Marshall of The Miss America Pageant. The one she headlined was the 1952 event, held in Atlantic City today that year. You'd think all the contestants would have resigned dejectedly after getting a glimpse of their marshall, who was 
pre-superstardom but was still Marilyn Monroe, yet the pageant actually went on and was won by Neva Jane Langley of Georgia.
pre-superstardom but was still Marilyn Monroe, yet the pageant actually went on and was won by Neva Jane Langley of Georgia.A lot of websites get that last fact wrong, which we think is because of Wikipedia. There the pageant winners are listed according to the year they served, not the year they competed. Since the contests were held the previous summer or autumn to choose the upcoming year's queen, most sites say Colleen Kay Hutchins won the pageant Monroe marshalled.
Nope. It was Langley, who beat out contestants from all forty-eight states, plus Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. There she is below wearing her sash, which says 1953, for her reign beginning the first of the next year. But even in victory she's probably thinking, Now that I've seen Marilyn I'm going to lock myself in a cellar for sixteen months and have someone feed me through a slot in the door.
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 19 2018 |
We're both starving, and frankly, the way he's behaved he's given us absolutely no reason not to eat him.
During the mid-century period, high quality cover art was seen as the key to paperback sales, thus many types of books received makeovers. Aussie novelist Ronald McKie's The Survivors is an example. You'd assume it was fiction but it's actually the true story of the Battle of Sunda Strait, which occurred in Indonesia between the islands of Java and Sumatra during World War II and pitted two Aussie cruisers against a major Japanese naval force. During a battle in which the outgunned Aussie ships fared better than could have been reasonably expected, both were sunk. In the aftermath a group of stranded men battled innumerable hazards in an attempt to survive. The book sprang from the handwritten account of an Aussie sailor who spent four years in a Japanese POW camp. He was a friend of McKie's, and when the author read the dairy pages he immediately decided to write a full accounting of the battle. As far as we know nobody ate anyone, but raft rides get pretty rough. The Survivors came out in hardback in 1953, with this Popular Library paperback appearing in 1954.
AustraliaJapanIndonesiaJavaSumatraDutch East IndiesWorld War IIPopular LibraryRonald McKiecover artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 18 2018 |
Truth, justice, and the Nikkatsu way.
This is a pretty cheerful poster, isn't it? But it belies the true nature of Sûpâ gun redei Wani Bunsho, aka Super Gun Lady: Police Branch 82. Emi Yokoyama plays Mika, an unconventional cop who can't play by the rules and is always in trouble with her boss. After her latest screw-up she's assigned a partner in the person of Kaoru Janbo, and the two are soon up to their necks in an interconnected series of problems involving blackmail, heroin, and a degenerate band of bank robbers. As in many buddy movies, the partners dislike each other at first, but as women on the police force they soon find common ground. Which is good because when Mika is kidnapped only her partner can possibly save her.
So about that kidnapping. Up to that point Sûpâ gun plays like a standard cop drama, but this is a Nikkatsu Studios production, and as we've discussed before the company's plotlines were, during this time at least, mere wrappers for bondage and sadism. Thus the kidnapping doesn't go so well for Mika. Not that any kidnapping goes well for its victims, but this one goes worse. Nikkatsu actually had a pretty good police thriller on its hands here but we guess you can't expect the company to deny its own nature, nor the expectations of its audience. You've been duly warned. Sûpâ gun redei Wani Bunsho premiered in Japan today in 1979
So about that kidnapping. Up to that point Sûpâ gun plays like a standard cop drama, but this is a Nikkatsu Studios production, and as we've discussed before the company's plotlines were, during this time at least, mere wrappers for bondage and sadism. Thus the kidnapping doesn't go so well for Mika. Not that any kidnapping goes well for its victims, but this one goes worse. Nikkatsu actually had a pretty good police thriller on its hands here but we guess you can't expect the company to deny its own nature, nor the expectations of its audience. You've been duly warned. Sûpâ gun redei Wani Bunsho premiered in Japan today in 1979
JapanNikkatsuSûpâ gun redei Wani BunshoSuper Gun Lady: Police Branch 82スーパーＧＵＮレディ ワニ分署Emi Yokoyama横山エミーKaoru JanboKei Satôposter artpinkucinemamovie review
| Femmes Fatales | Aug 18 2018 |
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.
ItalyJapanRoadshowIl BoomLe gentleman de CocodyIvory Coast AdventureMaria Grazia BuccellaVittorio De Sica
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 15 2018 |
Ahoy there, miss! Do you mind if we pull abreast?
At top, a poster for the Hitomi Kozue roman porno flick Nikutai hanzai kaigan: Piranha no mure, aka Sex-Crime Coast: School of Piranha. In this one Kozue rises out of the sea like Aphrodite, which is how we always suspected she came to be. Well, okay, she isn't actually a deity, but she's certainly one of the more beautiful actresses of her era. We'd have loved to see her in some western crossovers, but it never happened, though in our opnion she had the screen charisma to entice global audiences.In this film she isn't showcased at her best. She plays an insipid and annoying bad girl who's part of a small gang of criminals in the seaside region of Shōnan, along Sagami Bay. The gang callis itself the Piranhas, and Hitomi's the main squeeze of the gang's leader Rikiya Dan. They happily commit mayhem together, but when Dan encounters Masumi Jun it looks as if Hitomi's position as HBIC is under threat. Romance is never easy in these films, and in this case jealousy brings distrust and violence into the Piranha clan.
