Pulp International

Feb 3 2024

The movie is a Horn of plenty—of sticky historical issues.

Trader Horn is an Academy Award nominated movie adapted from the real life African adventures of the explorer Alfred Aloysius “Trader” Horn, and as a major production has many high quality posters. The one above is our favorite, but all the promos are impressive, as you'll see when we share some a little later. Trader Horn is an archetypal white goddess movie—which is to say, a group of intrepid adventurers encounter a white woman reigning over an African tribe. Obviously, Hollywood took a bit of creative license with Horn's biographical writings. At least, we assume so. Harry Carey plays Horn, an old hand on the Dark Continent, whose aplomb in the face of danger is nothing short of Richard B. Riddickesque: “The good Lord only gives us one death to die and a fellow musn't bungle it.”

On the other side of the emotional spectrum is the white goddess, played with pre-Hays Code abandon by a half-clad Edwina Booth. The central thrust of the plot is Horn's efforts to return Booth to the modern world. That's standard for the white goddess sub-genre. What isn't standard is Trader Horn's location shooting in the places known back then as the Terrritory of Tanganyika, the Protectorate of Uganda, Kenya Colony

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and the Belgian Congo. The expenduture must have been enormous, but the money shows—vividly. You won't be surprised to learn that people died making the film—one by being consumed by a crocodile, and the other by being trampled by a rhino. There were also numerous illnesses and accidents. And... it was all worth it! Just kidding. Thoughts and prayers.

We don't have to get into specifics on the movie's plot. There isn't much of one. It's more of a narrated travelogue than a linear story. Even so, it's a massive production well worth seeing. Obviously, old movies usually have their issues, none more so than old movies set in Africa. But if you go in with the right attitude they can be fun. For example, anytime a white character says something about how savage Africans are, just add to the end of the line of dialogue something like: “Says the guy from the race that invented flame throwers and the electric chair.” Also, take a drink (optional). The subsequent occasion an awful generalization is made about Africans, come up with two more horribly savage things whites invented. You'll never run out. Best pair from our screening: “Says the guy from the race that invented the Spanish Donkey and pension clawbacks.”

Look, here's the thing—it can be a good idea to keep it light when it comes to ninety-year-old movies that touch on race, sort of the way it can be a good idea to laugh it off when your grandfather tells you that during his miliary service he once went to Tokyo on shore leave and found the Japanese to be, “an inscrutable little people.” You can't change him, so you save your valuable anger for when you'll really need it, like when you go to Florida, where racism officially doesn't exist. In Trader Horn's defense, it may have been—like your grandpa—fairly liberal for the period. Kenyan castmember and Masai chieftain Mutia Omoolu gets at least a dozen lines of dialogue. We bet he didn't get paid union scale, though. Actually, the SAG didn't exist until 1933, but you get the point. Omoolu and fellow Kenyan performer Riano Tindama did, however, earn a trip to L.A. for reshoots, an event that occasioned some sensationalistic press coverage of a predictable nature.

We've wandered far afield. Let's crank this careening post back onto the main roadway and ask: Is Trader Horn a good movie? Owing to its age, we obviously wouldn't go that far. But it's a tremendous spectacle, and serious film buffs should see it. The idea that actors were out there on the veldt shooting this stuff instead of in front of a green screen emoting opposite a volleyball on a stick is amazing. But that type of unfiltered filmmaking is possibly gone for good. For one thing it costs a fortune. And generally, the arc of cultural development tends toward more safety, whether physically, mentally, professionally, or whatever. Beyond a doubt, certain things are lost along the way. Visceral cinematic realism comes to mind. But on the other hand, it's good for people not to be eaten by reptiles or contract schistosomiasis. Watch the movie and see what you think. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1931.

Tanganyika Uganda Kenya Sudan Belgian Congo Trader Horn Academy Award Harry Carey Edwina Booth Duncan Renaldo Alfred Aloysius Horn Mutia Omoolu Riano Tindama Olive Carey Olive Golden poster art cinema movie review

Intl. Notebook

Nov 27 2023

Okay, Emanuelle nera, scene seventy, take two. And, guys? Dial it back a little—this is an r-rated movie.

