| Femmes Fatales | Jul 11 2019 |
Hold very still. This is the first time I've tried this.
Janet Leigh prepares to demonstrate her dagger throwing skills in this promo photo made when she was filming the action comedy The Spy in the Green Hat. The movie was actually an episode of the hit television show Man from U.N.C.L.E. expanded to feature length, and starred Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo, with Leigh playing a dangerous vixen who loves torturing her enemies. This was the fifth time one of the show's episodes was expanded for cinemas. We've seen none of them, but we may check this one out just to see Leigh do her knife throwing act. The shot was made in 1967.
| Hollywoodland | Jan 13 2019 |
I'm fine. It's all good. I'm calm. I said I'm calm!
Winston Churchill coordinated his share of bombing campaigns, and it looks as if his daughter Sarah Churchill learned a thing or two about bombs herself—f-bombs, that is. Check the time on the clock. Things started out okay, but over the course of several minutes it looks like she worked herself up to, “Fuck you! And fuck you! And fuck you! And fuck you too!” This is funnier than we can explain because we had a female acquaintance do this very thing to three cops a little while back.
Churchill, who is also known as Sarah Millicent Hermione Touchet-Jesson, Baroness Audley, opted for a show business career when she was young, and as Sarah Churchill appeared in films such as Royal Wedding and All Over the Town, as well as in dozens of television movies. In these images she's been arrested in Los Angeles for drunkenness, and after being conducted to the copshop had this little dust-up with the uniforms and a nurse.
This wasn't the only time Churchill drank herself into custody. In general, she lived a flamboyant life that overshadowed her acting career and annoyed her father. She wrote about these issues in her 1981 autobiography Keep On Dancing, the title of which refers to her early dance classes and subsequent desire to become a chorus girl. But on the above occasion we suspect Churchill probably learned that cops don't dance. That was today in 1958.
This wasn't the only time Churchill drank herself into custody. In general, she lived a flamboyant life that overshadowed her acting career and annoyed her father. She wrote about these issues in her 1981 autobiography Keep On Dancing, the title of which refers to her early dance classes and subsequent desire to become a chorus girl. But on the above occasion we suspect Churchill probably learned that cops don't dance. That was today in 1958.
| Femmes Fatales | Jan 3 2019 |
You have to know when it's time to branch out.
Andrea Dromm is wearing a jumpsuit, which is fitting because she's going to have to jump if she ever wants to get out of this tree. A model and actress, she had one of the shorter careers, appearing in two movies and one television show. But one of the movies was the hit comedy The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! and the television show was Star Trek, so she's better remembered than someone with such a small filmography normally would be. After acting she went on to devote her time to modeling, and has been stuck in this tree since posing there in 1966.
| Intl. Notebook | Dec 3 2018 |
Television makes a celebrity of a natural born Kira.
Above is another cover of the Portuguese magazine O Século Ilustrado, this time with a non-Hollywood face. She's Kira Shirk, who gained fame when Europe learned she had been a sniper in the Russian infantry during World War II's Battle of Leningrad. The magazine explains that she's appearing on NBC's Big Surprise, a game show that culminated in a high pressure question worth $100,000 if the contestant answered it correctly. Shirk had pledged to donate part of her winnings to an organization called Crusade for Freedom. Did she win? No idea, but her question was supposed to be about weapons and war, so we're going with yes. Great image, published today in 1955. More here.
| Femmes Fatales | Dec 2 2018 |
From behind the microscope to in front of the camera.
You don't know U.S. actress Emily Yancy but she's been around for a long time. She started performing on television in 1963 and is still going strong as of 2018. Of her few cinematic efforts two were notable—the blaxploitation classics Cotton Comes to Harlem and Blacula. Her small screen appearances include Starsky & Hutch, The Mod Squad, and MacGyver.
The above photo is from 1961, and it was made when she was eighteen years old and competing in the Miss American Beauty Pageant, not be confused with the Miss America Pageant. Interesting story, she was a biology major and was working at NYU Medical Center operating an electron microscope when her coworkers persuaded her to give parading up and down a stage in a swimsuit a shot. She won Miss American Beauty, which gave her a chance to compete again in France.
She was sent to Cannes and finished second in the Miss Cannes Film Festival competition. After that Hollywood called and those boring old electrons were forgotten. Television, film, nightclub performing, modeling and a lot of travel followed. There's a lesson in this story, and maybe not one that should be taught to little girls—Forget science! Give us a little leg!—but you don't need a microscope to see that Yancy takes a great picture, and her career longevity suggests she made a good choice.