We could tell you more, but why bother? This is Nikkatsu Studios, and it's roman porno, so you know exactly what you'll get here. There's joyful violence, a very blurry line where sexual consent resides, and straight-up rape too. We still don't truly understand these films and we probably never will, but millions of Japanese cinemagoers loved them, so we'll defer to their taste for the time being. But we're starting to form some definite opinions. Nikutai hanzai kaigan: Piranha no mure premiered in Japan today in 1973.
JapanShōnanNikkatsuNikutai hanzai kaigan: Piranha no mureSex-Crime Coast: School of PiranhaHitomi KozueMasumi Junposter artcinemapinkuroman pornomovie review
| Modern Pulp | Aug 8 2018 |
And she's already starting to sprout hair.
This interesting poster was made for Kemono ni natta hitozuma, aka The Beast: Married Woman, which was produced by Shintoho Company and starred Maki Tomota, aka Maki Tomoda. She's an adult video actress who began her career in Japan in 2002 and today is a popular figure in milf porn. In case you're wondering, they do use the term milf in Japan, but just for effect. The preferred word is actually jukujo, literally “mature woman.” Tomoda's armpit hair is not just any armpit hair. It's a trademark. One of her more successful jukujo series has been Kāsan no waki no ke, which means “mother's armpit hair.” As we've mentioned before, we're indifferent about female body hair, and it isn't an age thing—we're fully from generation wax. We just feel, you know, her body, her choice. Tomoda probably has hundreds of hirsute images out there, because she's quite well known. This particular film, on the other hand, is not. We couldn't track it down, nor uncover any plot info, though it's an ironclad certainty it's bondage related (hello, de Sade). What we did find were some promo images and we've shared two—nice Maki, and naughty Maki. Kemono ni natta hitozuma premiered in Japan today in 2008.
JapanShintoho Film DistributionKemono ni natta hitozumaThe Beast: Married WomanMaki TomodaMaki Tomota友田真希roman pornopinkusexploitationnuditybdsmxxx
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 1 2018 |
The money is there. All they have to do is steal it.
Nora-neko rokku: Wairudo janbo, aka Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo, stars Meiko Kaji and Bunjaku Han in a Nikkatsu Studios/Hori Production co-effort. The movie is based on a Satoshi Funachi novel and concerns five obnoxious delinquents who, with the help of an insider, decide to rob a religious group called the Seikyo Society of 30 million yen. There's a festival going on there, which means the organization's coffers will be fat with cash.
As usual with these movies, it takes a while to get to the central plot, but the digressions are interesting. A good portion of the running time involves the group's road trip to the religious compound and the various scrapes they get into along the way, including a comical interlude at the beach. When they finally reach their destination does the robbery go as planned? Of course not. They rarely do.
As a side note, viewers should be forewarned that while Akiko Wada gets top position on the poster she doesn't get much camera time. But what more do you need when you already have Meiko and Bunjaku? Nora-neko rokku: Wairudo janbo is definitely one of the better Japanese juvie flicks and a worthy second entry in the five film Nora-neko rokku series. It premiered in Japan today in 1970. Read about the others, here, here, here, and here.
JapanHori ProductionNikkatsuNora-neko rokku: Wairudo janboStray Cat Rock: Wild JumboMeiko KajiBunjaku HanAkiko Wadaposter artcinemapinkumovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 25 2018 |
Girl meets girl and things get a little twisted.
You'd be surprised how many Japanese movie posters feature swastikas. Or backwards ones, anyway. This particular promo was made for the melodrama Manji, a movie known in English by the name Swastika, or sometimes All Mixed Up. Some of you out there might be saying right now that the crooked cross Westerners know as a Nazi symbol is also a Native American symbol, though turned backward. And you'd be right. Others of you may say it's an ancient Sanskrit symbol, whether turned backward or forward. And you'd also be right. Still others of you, the more widely traveled perhaps, know that in Japan the backward swastika is a symbol used to mark the location of Buddhist temples on maps. And what the hell, we should also mention that younger Japanese sometimes say “manji” instead of “cheese” when posing for a photo.
Why did we go into all that? Because when you put a swastika on your website it's prudent to explain why. There is no discussion of the symbol in Manji. The film is about bored housewife Kyôko Kishida embarking on an affair with a younger woman played by Ayako Wakao. It's all fun and games at first, but Kishida, in the grip of middle age and an unfulfilling marriage, grows increasingly obsessed with her young girltoy. The movie's makers seem to be using the cross ironically—in Sanskrit it symbolizes good luck, but the affair in Manji is anything but. You can find out yourself, though, because the entire thing is on YouTube for the moment—with English subtitles!—at this link. Say goodbye to ninety minutes of your life, cinephiles. Manji premiered in Japan today in 1964.
Why did we go into all that? Because when you put a swastika on your website it's prudent to explain why. There is no discussion of the symbol in Manji. The film is about bored housewife Kyôko Kishida embarking on an affair with a younger woman played by Ayako Wakao. It's all fun and games at first, but Kishida, in the grip of middle age and an unfulfilling marriage, grows increasingly obsessed with her young girltoy. The movie's makers seem to be using the cross ironically—in Sanskrit it symbolizes good luck, but the affair in Manji is anything but. You can find out yourself, though, because the entire thing is on YouTube for the moment—with English subtitles!—at this link. Say goodbye to ninety minutes of your life, cinephiles. Manji premiered in Japan today in 1964.
2021 update: the link has finally died. You'll have to find the movie elsewhere.
 |
 |
