| Vintage Pulp | Sep 8 2020 |
Say it! Say it louder, you swine! With onion soup you should drink only a basic vin blanc or possibly an aligoté!
It's a cliché, but one we've noticed to be true, that the French tend to be polemical in their opinions about artistic matters. Movies, literature, painting, architecture, all of these things are either magnificent or total shit. Which leads to some interesting discussions. The big chasm between us and one of our French friends happens to do with food and drink—typically Champagne versus cava, or rillettes versus paté. So for us, this cover for Coup de main reminded us of those discussions. Just for the record, E.E., here on our website where you can't argue—we think cava and paté are just dandy no matter what you say.
Coup de main is number fifty-five in Éditions du Grand Damier's Espionnage series, published in 1958, and written by Jaques Dubessy under the pseudonym Slim Harrisson. That's a name you see a lot in vintage French fiction because it was credited with nearly one hundred novels, and we assume few if any of them are total shit. In this particular book Harrisson's franchise hero Sam Morgan's adventures carry him from FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to Tangier, Lisbon, and beyond. The cover art here is by Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, the towering figure of French paperback and pin-up illustration.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 8 2020 |
Internal medicine has never been quite like this.
More pinku today, with a beautiful Nikkatsu Studios promo for the roman porno flick Kangofu nikki: Itazurana yubi, known in English as Nurse Diary: Wicked Finger. Etsuko Hara stars as a nurse who works at Murata Hospital and is having an affair with her boss, who hopes to inherit the chief of staff position from his wife's father. Side note for our female readers: never trust a guy who'll cheat on his wife. He'll certainly cheat on you too.
And that's exactly what happens to Etsuko, as her doctor boyfriend takes his internal medicine position literally, with any willing patient that comes along. In order to facilitate her affair with the doctor, Etsuko has moved out of the apartment she was sharing with family members, but now that looks like a mistake, as little sister Emi is left behind to suffer the tender mercies of a sexual predator—oldest sister Keiko.
Yeah, these roman porno movies go anywhere and everywhere, including places they really shouldn't, and that's before we even get to the wicked finger part. And since it wouldn't be roman porno without a totally leftfield subplot, Etsuko in her new apartment has drawn the attentions of a peeping tom, who is so driven to lust by Etsuko's yoga routine that he fantasizes about her while fucking a vacuum cleaner hose, and gets stuck.
And that's all the info we're going to give you. If you want to know where else the movie goes—and who wouldn't?—you'll have to watch it yourself. But first a test. Does the shot of Etsuko at bottom make you want to fuck a vacuum? Then take precautions and lock yours up before watching the movie. Your dick will thank you. Kangofu nikki: Itazurana yubi premiered in Japan today in 1979.
JapanKangofu nikki: Itazurana yubiNurse Diary: Wicked FingerNikkatsuEtsuko HaraAsami Ogawaposter artcinemapinkuroman pornonuditysexploitationmovie review
| The Naked City | Sep 7 2020 |
Man tries to catch train, train catches him instead.
These photos show an unfortunate man named John Heldt, Jr. trapped under a Pacific Electric freight car in Gardena, California. Getty Images has this listed as happening August 7, 1951, but the USC digital film archive where the image is stored has the date as today. We trust USC over Getty, but whenever it happened, it was a bad day for Heldt, maybe not the worst of his life, but certainly in the top five, we can be sure. His rescuers had to bring in special equipment to lift the train off him, so he was probably pinned for hours, his indignity compounded by the fact that a Los Angeles Examiner photographer made these snaps of him. “Can you hold that pose? Heh heh, that's a joke, see, because you can't move at all, you poor, stupid sap!” There's no info on whether Heldt recovered, nor whether he lost any body parts. Still, as bad as this looks, it's better than flying Ryanair.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 7 2020 |
Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.