She was sent to Cannes and finished second in the Miss Cannes Film Festival competition. After that Hollywood called and those boring old electrons were forgotten. Television, film, nightclub performing, modeling and a lot of travel followed. There's a lesson in this story, and maybe not one that should be taught to little girls—Forget science! Give us a little leg!—but you don't need a microscope to see that Yancy takes a great picture, and her career longevity suggests she made a good choice.
FranceCannesCannes Film FestivalNew York CityCotton Comes to HarlemBlaculaStarsky & HutchThe Mod SquadMacGyverEmily Yancytelevisionblaxploitation
| Modern Pulp | Nov 28 2018 |
S*H*E* spies with her little eye a low rent plot to destroy the world.
We're doing the acronymic spy thing a third day in row because we have this amazing Japanese poster for the 1980 U.S. film S*H*E*. This shows that the idea of imitating James Bond's acronymic and numeric organizations continued for many years after the trend peaked during the 1960s. Cornelia Sharpe stars as a Security Hazards Expert who battles an international crime ring that threatens the global oil supply.
Interestingly, this was written by Roger Maibaum, who wrote more than a dozen Bond screenplays, including Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Licence To Kill. Which tells you that he may have been envisioning the same sort of high gloss action as in his Bond movies. But we're telling you that his vision was thwarted by a low budget, flat acting from Sharpe, less than compelling music, and the fact that this was a CBS television pilot. For now you can watch it on YouTube at this link—if you dare.
Those with sharp eyes, or Sharpe eyes, will have noticed that the poster was painted by Robert McGinnis. Since it was a made-for-television movie, the U.S. promo art obviously doesn't feature the cut away sections of costume that reveal breasts and midriff. Those subtractions make this piece rare and expensive. Our question immediately became whether the skin meant the international version of the movie had nudity. It actually does, briefly, but that's no help at all.
JapanCBSS*H*E*Dr. NoGoldfingerLicence To KillCornelia SharpeJames BondRoger MaibaumRobert McGinnisposter arttelevisionmovie review
| Modern Pulp | Nov 15 2018 |
Eli Roth and AMC make History with a seven part look at horror cinema.
Those of you in the U.S. who appreciate horror cinema may want to carve out a little time Sunday night for the final episode of the retrospective Eli Roth's History of Horror. It's been airing weekly on the cable network American Movie Classics, aka AMC, since mid-October. Though the British network BBC broadcast a very good three part horror retrospective in 2010 (and it even had a similar title—A History of Horror), genre landscapes shift quickly. The Brit series was made before important films like Get Out, It, Let Me In, its remake Let the Right One In, et al hit cinemas. Eli Roth's History of Horror is a newer and deeper look at fright films. Each 60-minute episode focuses on a specific type of terror, such as vampires, monsters, demons, and slashers.
Overall the series is great. Roth discusses not just the movies, but horror's cultural impact, and weights those observations toward the last ten years. Because of the change that has occurred this decade those sections resonate nicely. Horror's ability to make social issues digestible as allegories is a key part of the form's worth. For instance, Get Out's idea of the sunken place, a metaphor for living (and dying) while black in America, would be rejected by many white filmgoers if it were in a standard narrative. But for us the social impact of horror movies is merely a bonus. We love them viscerally first, intellectually second. We love
the tension that results from not knowing—usually, at least—which characters will survive. We love how the films' kinetic and often low budget natures lead to amazing little accidents, such as the bit in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when Leatherface grabs Teri McMinn on the porch of his house and both the girl's sandals fly off. That sort of detail isn't in a script. It happens during the shoot, and the director thanks the filmic gods for the extra iota of serendipitous realism.
the tension that results from not knowing—usually, at least—which characters will survive. We love how the films' kinetic and often low budget natures lead to amazing little accidents, such as the bit in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when Leatherface grabs Teri McMinn on the porch of his house and both the girl's sandals fly off. That sort of detail isn't in a script. It happens during the shoot, and the director thanks the filmic gods for the extra iota of serendipitous realism. While very good, the series isn't perfect. In the episode on zombies, Roth discusses slow moving zombies for a while, then erroneously credits the arrival of speedy zombies to Danny Boyle 2002 hit 28 Days Later. But it was 1985's Return of the Living Dead that featured the first sprinting zombies in an American movie, and this was preceded by the 1980 Italian zombie epic Incubo sulla città contaminata, aka Nightmare City. We also were surprised Near Dark was ignored in the vampire episode. Time
has shown it to be better and more influential than The Lost Boys, which was discussed at length. If you doubt that, note that Near Dark's critic score on Rotten Tomatoes is 88%, while Lost Boys' is 27%. Critics are often wrong, especially when it comes to horror, but that level of variance is no fluke. And just to settle the argument, the audience rater on that website also prefers Near Dark. We suspect either box office receipts or Roth's personal preference played a role there, when quality should have been the deciding factor.
