In film noir you always need to watch your step.
A long while back we talked about the 1948 thriller Pitfall and shared a rare insert poster. Today we're showing you the standard size, usually referred to as a one sheet. Pitfall is worth a watch for a couple of reasons, but mainly because Dick Powell is a very watchable star. When we began this website, back when he was new to us, we called him “solid.” All these years later we now think of him as one of the better stars of his era.
Jane Russell poster reveals more to citydwellers than to heartlanders but in the end it's all the same.
We already talked about the Robert Mitchum/Jane Russell film noir His Kind of Woman, which premiered in the U.S. today in 1951. We recently stumbled across the above curiosity. You may remember our exploration of overlays in mid-century pin-up art (fascinating examples here, here, here, here, and here) and as it turns out, Russell received similar treatment. The cover-up on the second poster isn't an overlay. It's printed onto the paper. But the result is the same. Cleavage be gone! If we had to guess, the modest poster probably was issued everywhere in the U.S. except large cities. But the thing is, such a clumsy reworking—as opposed to just using a different image of Russell entirely—clearly serves to tell viewers they've been denied something, which we suspect was almost as effective at drawing traffic into cinemas as revealing what was covered. But only almost. Which is why at Pulp Intl. we always reveal everything.
She's dressed for a funeral—yours.
U.S. actress Bonita Granville appears to shoot from hip in this fun promo image made for her 1946 film noir Suspense, in which she starred with Barry Sullivan and Belita. In addition to the unusual pose and the shiny black dress, which we love, the lighting on this creates the illusion of the gun being fired. Granville was an acting prodigy. She began her career on stage at age three, was successful in cinema by age ten, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1936's These Three at age fourteen. We talked about Suspense several years ago, so if you're interested you can read about it here.
I'm doing okay, thanks for asking. Well, no, come to think of it, not really.
Beverly Michaels looks in reasonable spirits in the first photo in this series made for her 1953 film noir Wicked Woman, but her mood seems to go downhill in the next two shots. That's a progression that occurs nightly in millions of bars across the planet, but particularly in film noir bars, where something nearly always goes wrong. In Wicked Woman Michaels is the thing that goes wrong. She plays a classic femme predator named Billie Nash, who's intent upon corrupting a basically good man. Michaels had only eight credited roles in a short career that ran from 1949 to 1956, but she was highly influential in establishing the bad girl trope in 1950s cinema. Other bad girls followed, but she was one of the first and worst.
A beautiful old poster turns out to be a beautiful new poster.
Yes, we just showed you a nice Japanese poster for Laura, and here we are again with another promo, this one French made and very striking. There's more than one French promo for the movie, but this is a special one. It's signed by the artist—Goldman. At first we were unable to find his first name, though we did immediately find another poster he created. That piece was for Orson Welles' 1946 drama The Stranger, so at that point we were thinking Goldman was an overlooked talent from the golden age of cinema.
We used all our internet mining skills and learned, according to an auction website we visited, that Goldman's poster for The Stranger was for a cinematic re-release that occurred much more recently than the 1940s. That meant Laura was probably made for a re-release too. We soon determined that both The Stranger and Laura were screened in France in August 2012. The Cinémathèque Française, which isa venerable film society housed in a building designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry, each year offers a slate of vintage and restored films, often focusing on one or several filmmakers. In 2012 Otto Preminger, director of Laura, was one of filmmakers being honored, along with Welles, Manoel de Oliveira, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and others.
So, if we've gotten all this correct—which is no guarantee—the poster we thought was a rare piece of vintage promo art is actually a rare piece of modern promo art. And to think we always complain about modern promo art. So, okay, for the moment we're silenced, because this is excellent work. Still, though, we couldn't find out about Goldman. The internet is often heavy on noise and short on signal. With well known Goldmans out there ranging from Emma to Oscar to Sachs, we can't isolate our Goldman no matter what keyword/quotation mark/Boolean trick we try. But maybe the answer will turn up later. It often does.
He doesn't know art but he knows what he loves.