This fun production photo shows Javanese actress Laura Gemser and U.S. actor Don Powell in a grassy swatch somewhere in Kenya about to shoot a scene from their Italian made sexploitation epic Emanuelle nera, or Black Emanuelle, which premiered today in 1976. Feel free to read more about the movie here. Long story short, it's not good, but it's sure fun to watch. In the photo we love how Gemser has her knees fully in Powell's nuts. We imagine director Bitto Albertini: “Closer, Don. Get closer.” Powell: “This is as close as I can get without turning into a soprano.” Gemser: “I know the movie might automatically get an X from the ratings board if I open my legs, but Don and I have already rehearsed it that way a bunch, so why don't we try it?”

And now it's time for another real life Pulp Intl. story. Back when PSGP was working for Playboy he had a film producer friend in the softcore realm who needed extra crew one night for one of his productions. Such films often used porn actresses, and in this case there was a well known Russian performer who was booked to do a love scene. While in softcore films the actors often wore what were essentially tiny nylon hose over their units, and the actresses wore what were basically gigantic band-aids over their tender parts, it was always the performer's choice, and sometimes, for comfort reasons or whatever—with mutual consent—they didn't bother. This was obviously before the era of intimacy coordinators.

Anyway, came time to shoot a fake oral sex scene with the actress on her knees and the actor not wearing a stocking on his dick, and when the camera began rolling the Russian star began working her magic on the actor for real. He was surprised, clearly, but what could he say? He looked around confused, but made no noises about stopping the action. The director, who after about ten seconds realized what was happening, sort of shook his head and said, “Cut. Cut. Uh... [actress name] we won't be needing any of that today.” The entire set broke up in laughter. We're not suggesting anything like that happened between Gemser and Powell. It's just that the photo brought to mind that amusing story. We've got a million of 'em.

Italy Kenya Indonesia Java Black Emanuelle Emanuelle nera Laura Gemser Don Powell Bitto Albertini cinema sexploitation nudity

Vintage Pulp

Sep 23 2022

Mogambo features the cruelest beast in all of Africa—and its name is Clark Gable.

As famous as Mogambo is, we'd never seen it, had never read a review of it, and had no idea going in what it was about except that it was a safari movie and a remake of the 1932 adventure Red Dust, which we'd also never seen. There are few hit movies—especially with stars the stature of Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, and Grace Kelly—that we don't know at least a little something about. So we cleared the slate, cooked up some popcorn in our special Lindy's hand-cranked popper, and settled in for a screening.

Shot in Kenya, Uganda, French Equatorial Africa (now Central African Republic), and the Tanganyika region of what is now Democratic Republic of Congo, the movie is about a hard-edged safari guide and hunter played by Gable (also the star of Red Dust, by the way) who tries to score with both Gardner and Kelly, and soon has them at each other's throats. These old movies often work on the presumption that the male star is irresistible—period. As a result, screenwriters were sometimes lazy. They'd fail to write the male lead with any charm at all.

That holds true here, as Gable is gruff, rude, twenty years older than Gardner, and almost thirty years older than Kelly. We're fine about the age difference, unlike the “age appropriate” crowd that thinks women are capable of making any decision except ones about whom they love, but because Grant is a complete sourdough some charm would have made Gardner's and Kelly's attraction to him more understandable. Handsome though he may be, here he's nothing more than moustache, hair tonic, and bossiness. But okay, Gardner and Kelly are both in states of need, and Gable is more than happy to introduce them to his bush snake, so what you get is a love triangle folded inside a Technicolor safari adventure. Fine.

The production is spiced up with majestic scenery, nice costumes, realistic animal footage, an overwhelming feel of the exotic, the tantalizing implication of intimacy with two of the most beautiful women in cinema, and a deft, assured performance from Gardner. In fact, while Gable is top billed, Ava gets nearly all the good lines. “Listen, buster,” she scolds Clark, “you and your quick-change acts aren't gonna hang orange blossoms all over me just because you feel the cold weather coming on!” That's a scathing way to call someone old and desperate. But Gable has his moments too. We liked when he blustered, “You know how it is on safari. It's in all the books. The woman always falls for the white hunter and we guys make the most of it.” That's meta, so we hear.