But we were gratified to see that many of our cherished beliefs were echoed by Roth and his co-hosts Rob Zombie and The Walking Dead producer Greg Nicotero. Yes, the towering werewolf from The Howling is the scariest ever put on screen. Beyond a doubt, John Carpenter's The Thing, which was close to universally panned upon release, is a top tier thriller. We're anticipating the segment on ghosts, the focus of Sunday night's series finale. We imagine these were saved for last because viewers are most interested in the subject, a curiosity that derives from the fact that many people actually believe ghosts exist. We expect the episode to discuss such old and new classics as The Haunting, The Shining, The Ring, and The Woman in Black. We'll see. But no spoilers, please. If you're in the States you can watch it before we do, whereas we'll have to (totally legally, we swear) download it the next day. But whenever you watch it, the show has been a nice treat for horror aficionados.
has shown it to be better and more influential than The Lost Boys, which was discussed at length. If you doubt that, note that Near Dark's critic score on Rotten Tomatoes is 88%, while Lost Boys' is 27%. Critics are often wrong, especially when it comes to horror, but that level of variance is no fluke. And just to settle the argument, the audience rater on that website also prefers Near Dark. We suspect either box office receipts or Roth's personal preference played a role there, when quality should have been the deciding factor.But we were gratified to see that many of our cherished beliefs were echoed by Roth and his co-hosts Rob Zombie and The Walking Dead producer Greg Nicotero. Yes, the towering werewolf from The Howling is the scariest ever put on screen. Beyond a doubt, John Carpenter's The Thing, which was close to universally panned upon release, is a top tier thriller. We're anticipating the segment on ghosts, the focus of Sunday night's series finale. We imagine these were saved for last because viewers are most interested in the subject, a curiosity that derives from the fact that many people actually believe ghosts exist. We expect the episode to discuss such old and new classics as The Haunting, The Shining, The Ring, and The Woman in Black. We'll see. But no spoilers, please. If you're in the States you can watch it before we do, whereas we'll have to (totally legally, we swear) download it the next day. But whenever you watch it, the show has been a nice treat for horror aficionados.
AMCEli Roth's History of HorrorReturn of the Living Dead28 Days LaterIncubo sulla città contaminataNightmare CityThe ThingNear DarkThe Lost BoysThe HowlingThe ShiningThe Woman in BlackThe Texas Chainsaw MassacreGet OutItLet Me InLet the Right One InThe HauntingThe RingEli RothDanny BoyleRob ZombieTeri McMinnJohn Carpentertelevisionhorror
| Femmes Fatales | Nov 10 2018 |
You guys have fun on the mountain. I'm skiing directly over to the chalet and hot tub.
There are those that ski and those that get loaded on Champagne in the jacuzzi. U.S. born actress Jane Wald seems to be in the latter category. Though she may have been a high altitude partier, she was more of a medium altitude actress, with a career comprising mostly guest slots on television shows, including two appearances on Batman. But this shot is epic. It's from 1966 and first appeared in the Belgian magazine Ciné-Revue.
| Femmes Fatales | Nov 4 2018 |
Leigh Christian is just right.
In the Goldilocks fable too hot and too cold are both unacceptable, but in our opinion there's no such thing as too hot, at least not when it comes to vintage actresses. Leigh Christian's credits were mostly on television, where she appeared on Hawaii Five-O, McCloud, Barnaby Jones, Starsky and Hutch, and many other shows. Among her few films were low budget efforts such as The Doll Squad and Beyond Atlantis. Her most recent role was as herself in 2010's Machete Maidens Unleashed, a brilliant and funny documentary about ’70s schlock cinema. The golden photo above is from early in Christian's career, 1969, when she was probably dreaming of bigger things than cheesy network cop shows. But ultimately she acted for twenty years, and that isn't a bad run by any measure.
The Doll SquadBeyond AtlantisMachete Maidens UnleashedHawaii Five-OMcCloudBarnaby JonesStarsky and HutchLeigh Christiantelevision
| Femmes Fatales | Jun 24 2018 |
Who's up for hanging out in the hot tub?
Above is U.S. actress Ingrid Greer, who appeared in a few television shows and starred in one low rent exploitation movie—Ciro Santiago's hilariously bad 1978 women-in-prison flick Hell Hole. Though Greer's career was minor, this photo is major, which is to say she looks great in it. However we'd be remiss in our pulply duties if we failed to inform that Greer has a place in bizarro Hollywood lore—earned by drowning in a hot tub in 1981. Oh well. There are far sillier ways to go.
 |
 |