Above is a super promo poster for the 1944 film noir Laura, which starred Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, and Vincent Price. The figures, painted by an unknown, don't look anything like Tierney, Andrews, and Price, but still, we love it. The film premiered in Japan today in 1947 and was called ローラ殺人事件, which means “Laura murder.” Many film experts have written about Laura, but everything they say boils down the same conclusion—see it. Any perceived flaws are due to contemporary societal changes. Specifically—falling in love was accepted by World War II-era movie audiences as something that could happen easily, therefore filmmakers didn't have to expend much effort explaining it. In Laura, Andrews falls in love with a woman via her painted portrait. That's actually somewhat understandable, because he can make up anything he wants about her. But the movie's second instance of falling in love is more like, “Oh, this guy loves me, so I guess I love him too.” Modern filmgoers don't really buy that sort of thing, but when it comes to old films we consider it a feature, not a bug. Just skip the preliminaries and get to the lovin'. Hmm... we like that. Maybe we'll put that on a t-shirt.
Two tough guys plus one Gloria Grahame add up to minus one tough guy.
This rare promo for the film noir Naked Alibi shows Gloria Grahame caught between mortal enemies Sterling Hayden and Gene Barry. The movie premiered in the U.S. today in 1954. We talked about it last year. Shorter version: b movie tries hard but could b better.
Suspense so thick you could cut it with a sword.
Above: an alternate poster for the 1946 film noir Suspense. This one is similar to the one we showed you before, except Belita gets to be front and center by herself. Swords—it looks like a knife but it's definitely a sword—feature prominently in the movie, so the use of one as a central element on the art is mandatory. You can read a little more here, and see a lovely image of Belita here.
| |
|
|
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1926—Aimee Semple McPherson Disappears
In the U.S., Canadian born evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears from Venice Beach, California in the middle of the afternoon. She is initially thought to have drowned, but on June 23, McPherson stumbles out of the desert in Agua Prieta, a Mexican town across the border from Douglas, Arizona, claiming to have been kidnapped, drugged, tortured and held for ransom in a shack by two people named Steve and Mexicali Rose. However, it soon becomes clear that McPherson's tale is fabricated, though to this day the reasons behind it remain unknown. 1964—Mods and Rockers Jailed After Riots
In Britain, scores of youths are jailed following a weekend of violent clashes between gangs of Mods and Rockers in Brighton and other south coast resorts. Mods listened to ska music and The Who, wore suits and rode Italian scooters, while Rockers listened to Elvis and Gene Vincent, and rode motorcycles. These differences triggered the violence. 1974—Police Raid SLA Headquarters
In the U.S., Los Angeles police raid the headquarters of the revolutionary group the Symbionese Liberation Army, resulting in the deaths of six members. The SLA had gained international notoriety by kidnapping nineteen-year old media heiress Patty Hearst from her Berkeley, California apartment, an act which precipitated her participation in an armed bank robbery. 1978—Charlie Chaplin's Missing Body Is Found
Eleven weeks after it was disinterred and stolen from a grave in Corsier near Lausanne, Switzerland, Charlie Chaplin's corpse is found by police. Two men—Roman Wardas, a 24-year-old Pole, and Gantscho Ganev, a 38-year-old Bulgarian—are convicted in December of stealing the coffin and trying to extort £400,000 from the Chaplin family. 1918—U.S. Congress Passes the Sedition Act
In the U.S., Congress passes a set of amendments to the Espionage Act called the Sedition Act, which makes "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces, as well as language that causes foreigners to view the American government or its institutions with contempt, an imprisonable offense. The Act specifically applies only during times of war, but later is pushed by politicians as a possible peacetime law, specifically to prevent political uprisings in African-American communities. But the Act is never extended and is repealed entirely in 1920.
|
|
|
It's easy. We have an uploader that makes it a snap. Use it to submit your art, text, header, and subhead. Your post can be funny, serious, or anything in between, as long as it's vintage pulp. You'll get a byline and experience the fleeting pride of free authorship. We'll edit your post for typos, but the rest is up to you. Click here to give us your best shot.
|
|