Obviously, tribespeople figure prominently, and you can discern marginal improvement in their portrayal since the days of Weissmuller's Tarzan. They're still just ornamentation in their own lands, but at least none lay down their lives to save a white man who's spent most of his screen time cracking a whip at them. Whew. Overall, we thought Mogambo was decent. Not great, mind you—because Gable deserved to play a more nuanced character and did not have that chance—but it was decent. It premiered today in 1953.

Kenya Uganda French Equatorial Africa Central African Republic Democratic Republic of Congo Tanganyika Mogambo Clark Gable Ava Gardner Grace Kelly John Ford poster art cinema movie review

Vintage Pulp

Dec 5 2021

Everything in this jungle bites—including the script.

This poster for White Huntress, aka Golden Ivory, did its job—as soon as we saw it we had to watch the movie. We figured this must be fun. But looks can deceive. Despite the art of a woman in sexy rags fighting a python, what you actually get is a staid period piece set in 1890 in which two brothers venture into the Masai territory of what was then British East Africa in search of Kayanga, the legendary meeting place of the elephants. Their plan is to—wait for it—kill the animals and reap tons of ivory worth a fortune. Owing to its period setting the movie has the feel of a western, and in fact the subplot involves Brits venturing into the wild frontier in covered wagons like Sooners to take over native lands. So what you have here is a hybrid—part western, and part colonials-in-Africa movie. It's cheaply made, poorly written, and overall is a cringeworthy effort, filled with the self serving entitlement of invaders ascribing all sorts of moral and philosophical justifications to their thieving and slaughtering. But let's not get too deeply into it. Films are always of their era, moral flaws and all, and we're able to enjoy ones about colonial Africa as long as they're good, but White Huntress isn't. It premiered in Britain today in 1954.

Britain Kenya British East Africa White Huntress Golden Ivory Robert Urquhart John Bentley Susan Stephen Maureen Connell poster art cinema movie review

Femmes Fatales

Nov 4 2021

She was one of the year's best point and shoot models.

You see the above person identified on scores of websites as Lisa Montell, but that's another IRE™ (internet replication error). The photo actually shows Kenya born British actress Maureen Connell. Her first movie was, fittingly, 1954's The White Huntress, about British settlers in Kenya. Connell went on to appear in The Abominable Snowman, Port Afrique, and more than twenty television shows. This shot was made when she was filming 1957's Kill Her Gently. Note the amazing shadows of the gun and Connell's body the photographer created. For us, this is one of the better armed femme fatale photos we've seen. We'll revisit Connell soon.

Kenya Britain The White Huntress Golden Ivory The Abominable Snowman Port Afrique Kill Her Gently Maureen Connell Lisa Montell Lisa Janti

Vintage Pulp

Apr 20 2020

Laura Gemser makes an emancipation proclamation.

As you've deduced from the above Italian poster for La via della prostituzione, also known as Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade, we've performed a quick turnaround to Laura Gemser, last seen two days ago. In this flick she plays a journalist, a role she inhabited often, and heads to exotic Nairobi with sidekick Ely Galleani. In a Nairobi market Gemser sees a man hurrying a woman through the throng. She'd seen the same pair in the airport, except then the woman was in a wheelchair and the man was pushing it. Gemser asks her local tour guide, “Do you know that man?” His response: “That one? Only by sight. I only know that he's American, and that he comes on business, but I don't know what kind of business. Someone mentioned white slavery. But why do you ask?” Did you just cringe a little? We did too, but we get it—the white kind is far more important than the regular kind, init?

Anyway, while were still marvelling over the sad but somehow uproarious tone deafness of those dialogue exchanges, Gemser was busy jetting from Nairobi to New York City to find more info about this American slaver. After promising her editor the biggest scoop of her career, she manages to charm her way into a slave auction taking place—in an amazing stroke of luck—right there in the Big Apple. She watches as girls as young as seventeen are sold to hairy-knuckled jetsetters, including that mysterious Yank, played by hirsute Italian Gabriele Tinti. Now that she knows the basic shape of the wrongdoing taking place, she needs evidence. How does she gather it? That's right—by infiltrating the slave racket as product. She's accepted as a high priced prostitute, and from NYC she's off to San Diego to work in a private club, where she hopes to blow the racket wide open.