When we saw Jean Peters in 1953's Pickup on South Street, it was our first exposure to her, and we immediately knew we'd be seeking out more of her work later. Last night we watched another film of hers from 1953—the mystery Vicki, which is based on Steve Fisher's 1941 novel I Wake Up Screaming. Peters plays an up and coming New York City model and actress who's found murdered. The rest of the film, told partly in flashback, details her rise from obscurity to celebrated It girl, and the investigation that follows her killing. Jeanne Crain plays Peters' sister who's dedicated to finding the truth, and Richard Boone takes on the unusual role of an emotionally unstable lead detective whose assumptions affect his objectivity.
The movie plays like a partial retread of 1946's Laura, and like Gene Tierney's famed character Laura Hunt, Peters' aspiring superstar Vicki Reed has a profound effect on people even after her death, from broken hearts to poisonous resentment. But Vicki doesn't have the same atmosphere and narrative heft as Laura. Even though it's a mystery, there are no real surprises. Still, we've seen far worse films, and Peters' performance is fine, if not quite as enjoyable as her jaded working class beauty from Pickup on South Street. We recommend that film unreservedly, and Vicki cautiously. It premiered in New York City today in 1953 before going into national release on October 5.
New York CityVickiJean PetersJeanne CrainRichard BooneElliott ReidSteve Fisherposter artcinemafilm noirmovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 6 2020 |
Tanaka is crazy like a fox in diamond hunting caper.
Nikkatsu Studios goes cute on this fun poster for the pinku comedy Kôshoku kazoku: Kitsune to tanuki, known in English as Amorous Family: Like a Fox and a Raccoon. This starred the iconic Mari Tanaka, along with Mikiko Sakai and Michiko Komori, and the story revolves around several horny sisters and the search for a missing cache of diamonds worth 200 million yen. There's the usual sex and perversion, plus a typically pinku ending steeped in irony. We also managed to track down a promo image from the same shoot that spawned the poster. Looks like it was a fun session. We'll get back to Tanaka a bit later. Kôshoku kazoku: Kitsune to tanuki premiered in Japan today in 1972.
JapanNikkatsuKôshoku kazoku: Kitsune to tanukiAmorous Family: Like a Fox and a RaccoonMari TanakaMichiko Komoriposter artcinemapinku
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 5 2020 |
Sir Squeezalot starts slow but once he gets warmed up he's a hell of a lot of fun.
1967's Diary of a Dyke was published by Greenleaf Classics for its imprint Pleasure Readers, and the, er, interesting cover was painted by Tomas Cannizarro. The book was written by Robert Silverberg under his Don Elliott alter ego. The distinguished Silverberg is of course famous as the mind behind award winning novels like A Time of Changes and Lord Valentine's Castle, but early in his career he paid the bills by surreptitiously cranking out sleaze classics like LSD Lusters and Sin on Wheels. When these serious writers are outed for their early smut we always picture them reacting like vampires suddenly exposed to the light, shrinking into a far corner and hissing eternal curses. But Silverberg seems pretty chill about having worked in soft porn. He even wrote the foreword to one of the reprints. We'll undoubtedly run across more from him and his worse half later, but until then feel free to click his/their keywords below and explore our previous postings.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 3 2020 |
Predatory housing market claims more victims.
Is there such a thing as a movie poster that's too effective? This particular promo was painted by J. Gommers to promote the Belgian run of the horror movie The Haunting. Luckily, we already saw the movie, because we aren't sure we'd brave it based on this freaky piece of art. It opened in the U.S. in 1963 and reached Belgium titled La Maison du diable in French, and Het duivelshuis in Dutch, sometime in early 1964. You can read a bit more about it here.
| Femmes Fatales | Sep 3 2020 |
She barely stomached Hollywood.
Adele Jergens, who appeared in I Love Trouble, The Corpse Came C.O.D., The Dark Path, and numerous other films, got her start in show business, like so many actresses of her era, when she won the a beauty contest—Miss World's Fairest, at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Later, as one of the famed Rockettes dancing troupe, she was named the number one showgirl in New York City. This led to her serving as understudy to burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee in the Broadway production Star and Garter, and from there Jergens never looked back. That's probably why she forgot half of her sweater. This fun image of her with bare midriff was made in Los Angeles in 1946, by the pool at the famed Town House Hotel, a locale we've talked about more than once. Find out why by clicking its keywords below and scrolling through those posts, and you can do the same with Jergens if you want to see what else we've posted about her.