You may be asking yourself, Wait, how is this all voluntary for her if it's a slave ring? That question is never fully answered. Somehow, though, she's accepted in the game as a freelancer, while all the other girls seem to be wholly owned chattel. It doesn't matter. This is sexploitation cinema, and what matters are nudity and sex, which means that mixed into the confounding plotline are an amazing number of sex scenes, which consist of cast members slithering softcore style against each other like salamanders while soporific music drifts across the soundtrack. It's all very silly, but the entire point of these films is to create gauzy eye candy, not dazzle you with cinematic mastery or make social statements more than a micron deep. Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade fulfills all the requirements of the genre, not brilliantly, but certainly adequately. It premiered in Italy today in 1978.

Italy Kenya Nairobi New York City San Diego La via della prostituzione Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade Laura Gemser Ely Galleani poster art cinema sexploitation movie review

Vintage Pulp

Aug 16 2019

With special guests the Slaymates of the year.

Today we have some beautiful rarities, a set of door panel posters made for the 1968 Dean Martin spy movie spoof The Wrecking Crew. Martin played the wise-cracking and woman-loving Matt Helm, a character created by novelist Donald Hamilton. There have been a lot of loveable drunks in cinema, but Martin certainly was one of the most popular. Boozy Matt Helm was a perfect role for him, and the first film became the launching point for a series that stretched to four entries.

The Wrecking Crew was the last film, coming after 1966's The Silencers and Murderer's Row, and 1967's The Ambushers. The movies were populated by a group of women known as Slaygirls, and the actresses on the posters below are posing as members of that deadly cadre. They are, top to bottom, Sharon Tate, Elke Sommer, Nancy Kwan, Tina Louise, and a fifth woman no other website seems able to identify, but who we're pretty sure is Kenya Coburn.

These posters are 51 x 152 centimeters in size, or 20 x 60 for you folks who measure in inches, and they caught our eye mainly because of Tate. There's been renewed interest in her, including portrayals in two 2019 films—The Haunting of Sharon Tate and Quentin Tarantino's new effort Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Her poster is definitely one of the nicest pieces of Tate memorabilia we've seen.

We glanced at The Silencers a while back and found it just a little too dumb to consider slogging through the series, but maybe we'll have another go at it. We're sort of newly interested in Tate too, and since The Wrecking Crew was her next-to-last screen role, we want to have a look. Allegedly, Dean Martin quit this highly successful franchise because it felt wrong to go on with it after the Tate–LaBianca murders in August 1969. From what we've read about the era, Martin was far from the only person who felt as if that event changed everything. These days Tate's death makes anything she's in seem ironic and portentous, even, we suspect, a piece of fluff like The Wrecking Crew.

The Wrecking Crew The Silencers Murderer's Row The Ambushers Dean Martin Elke Sommer Tina Louise Nancy Kwan Sharon Tate Kenya Coburn Donald Hamilton Leno LaBianca Rosemary LaBianca Charles Manson poster art cinema

Hollywoodland

Oct 14 2017

Phantom actress puts men in their place.

We're back to National Spotlite with a cover published today in 1968. The photo is of actress Carolyn Haynes, and a headline goes to actress Caroline Lee, who says she makes men crawl for her sexual favors. The money quote: “If women use their bodies the right way they can be the most powerful people on Earth.” A quote like that sounds suspiciously like it was fabricated by a man, and in fact while several Caroline Lees appear on IMDB, none fit the profile required to have done this interview—i.e. born sometime in the 1940s or possibly in 1950. National Spotlite is busted again. The editors simply could never have imagined a globally accessible actor database. We also did a search on Haynes and likewise learned she never existed

But some of the celebs are real. In Spotlite's “Dateline: The World” feature readers are treated to a photo of Chris Noel. It's been a long time since we've seen her—eight years to be exact. Spotlite tells us she smashed a vase over the head of a nightclub employee when he tried to force his way into her dressing room in Sydney one night. “The man attempted to romance her but she spurned every overture he made. When he tried to use violence to get his way she spilt open his skull.” We found no mention of the incident in any other source, but we like the story for how it turns out. If her assailant had known anything at all about Chris Noel he'd have rememberd her publicity tours of Vietnam and realized she was one tough celeb.