New York CityLos AngelesBroadwayTown House HotelStar and GarterI Love TroubleThe Corpse Came C.O.D.The Dark PathAdele JergensGypsy Rose Leeburlesque
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 2 2020 |
The deeper you go into this casino the wilder it gets.
Today we're circling back to James Bond—as we do every so often—to highlight these movie tie-in editions of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale. The movie these are tied into is not the 1963 original with Sean Connery, but the 1967 screwball version with David Niven as Bond and Woody Allen as Bond's nephew Jimmy Bond. If you haven't seen it, just know that it was terribly reviewed, with Time magazine calling it an “an incoherent and vulgar vaudeville.” These covers are derived from the Robert McGinnis Casino Royale movie poster, which is an all-time classic. McGinnis created two versions of the poster—one with text and one without, with the painted patterns on the female figure varying slightly. You see both of those below.
The paperback was published by both Great Pan and Signet, and the cover art was different for the two versions. The Great Pan version at top is McGinnis's unaltered work, but the Signet version just above was painted by an imitator, we're almost certain. We'd hoped to answer this for sure by visiting one of the numerous Bond blogs out there, but none of them have really discussed the difference between the 1967 paperback covers. That leaves it up to us, so we're going to say definitively that the Great Pan version was not painted by McGinnis. Whoever the artist was, they did a nice job channeling the original piece, even if the execution is at a much simpler level.
Moving back to the posters, if you scroll down you'll see that we decided to focus on the details of the textless version to give you a close look at McGinnis's detailed work. The deeper you go the more you see—dice, poker chips, glittery earrings, actor portraits, and more. If you had a huge lithograph of this on your wall and a tab of acid on your tongue, an entire weekend would slip past before you moved again. This is possibly the best work from a paperback and movie artist considered to be a grandmaster, one the greatest ever to put brush to canvas. If anyone out there can tell us for sure who painted the Signet paperback—or whether it is indeed McGinnis—feel free to contact us.
Casino RoyaleSignet BooksGreat PanTime MagazineIan FlemingSean ConneryWoody AllenDavid NivenJames Bondcover artposter artliteraturecinema
| Hollywoodland | Sep 1 2020 |
Up and coming actress gets weeded out of Hollywood.
It was during wee hours, today in 1948, that fledgeling actress Lila Leeds was arrested, along with Robert Mitchum and two others, for possession of marijuana. The photo above was shot at her Hollywood bungalow a few days later to accompany a Los Angeles Times article about the arrest. Leeds was out on bail, and was given the opportunity to explain the circumstances around that fateful night. Her home had been portrayed in newspaper accounts as a party spot for drug users, a characterization she denied. She explained to Times readers that she'd rented
the place because it was feminine, and because it had space for her two dogs. She also admitted that she used marijuana, which considering she hadn't gone to trial yet maybe wasn't a great idea.
the place because it was feminine, and because it had space for her two dogs. She also admitted that she used marijuana, which considering she hadn't gone to trial yet maybe wasn't a great idea.When Leeds had her day in court she was convicted of “conspiring to violate state health laws,” and sentenced to sixty days in jail. Robert Mitchum went to jail too, and fretted that his career had been ruined, but it was Leeds who never got another shot in Hollywood, apart from a role in the 1949 drug scare movie Wild Weed, aka The Devil's Weed, aka She Shoulda Said No. And indeed, she probably shoulda said no, because in 1948 a woman who got out of her lane was always severely punished if caught. But even if the drug conviction cost Leeds her career, she remains part of Hollywood lore, and though that's small consolation, it's still more than most can claim.
Los AngelesLos Angeles TimesWild WeedThe Devil's WeedShe Shoulda Said NoLila LeedsRobert Mitchumdrugs