“Dateline: The World” next regales readers with a tale out of Africa. "Cary Grant arrived in Nairobi to join a hunting safari and has been escorting two six-foot dark-skinned native girls to whatever cafes in town they can get into, and has caused quite a bit of controversy by doing so. Grant traded punches with a man in one spot when the gent took offense at Cary's dates. Cary flattened the man, but the stranger rose to his feet flashing a knife and only the quick efforts of the bartender and cafe owner averted further trouble for the star. Cary and the girls fled while the others were subduing the knife wielder."

Paris: "Juliette Prowse was detained the other night after she threw a make-up case through the window of a drug store. She had purchased some cosmetics at the American Drug on the Champs-Élysées, but brought the order back the same night. She claimed that she'd made a mistake and didn't need the cosmetics. The salesman explained that he would exchange the merchandise or give Prowse credit, but no cash refund. Juliette roared out of the place. Outside she hurled her make-up case through the store's front window. Two policemen saw her smash the window and nabbed her on the spot."

Beirut: "David Niven and wife Hjordis ran into an embarrassing situation in a night spot while making the cafe rounds in this Lebanese city. A belly dancer took such a fancy to David that she did her act for him alone. She even sat on his lap. The patrons objected to her performing for just one man and began to throw things at her and at Niven. David and Hjordis ran for the exits after he pushed the girl off his lap."

Capri: "Noel Coward is nursing bruises on his face. He says he was attacked by two young men while he was out strolling one night. The muggers made off with a pair of cuff links given to him by Raquel Welch and a watch from Greta Garbo. Coward was found half-conscious and bleeding."

You get the gist—celebs in trouble. Back during the heyday of tabloids Confidential had bellhops, bartenders, chauffeurs, maîtres d'hôtel, and cops by the hundreds phoning in hot tips, but Spotlite was never more than a second tier rag and could not have had the resources to uncover the above stories. Therefore the editors either made them up or lifted them from other tabloids. We suspect the latter—with the stories ginned up for entertainment value. Cary Grant in Nairobi with two Kenyan escorts? We'll buy it. Grant risking his million dollar mug in a fistfight? Improbable. But the stories sure are fun. See more from National Spotlite by clicking here.

Vintage Pulp

May 20 2016

I'm sorry for bringing you here, baby. The travel guides didn't make the Day of Blood sound nearly so violent and terrifying.

William Vance's Day of Blood looks like a western at first glance, but it's actually set in Kenya against the backdrop of a looming uprising by the Mau Mau, whose “maniacal leader had vowed to kill all the whites in Kenya on sight.” What nerve, right? Some people just refuse to take invasion, land theft, and mass subjugation lying down. This one has all the hallmarks of mid-century fiction set in Africa—rugged and world weary hero, sexually desperate women ranging from rapacious to virginal, and, of course, wrongheaded tribal locals trying to ruin the colonial party. Not our thing, but for readers willing to look past the obvious shortcomings, these types of books often offer solid entertainment. 1961 copyright on this one, with nice art from Harry Schaare.

Kenya Monarch Books William Vance Harry Schaare cover art literature

Vintage Pulp

Apr 3 2016

Once you go Black Emanuelle you never go back.

Javanese beauty Laura Gemser isn't black in the ethnic sense, but you know that going into Black Emanuelle, first of the Italian-made sexploitation series that borrowed the French Emmanuelle concept and took it to places its originators could never have imagined. Gemser could actually be half black or mostly black, going by skin tone alone, but in a way her being South Asian in real life becomes the whole point, as it makes all her love scenes titillatingly interracial, whether she's getting it on with Africans or white foreigners. This is the tamest of the series—before poor Emanuelle was beset by voodoo priests, cannibals, and worse.

In addition to the honeyed Gemser in the starring role you get a scoop of vanilla Schubert on top—German actress Karin Schubert. We aren’t going to bother to tell you about the plot of this one—it follows the form of other movies about westerners who get freaky in the African bush and eventually leave with profound insights and fond memories (cue shot of dreamy eyed actress gazing out airplane window as dark, mysterious Africa recedes below). In addition to the Japanese poster above we were able to locate quite a few promo images, including two of Gemser and Schubert doing field tests of Newton’s laws of physical motion. See below. Black Emanuelle opened in Japan today in 1976.